The big cheese

MUSICIAN Roy Gullane adds to our B&B stories by telling us: "A fellow performer, finding himself peckish after a show, managed to grope his way through the darkened house into the kitchen. He could see nothing edible except a huge 40lb block of cheddar cheese into which he plunged the only available cutting tool, a rather large steak knife. He was just about to liberate a goodly chunk when a voice boomed out behind him, 'What do you think you're doing?' Slightly flustered, our hero looked at the B&B proprietor, back to the cheese and knife, and said, 'Whoever pulls it out gets to be king'."

Stored up

GLASGOW'S city centre is still recovering from the fire in the club off Sauchiehall Street. James Lang tells us that while the blaze was being fought, the pedestrian precinct was shut off and crowds of folk were diverted by police through the Watt Brothers store from the precinct out into Hope Street. Someone in the store loudly declared that old Glasgow phrase: "It's like Sauchiehall Street in here!"

Paints a picture

WE mentioned conversations overheard on trains, and Lesley Wilson gets in touch: "On a recent journey to Glasgow Central I got 25 minutes of gossip from two ladies behind me regarding the health of various family members. One of the ladies was describing how dreadful her relative looked. 'See if Ah hud had a colour chart, he'd huv been magnolia'."

Lagging behind

LEITH author Irvine Welsh of Trainspotting fame is on tour promoting his new novel, Dead Men's Trousers. We liked his comment at the weekend: "On every book tour there comes a time when you have to stop blaming the jet lag and point your finger at the hangover."

Last straw

EVERYONE can find it difficult making small talk with strangers at parties and business meetings. Former Edinburgh Fringe performer Cal Wilson from New Zealand recalled her most memorable encounter: "Once, as I started talking to a guy, I went to take a sip of my drink and the straw went straight up one nostril. I quickly lowered my glass, but the straw stayed in. He definitely noticed, because when I pulled the straw out, my nose started bleeding. In terms of getting his attention, it definitely worked a treat.”

Any more such horror stories?

Tartan terror

WE have, we must admit, more than a fair share of pub stories in the Diary. Jimmy Nimmo in Ayr adds to the oeuvre by recalling: "A few years ago my wife and I found an ancient coaching house off the M6 for lunch and my wife excused herself to go to the ladies. She was gone a few minutes when suddenly a bright light above the bar started flashing, and an alarm began loudly ringing. I was quite disturbed by this, but the locals seemed unmoved – at least till my wife came back, and she got a standing ovation.

"Turned out that in the ladies' loo there was a doll of a red-faced Scotsman in a kilt, and a notice stating, 'If you want to know what the Scotsman has under his kilt – pull the string'. The string had two purposes – to lift the kilt and secondly to activate the flashing light and alarm."

Bit of a card

THE Herald news story that the Church of Scotland is planning to bring the collection plate into the digital age with contactless payment terminals, provokes John Mulholland into asking: "I wonder if the Catholic Church will jump on the bandwagon and introduce a new method of electronic payment – PaPal."