Fishy tale
OSCARS the other night, and best picture was The Shape of Water about an alien fish creature. A film fan emails us: "They really missed a trick not ending the film with the French word 'Fin'."
Key ingredient
AS transport returns to normal, Richard Ardern in Inverness tells us: "It was a cold business waiting for one of the infrequent trains that were running on Friday. In Edinburgh Waverley there is a piano for any passenger who wishes to play. One lady passenger sat down and chose to play hopefully 'Fly me to the moon. Let me see what spring is like'. It is pleasing to report that ScotRail managed to convey her the long way round via Aberdeen to Inverness where there was no snow. It wasn't spring-like but at least she got home. The power of positive piano playing."
The pyjama game
"IT was so cold the other day," a Hamilton reader phones to tell us: "A woman buying fags in the corner shop was wearing two pairs of pyjamas."
Bottled it
IT is Scottish Apprenticeship Week which reminds us when the dance performance Sparr, about the Gaels who transformed shipbuilding in Glasgow, was put on in Govan's Big Shed. Choreographer Norman Douglas revealed that he had been a shipyard apprentice in the wood-cutting section, and because he was the most nimble due to his then dancing hobby, he was instructed to "jump the wall" every Friday and bring back a bottle of whisky. The cash came from a whip-round, until one Friday, nervous about being caught, he dropped the bottle which smashed incurring the wrath of the woodcutting team. Next week he had to pay for the bottle out of his meagre apprentice wages leaving him skint for the rest of the week.
Any more apprentice stories?
Hot stuff
A KILMACOLM reader tells us there are a few coffee snobs around these days. He got a kick in the ankle from his wife when they were out for dinner at neighbours where the hostess told them her husband had brought the coffee back with him from Brazil, and our reader couldn't stop himself from replying: "Amazing - it's still hot."
Bit of a stretch
OLD cinemas continued. Says Dave in Glasgow: "In 1973 my friend and I skipped college one Wednesday afternoon to see The Exorcist in the now defunct Odeon in Glasgow's Renfrew Street. Unfortunately Wednesday was also 'pensioners half price day' when many elder citizens took advantage of reduced prices to enjoy a snooze with little interest in the film. Thankfully management, aware of the nature of the content, had employed St Johns Ambulance to stand by with stretchers. Much running down the aisles with the aforesaid stretchers was indeed a distraction for us that afternoon."
Little grey cells
POIROT star David Suchet reveals in this week's Radio Times that his guilty pleasure is flicking through all the TV channels. Says David: "It’s something I couldn’t do as a youngster when we only had one or two channels – but if I do come across a Poirot I pass on swiftly!” Who knew we had so much in common?
Need a drink
HADN'T seen a colleague for a few days and assumed he had been snowed in at home. But he caught up with me yesterday to declare: "My dad's answer to everything was alcohol." After a suitable pause he added: "He didn't drink - he was just rubbish at quizzes."
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