Bring a tear

THE Radio Times is asking folk to vote for their favourite television crime drama, with STV's Taggart in the shortlist. We remember a reader watching an episode of Taggart in France which still had the original spoken English but with French sub-titles. Our reader noticed that when Taggart, the late, great, Mark McManus, unwrapped a fish supper, scowled, and shouted: "Where's ma pickled onion?" the translator admitted defeat and merely put him saying on the screen: "Bon appetit."

In a flap

YES a sunny bank holiday in Scotland which could only mean throngs of screeching teenagers invading Troon beach, and police being called to the first sailing of the season for that great paddle steamer The Waverley as too many folk had turned it into a booze cruise. Our mind wanders to the time when a crew member on the Waverley would occasionally perform the trick of catching a seagull by holding a piece of bread over the deck-rail and grabbing it by its feet. He would then march through the startled passenger towards the galley while shouting out: "Chef, I've got that extra chicken you needed.''

Shelling out

A GLASGOW grandmother was looking after her four-year-old grandson at the holiday weekend when she asked the toddler when he got up if he was hungry. "Can I have a boiled egg for my Brexit?" he asked, and she is not sure whether he mixed his words up or whether he has a future career as a politician.

Staying stationery

READERS of Which? magazine voted WH Smith's as the worst retailer on the High Street these days - too much of a jumble on the floor, disinterested staff, and attempts to sell you stuff you don't need at the till. As Gary Delaney put it: "At least WH Smith can cheer themselves up with a big bar of chocolate for a pound." And as Ryan Woods mused: "Retail being so brutal I’ve long wondered how WH Smith have continued. I think the last time I went in there was to buy a set of pens and protractor for first day back at school."

Ah protractors. I still have one, forgotten in the back of a drawer. Did we ever actually use them for anything?

Music to ears

A WEST End reader thought she had a point when he heard a young woman in a coffee shop tell her pals: "I wish there was dramatic music playing in your life just like there is in films so that I would know when I was about to do something stupid."

In the dirt

GROWING old, continued. A reader in his eighties in Newton Mearns tells us: "I was coming out of B&Q with some bags of compost which I was struggling to get into my car. This chap comes up and says, 'Can I help you?' I thought to myself, 'I know you,' but I couldn't get his name at all. Only when I was driving home did I realise it was Jim Murphy who used to be my MP. Anyway, thanks very much Jim."

Funny how politicians can be more useful after they leave office than when they were in it, somebody unkind may comment.

Our song

SO is President Trump going to meet the leader of North Korea? We turn to a reader in America for guidance and he tells us: "If Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un break up again, Taylor Swift’s gonna write a song about it."

Well played

CONGRATULATIONS to Auchinleck Talbot winning the Scottish Junior Cup at the weekend with two dramatic goals in extra time. It perhaps allows us to repeat that very old Ayrshire joke of the chap from rival village Cumnock declaring that Auchinleck "is only good for fitba' players and hoors." The large chap further down the bar angrily declared that his sister lived in Auchinleck. Altogether now: "'What position does she play?' asked the Cumnock man."