Check it out

WE asked about your strange encounters with audiences, and Ian Lyell tells us: "In the early sixties at the Glasgow Empire, I attended a Sadler’s Wells production of Wagner’s Lohengrin - yes, Glasgow Empire! In front of me and sitting below a dim overhead light, sat two men who played chess for three hours on a portable board."

Stone me

ENJOYING the Winter Olympics? We pass on the enthusiastic comment of American actor Mr T who played the gold-chain wearing BA Baracus in the TV series The A Team. You can just imagine him saying this in his forceful BA Baracus voice as he tells folk on social media: "I am really pumped watching the Winter Olympics. I am watching events I never thought I would watch before, like curling. You heard me, curling Fool!"

Dig it

AS we join hands and sing Auld Lang Syne in farewell to our Burns Supper stories for another year, we leave you with a comment a reader left at the Herald's on-line site where he declared: "If Robert Burns were alive today, he'd be spinning in his grave." Em...

Next step

GROWING old continued. A Prestwick reader tells us: "I wear one of these wristbands that records how many steps I take during the day. I now wear it to bed at night as I get up to go to the loo that often that I might as well add it to my total."

Chain reaction

WE carried a picture of a road-sign in Edinburgh warning of cyclists on the road, and suggested it was put up because all the cyclists are on the pavements these days. Bob Downie in Glasgow tells us: "I have to agree that your story about Edinburgh cyclists riding for preference on the pavements was a good joke. The best bit is that cyclists can't cycle on the pavements due to them being covered in parked cars."

Short cut

OUR tales of old-fashioned barbers remind Ian Gray in Larbert: "Not long gone there was a barber's sizeable wooden shed near Larbert station, largely for the nearby foundry workers. This meant large numbers all at once, and in a hurry. To speed the attention to needy heads, there were two specialised hair cutters with different purposes - the first was for the rough heavy cutting, while the second was the finisher-off. This demarcation worked well for a while and they got through their customers quickly - until one day, the finisher went outside for a fag, and failed to reappear.This left six roughly cut chaps sitting on a side bench in a state of deshabille. All were unhappy, and even more needy.This split working practice stopped soon thereafter."

Paws for thought

A GLASGOW reader swears to us that a chap in his local at the weekend was telling his pals: "My sister lost her cat last week." Says our reader: "One of his pals piped up, 'Did she put a piece about it on Facebook?' but the chap replied, 'I hardly think her cat's on Facebook'."

Made a meal of it

AS the countdown to Valentine's Day speeds up, a Hyndland reader says she asked her friend how her date with a potential new boyfriend had gone. She replied: "We went out for a meal and I had butterflies in my stomach afterwards. Either that or the chicken was off."