READER IAN McCall from Norfolk returned to Scotland for a family reunion where he arranged to meet some in-laws in an East Kilbride pub. Inside the pub was a chap with a giant spider - possibly even a tarantula - crawling on his shoulder.

A fellow customer leapt into action and slammed his hand down on the spider, killing it.

Instead of being grateful, the chap with the spider on his shoulder immediately accused his Good Samaritan of killing his pet. Meanwhile, the Good Samaritan was complaining about the insides of the arachnid running through his fingers.

Our visitor from Norfolk was meanwhile musing on a) why you would take a pet tarantula to a pub, and b) why someone would be brave/daft enough to kill it with his bare hands.

Or it might just be a normal night out in East Kilbride.

Rocking and rolling CHRIS Campbell was on a flight from Glasgow to London City airport this week, and during the bumpy landing, a number of oxygen masks at the rear of the plane came down.

As the plane finally came to a halt one bespectacled passenger commented that it was just as well he wasn't a nervous passenger. The passenger next to him nodded towards the chap's thick-rimmed glasses and remarked: "You were nervous? I thought I was sitting next to Buddy Holly."

Oh, mighty oracle "So the Large Hadron Collider will get switched on, and scientists will be able to solve the great mysteries of the universe," a reader phones to tell us.

"So hopefully the first question they should ask is why does Graham Norton get asked to present so many television programmes?"

Community service COLIN MacFarlane, in his biography No Mean Glasgow, published this month, tells of the disorientation many Glaswegians felt when they were moved to the new council housing schemes.

The story was told, says Colin, of the wee woman who had lived in a tenement all her life who was moved to the 20th floor of a multi-storey flat. She went missing shortly afterwards, the police were told, and they searched all her old haunts but with no sign of her.

Three days later she was found on the ground floor of the multi-storey clutching a scrubbing brush.

When police asked where she'd been, she replied: "Somebody told me it wis ma turn tae dae the stairs."

Doing hard time DAVID Brownlee reads in a newspaper that the lawyer for boxer Scott Harrison, who was on an assault charge, argued to the sheriff: "While in Barlinnie I understand he's training very hard, he's not drinking, and is determined to become a new man when he comes out."

Not drinking in jail - just shows how tough the prison regime is in Scotland, thinks David.

Failure to intervene RONNIE Fox was listening to a BBC news report of Andy Murray's defeat in the US Open final, with the reporter stating: "Murray's mother and girlfriend could do nothing but watch."

And Ronnie wonders: "What else could they have done? Assaulted Federer with their handbags?"

Before the ban OUR request for restaurant stories brings forth a tale from another era as Ken McIntosh in East Kilbride tells us: "Many years ago my mate Andy and I were dining at that super restaurant, which used to be in Hope Street, Guy's. We had dined well and had reached the coffee and cigar stage, lit up and relaxed, when suddenly a Barbara Cartland lookalike pushed her face forward and intoned, "I do hope you don't mind me eating while you are smoking!"

"Without pausing, Andy removed his cigar and said, Not as long as we can hear the band Madam'."

Ah, happy days.

The final restaurant story tomorrow and we will also pick a winner for a rather superb meal at Glasgow's Gamba restaurant which is celebrating its tenth anniversary.

Without pier "WESTON-Super-Mare pier and now Fleetwood pier gone up in smoke," said the chap in the pub last night.

"I wish someone would do us all a favour and set fire to Piers Morgan," he added.