Breaking bad

A WHILE back reader Tom Bowden was in a Partick bar attempting to chat up a young lady.

At one point in the conversation the lady said: “I just ended a five-year relationship.”

Being a compassionate sort of fellow, Tom commiserated with her. “Are you okay?” he said.

“Och, I’m fine,” she said. “It wisnae my relationship.”

Orange fizz

BROWSING in a supermarket, Linda Johnson came across a jar of what was advertised as "orange-flavoured marmalade".

Our reader wasn’t impressed. “That’s as pointless as an advert in the sweetie section for chocolate-flavoured chocolate,” she says.

Cowboy capers

GLASGOW-BASED soap opera River City went on hiatus this week, and we’ve been devising suitably memorable plot developments for its resumption. Jane Munro suggests it should return in the form of those melodramatic American soaps of the 1980s, such as Dallas. “They had big hair, big shoulder pads, big cars and big swimming pools,” recalls Jane. “Only the acting talent was in short supply.”

Dallas was based in Texas, where cowboy manners and mores are appropriate. But would such a show work in Scotland?

Our reader believes so. “Give everyone a ten-gallon hat and film most of the scenes at Glasgow’s Grand Ole Opry,” she says. “Voila. Instant Dallas.”

River ditty

A GEOGRAPHICAL lesson from reader Paul Morgan. “What’s the world’s most offhand waterway?” he asks. “The Crimea River.”

Java palaver

A FEW years ago Mary Phelps was in a cafe with a chum who was notorious for her snippy manner. She was also known for her predilection for strong coffee. At one point a waiter glided over and asked: “Would you like regular or decaf, ma’am?”

Mary’s friend could not contain her contempt for such an enquiry. “Put it like this,” she said. “Do you want me to tip you with real money or Monopoly money?”

Adrift in lift

WE continue with our run of stories about lifts. “I once broke wind in an elevator,” admits Roderick Archibald Young. “It was wrong on so many levels.”

Seeing red

MORE sailor’s lore from days of yore. “A red sky at night is a shepherd’s delight,” says Russell Smith from Kilbirnie. “But a red rash in the morning is a sailor’s warning”.

Choose booze

“I told myself I should stop drinking,” says reader Martin Williamson. “But then I decided to ignore that advice. I’m not about to listen to a drunk who talks to himself.”

Game changer

GOOFY gag time. “What’s green and fuzzy and will kill you if it falls out of a tree?” asks reader Dennis Bentham. “A snooker table.”

Read more: Those were the days