A dog's life

A READER notices that his niece in Lanarkshire has posted on Facebook that the family's black Labrador has gone missing, and asking for people to look out for it. She adds that she has given her husband and children into trouble for leaving the garden gate open. She then gets into full rant mode, declaring that she is the only one in the family who looks after the dog.

A couple of hours later she posts that the dog has been found - it had shut itself in the downstair's bathroom.

Cracking up

NELSON McFarlane in Glasgow's west end tells us a story that will appeal to fans of the television series Breaking Bad. Says Nelson: "A friend's elderly mother was a bit under the weather with a bad cold and had been advised by a friend to use the old-fashioned towel over the head and a bowl of hot water with menthol crystals in it. She eventually visited the doctor's surgery and when asked what she had been taking to alleviate the symptoms, she must have surprised her GP with the reply of 'Crystal Meth'."

Heard on grapevine

GLASWEGIANS can be harsh critics. A young busker in Sauchiehall Street yesterday was attempting the high notes in Marvin Gaye's classic What's Going On when a passer-by joined in with a falsetto voice: "What's going on? Sounds like a cat being strangled."

Out of frying pan

CROMAR'S in St Andrew's has been named Scotland's best fish and chip shop for the second year running. We always liked owner Colin Cromar's explanation of how he got into the business. "I fancied a girl who worked in the Anstruther Fish Bar. I thought I would get a job there myself and ask her out. Twenty years later I was still working there."

Roll with it

WE mentioned that Patrick Thistle's Firhill ground is to be renamed the Energy Check Stadium. Paul O'Sullivan wonders: "Will Johnson's have to change their advert, if it still exists? 'Energy Check for thrills, Johnson's for Rolls' doesn't have quite the same ring to it."

Nice one

A GLASGOW reader in his pub the other night passes on an observation from a fellow toper who declared: "As I always say, if you can't say something nice about someone, then you probably know the same people I do."

Can't beat it

GLASGOW'S King's Theatre has been nominated in the UK Theatre Awards for "Most Welcoming Theatre". It reminds us of when Still Game's Gavin Mitchell appeared as the evil Abanazar in the King's pantomime Aladdin, and was standing in the Underground in full panto costume for some publicity pictures. A traveller getting off the Subway looked at Gavin and simply asked: "Magic carpet broken doon?"

Shaggy bob story

WE liked the explanation film star Meg Ryan gave this week for her shaggy bob hairstyle which many young women copied in the nineties. At the time she said, she was in Paris filming French Kiss, and her hair stylist, confused by the different voltage, set Meg's hair on fire with styling tongs. By the time she had scissored out the singed hair, the shaggy bob had been created.

Sheer daftness

DAFT gag of the day comes from a Milngavie reader who emails: "Went into a shop and said I wanted to buy a pair of stockings for the wife. 'Sheer?' the assistant asked. 'No, she's at home,' I replied. 'Does it matter?'"