THE release of the new James Bond film reminds retired Glasgow detective Les Brown of being a young beat cop in Gorbals who came across a young lad kicking a can along the pavement, and asked him his name.
He gave the curious reply: "I'll tell you if you don't hit me."
Reassuring him that violence wasn't being considered, the lad said: "My name's Bond. James Bond."
Says Les: "It was, and he wasn't hit."
In the pink?
SOME conversations just have to be passed on. A reader out in the West End at the weekend heard a young woman tell her friends: "I'm okay with white wine – but rosé wine gives me a hangover."
She thinks about this before adding: "Maybe I'm allergic to pink things."
And after a further pause: "I'm fine with bacon though."
Pumped up
DAVID Hay in Glasgow tells us: "I was devastated to see the headline in The Herald: "Bar Association vote for strike", until I realised it was just lawyers."
Getting fizzical
AMERICAN Deedee Cuddihy, now resident in Glasgow, has brought out a mini book entitled I Love Irn-Bru. Not that we would wish to stereotype Glaswegians, but she quotes a member of staff from the Gallery of Modern Art in Glasgow who comments: "Everyone in my family drinks Irn-Bru with their meals, except my gran. She only takes it with vodka."
Sticking point
RUGBY tours continued. The All Blacks hammering Scotland at the weekend reminds a reader of a previous New Zealand trip to Scotland when the team were invited to a post-match dinner in the then North British Hotel in Edinburgh. Five of the team were missing during the meal, and a search of the hotel later discovered them stuck in a lift between floors. The lift had a sign stating it could carry up to eight passengers but the safety switch was triggered with only five New Zealanders, such was their size.
A Scottish Duke
WE ended our Hollywood/Scottish crossovers, but Ian Barnett tells us: "A pity you are finished with this. I meant to remind you earlier of the late John Wean."
Pen friend
JOHN Holliday and Mike Hughes have written a book, Tiree: War among the Barley and Brine, which recounts how the Hebridean island coped with thousands of Allied troops during the war. Some 150 folk turned up for the book launch on the island, and when an embarrassed John and Mike realised they had no pen to sign the copies, retired journalist Ian Sharp offered his.
Someone shouted: "Bi curmach, cha deam am peann seo lithirichs" which Ian thought was a lengthy thank-you in Gaelic but turned out to actually mean: "Be careful, that pen cannot spell."
Driven to distraction
LYNDA Nicolson spots a driving school car with the company's name "LPASSO" and wonders how many other cheesy but funny driving school names are out there.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article