In a flap

ONE of the hottest days in Britain yesterday. We liked the marketing savvy of the Waterstone's bookshop branch in Swansea which announced on social media: "Today is going to be HOT. Fortunately, we sell hand fans. They come in the form of sheets of paper glued or sewn together and bound in covers. We have many thousands of them in stock, and as an added bonus they have stories printed on them."

What's in a name?

YES like many others we were struggling to place the new Scottish Secretary Alister Jack. No, we are not going to make any remarks about how can ordinary Scots relate to a privately-educated multi-millionaire landowner. Instead we pass on the musing of journalist Alasdair Clark who says: "Alister Jack proves my rule never to trust a man who spells his own name wrong."

We always thought the rule was never trust a man whose first name is a surname. Any other quaint rules on names?

Low point

BOB Mackie reminds us of the old HMS Carrick which was tied up on the Clyde in Glasgow near the High Court and was used as a club by the Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve. It was a bit posh and had quite high standards, evidenced by the fact I was only invited on it once. Anyway, Bob recalls: "A chap in the RNVR who also worked in Yarrows came into work one morning where he was observed pulling at his ears and nose creating something of a scene, and complaining of the bends.

"He was asked what the trouble was and he said he had been diving at the weekend inspecting the hull of HMS Carrick. It was then gently pointed out to him that if he had waited till low tide he could have inspected the hull of the Carrick in his wellies."

Bin there

WELL, if that was a trip down memory lane then Leslie Goskirk in Lairg is hurtling miles further down that road, after our story about noisy bin men, by recalling: "Janey Godley was lucky to be woken as late as 8am by the bin men. When I was growing up in the Woodlands area of the city in the early fifties our middens were emptied in the middle of the night by gangs of noisy 'midgie men' with horse-drawn, iron-wheeled carts. The din of the cart wheels on the cobbled back lanes, the clanging of the bins being emptied and the clatter of the horses' hooves ensured that no residents got any sleep then – especially as, according to one of our neighbours, every horse had 12 hooves."

Testing times

MEANWHILE, back in the present, John Henderson muses on the disastrous start for England in the Test Match and declares: "England all out for 85 in the opening day of the match against Ireland. Apparently England couldn’t organise the backstop! I blame Boris Johnson myself – this never happened with previous Prime Ministers."

An age thing

OUR Glasgow night club story about old men chasing young girls reminds a reader of the city's Savoy disco where the DJ, without really thinking this through, announced that the next record "is for one of our long-term regulars, Jeannie, who is celebrating her 18th birthday tonight".

Busted

MORE on getting golf lessons as Boyd Houston in Dollar tells us: "A sadly-now-late friend and neighbour, a very heavily busted lady, reported after her first golf lesson that the professional told her: 'Mrs McFarlane, you either play over them or under them, you cannot play through them'."

Read more: 1966: Goalless final was ‘as unsatisfactory as tonic without gin’