Carrying a tune

Clydebank crooner Marti Pellow has been recalling the Christmases of his youth. One occasion stands out, when his mother took him and his brother round the Barras, choosing presents for friends and family.

At one point Marti and his sibling spotted a Hi-Fi. They immediately started pestering their mum to buy it, which she did. This tender memory goes some way towards explaining Marti’s early love of music.

Though the purchase could easily have led to him becoming a champion weightlifter instead. As the family didn’t own a car, Marti’s brother had to carry the stereo home on the train. Marti, meanwhile, took the same long journey, with a hefty speaker bulging under each of his straining arms.

Well oiled

IT was recently revealed that Boris Johnson’s former aid Dominic Cummings received a £40,000 pay rise before losing his job. Reader Norrie Matthews says: “At least that explains where he got the petrol money to sneak off to Durham.”

Christmas crack-up

Most people are in the middle of their Christmas shopping. Or do we mean Christmas stropping? Reader Gail Sherman was in Glasgow’s Buchanan Street at the weekend when she spotted a woman dragging two young children, a boy and a girl, round a busy store. The little boy asked his exhausted parent if there was anything special she wanted for Christmas. “For you an’ yer sister tae stop daein’ ma nut in,” answered mum briskly. It is, indeed, the most wonderful time of the year.

Life’s drama

In any other year panto season would be in full swing. Reader Robert Hayes believes it remains a thriving entertainment, though the storylines have seeped out of theatres onto the streets. “Scotland is suddenly full of lost boys (and girls) who never grow up,” says Robert. “We certainly can’t be adults as we’re not allowed to decide who we meet, where we travel and what we do. The only conclusion to be drawn is we’re all unwittingly starring in this year’s hit panto… Peter Pandemic.”

What a drip

More cruel descriptions of thin folk. The father of reader Graham Andrews used to say: “He’s so skinny he’s got to run around in the shower to get wet.”

Mathematically muddled

The daughter of reader Lisa Millar sat her maths prelim recently, and doesn’t think she’s done very well. “How am I meant to remember Pythagoras theorem when I’ve twenty new lockdown rules to memorise every week?” she reasonably enquired.

Plume passion past

Keen hobbyist Tony Carr tells us: “My obsession with coloured feathers is dyeing down.”