Rime and no reason

AND still we’re managing to stretch out the condom stories.

“Stories about a certain brand of prophylactic,” says Gordon Smith, “remind me of English classes at school. We were studying Coleridge’s The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and came to the verse where Death’s ship approaches with ‘sails like restless gossameres’.

“The teacher asked if anyone knew what gossamer was and the class wag quickly replied ‘Sir, it’s a thin man-made rubbery material’. I think the teacher was too old to get the joke.”

Sticky situation

AND Russell Smith chimes in: “Visited, many years ago, by a young Australian couple who would be staying with us for the first time, my young wife was stumped when asked if we had any Durex they could borrow.

“Fortunately it turned out that in Australia that was the name for sellotape - which, despite its many uses, I guess its role in family planning is likely to be disappointing.”

Band on the Ruin

MIKE Ritchie alerts us to a Facebook challenge in which people were asked to ruin the name of a band by changing just one letter. Among the more printable ones were Pink Flood, The Jim, Rolling Scones, The Polite, Pet Shop Toys, Crosby Stills and Mash, and Ian Dury and The Blackheads. Oh, and Jethro Dull. Any more?

Wrong-footed

YVONNE Sim notes that many people who buy expensive designer-wear or accessories seem content to carry free advertising for the makers - knitwear with a well-known Scots company’s logo, for example, or handbags with makers’ initials or with little dogs dangling from them. Is this desire to have a designer logo on clothing and accessories a form of snobbery?, she asks.

Sometimes, though, designer labels have the opposite effect. Yvonne recounts how a French friend of hers, showing a pair of sandals with a discreet embroidered YSL logo to the husband of another friend, was most put out when he asked if she had got them from Yarrow Shipbuilders Ltd.

Out of the mouths of Bairns

AUTHOR Deedee Cuddihy’s latest book is called “Only in Dundee (and a wee bit of the Ferry)”, which includes the following conversation between her and a 10-year-old she encountered there.

Boy: “Dundee’s a great city! There’s lots to do - and it’s better than Falkirk!”

Deedee: “What, do you work for the Dundee tourist board or something?

Boy: “No - I’m from Falkirk.”

Ball boy

INTERESTING thread on forum of the Rangers’ fans site Follow, Follow , on the subject of treasured ‘Gers memorabilia.

It’s an impressive list, even extending to a “Bit of the net from Pittodrie May 5th 1987”, but for some fans there is regret about the items that eluded their grasp.

One supporter says his collection includes Lorenzo Amoruso’s framed shirt from his final game, and adds: “I should have had the match ball from the legends game against AC Milan a few years ago as the wife caught the ball that ironically big Amo kicked into the crowd after the game but the silly bint handed it to the wee boy sitting in front of us.”

He adds: “I’ve only just started speaking to her again.”