THE Labour Party’s annual conference ended in Brighton yesterday. BBC Scotland’s political correspondent Nick Eardley gave a flavour of the scrutiny the press were under there. Said Nick: “Lady stands beside our camera. ‘I’m going to listen and check you’re not lying,’ she says. My colleague starts doing a live broadcast in Gaelic. Lady leaves.”

And anyone who has ever attended such an event will agree with journalist Jamie Ross, who opined: “There are no more dispiritng words to hear

at a political conference than ‘this is more of a comment than a question’.”

Seeing the bigger picture

WE asked for your postcard stories, and John McLean in Hawick tells us: “As sales agent for Colin Baxter postcards, back when his new approach to depicting Scottish landscapes and cities was introduced in the 1980s, I went into a card shop in Pollokshields. The owner looked at my samples with some scepticism and commented, ‘They’re a wee bit peely-wally, are they no?’

I tried to convince her, ‘Is it possible the words you’re searching for are moody and atmospheric perhaps?’ She studied the cards again and delivered her verdict, ‘Naw – peel-wally.’ No sale!”

Any more?

Fur goodness sake

GLASGOW stand-up Susan Calman is attracting new fans with her enthusiastic performance on Strictly Come Dancing. Susan, who has a number of cats, put up a photograph of one of her cats with staring eyes

on social media and commented: “Did some dance moves from the new routine. DCI Jane Tennison hasn’t blinked in about half-an-hour. Everyone’s a critic.”

Someone then asked her: “Is that your cat’s actual name?” Many

cat owners will agree with Susan’s reply when she said: “Yes. And

I insist my vet calls her by her full name. She fought hard to achieve that rank.”

Egged them on

IT is Libraries Week beginning on October 7, which reminds us of when the Scottish Poetry Library was being built in Edinburgh. Architect Malcolm Fraser had advertised for

a company to oversee the building project, but decided not to go with the firm that referred to it as the Scottish Poultry Library throughout its correspondence, even though he was intrigued by the concept of rows of Rhode Island Reds on library shelves.

Weighty problem

A GLASGOW reader heard a chap in his local tell everyone he had lost 15 lbs in the last four weeks. “What’s your secret?” a woman in the company asked. “Start off being a really fat bastard,” he replied.

Didn’t take off

THE firm that ran the Christmas market in Glasgow’s George Square has lost the contract, The Herald reported. Some folk thought it

was a bit brash, it has to be said.

As an old colleague memorably described it last Christmas: “The beer bar looked as enticing as the waiting lounge at Glasgow Airport on Fair Friday just before the last flight to Magaluf.”

Have a butcher’s

WE were reminiscing about the late Glasgow Tory MP Teddy Taylor and we should end perhaps with the rather sweet recollection from Robert Coleman: “My mother worked in the butcher’s around the corner where Teddy lived with his mother in Cathcart. Every Friday his mother would come in and say, ‘Teddy is coming home from Parliament tonight. Could you give me a half-pound of your best shoulder steak and mince it for me. You know how Teddy loves his mince and potatoes on a Friday night’.”

I know, a nice story for once about a politician talking mince.