Left speechless

BURNS Night tonight, and Murdo Morrison at the Robert Burns Guild of Speakers, which has members attending more than 100 Burns Suppers this year, tells us of the unusual introductions they have endured. Says Murdo: "There was the chairperson who said to the speaker, 'Do you wish to speak now or can the audience keep on enjoying themselves for a few minutes?' and the speaker who was described as a 'follicly-challenged nutritional over-achiever' which translates into 'bald and overweight'."

Can it

AND Brian Donohoe in Ayrshire says he attended the Westbound Burns Supper – the best in Scotland, he says – the other day where Sheriff Lindsay Wood in the Toast to the Lassies told of the wee woman in court for shoplifting who had stolen a can of peaches. Continued Brian: "On sentencing, she was asked how many peaches were in the can and said six, so the Sheriff sentenced her to six months, at which point her hubby intervened to say she also stole a tin of peas."

Yes, gags as old as Burns himself, one suspects.

Pole position

WE do like the combination of innocence and deviousness that children sometimes portray. Reader Karen Beckett in Fairly was recalling a neighbour's five-year-old who was visiting her who suddenly asked: "Can I have an ice pole?" Karen told her it was polite to wait to be asked. Seconds later the child piped up: "Is there something you want to ask me?”

Getting the needle

RECORD decks are having a comeback as increasing numbers of music lovers return to playing vinyl. As Martin Morrison tells us: "I love music and have recently acquired a record deck as there was some stuff I simply couldn't find in CD format. There's something rather nice about it, but it seems to upset other drivers as I have to caw canny in order to stop it jumping."

Lost the battle

OUR trip down memory lane this week was old school jotters, and a reader reminds us of the teacher who gathered in her class's jotters and discovered one lad had scrawled the sectarian slogan "UVF 1690" on it. He then diminished the impact somewhat by adding "Remember the Boing".

Sweet FA

JIM Morrison tells us of a friend at a birthday party who was introduced to a young man who turned out to be a financial adviser. When Jim's pal asked him what he did, he merely said he was "an FA". "A what?" asked Jim's pal who was then interrupted by the young man's wife who explained: "He forgot to add the NNY."

Having a ball

INSULTS that should be saved, continued. Now you hardly ever see anyone playing billiards these days as it is all pool or snooker. So it has probably been a while since anyone said to a loud-mouth, as reader John Leonard recalled: "You could put three billiard balls in that mooth o' yours and still not get a cannon."

A write off

WE bump into an old colleague who swears to us that the letters editor on his newspaper received an epistle from a reader who stated: "My wife was about to file for a divorce when she read an article in your paper about how it was important in giving people a second chance in making a marriage work. So she changed her mind about the divorce. Anyway, long story short, could you please cancel my online subscription."

Planted question

TODAY'S daftness comes from a Lanarkshire reader who emails: "My girlfriend dumped me because of my obsession with plants. I asked, 'Where’s this stemming from petal?'"