Drink to that
ENJOY your Burns Suppers? George Smith in Clydebank points out: "Only in Australia is the 26th of January a national holiday. Its official title is Australia Day, but it is known as Burns' Night recovery day by certain sectors of the community." Good to see the dry sense of humour of Scots travels well.
Van trouble
OUR trip down memory lane last week was school jotters, and former teacher Jean Miller memorably tells us: "When I had a Primary Three class they wrote a daily news page to encourage their handwriting, grammar, spelling and sentence extension. Didn't know what to do when a child wrote, 'I had to get up early today and help my mum push her boyfriend's van to start it before my dad came back'.
"Sought advice from the Infant Mistress, as they were called in the Eighties. She said, 'Tear it out and say to the child that you are sorry that you spilt your coffee on it at break time'. So I did."
Making a move
THAT cheap and cheerful raucous bar Yates's Wine Lodge on Glasgow's Sauchiehall Street has closed - probably going to be student flats like every other gap site in the city - but anyway, we liked the former customers bemoaning its disappearance on social media with one Glasgow chap telling his pal: "Mind break-dancing in here while you were on the sick with a bad back?"
Prime Minister panned
MORE on that Burns Supper Prime Minister Theresa May held in Downing Street. Some wondered why it wasn't actually held on Burns Night but Glasgow-born MasterChef winner Gary Maclean, who rattled the pots and pans at No 10, has revealed he couldn't do it on the 25th because he had to get back to his students at City of Glasgow College. Good man. Oh and the pots and pans? He took his own with him as he wasn't too sure how well stocked the Downing Street kitchen was. "Enjoyed it," he confided back in Glasgow, "but I was the only person there without three letters after my name."
Raised an eyebrow
AN AYRSHIRE reader tells us a chap in his golf club was relating: "Went to the doc's for my annual check-up. The practice nurse asked me to pop on the scales, and worried that I was going to get a lecture on putting on weight I took off my boots, and then for good measure took my keys out of my pocket. 'Do you want me to wait while you shave your eyebrows?' she asked me."
Seeing red
OLD insults that should be preserved, continued. Now you don't hear the word dooking much these days - getting kids to immerse their heads in a basin of water to capture an apple before they drown seems to be waning. But as Ed Hunter reminds us: "With regards to a chap with a florid complexion - 'Ah think he's been dookin' fur chips'."
Bit of a cheek
STILL much debate about rich men's drunken behaviour at charity events. Glasgow stand-up Frankie Boyle has observed: "I walked out of performing at a corporate once because a guest got onstage and slapped a female performer on the bottom. When I told the organiser I was leaving they were genuinely baffled and explained “It’s Christmas!”
Bit of a plug
TODAY'S medical observation comes from a Bearsden reader who tells us: "I've told the family, if I'm ever on life support, to unplug me. Then plug me back in - see if that works."
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