STRESSFUL job being a bus driver. A reader says he got on his bus in Glasgow's city centre on a dreich night when the woman in front of him insisted on asking the driver: "Why did the previous bus not stop to pick us up?"
"Hold on," said the driver putting his hands to his head, and then telling her: "Nope, I'm still not psychic."
SUCCESSFUL Scottish artist Jack Vettriano is winding up Heartbreak Publishing, the company that sells prints of his paintings. He will then sell the prints straight from his own website. Anyway the name Heartbreak Publishing reminds us of when Jack was signing copies of his books in Edinburgh and a young chap said he was buying it for his girlfriend. Jack playfully told him: "I can add a bit more after I sign it, such as 'Do you want to marry me?' There was such a look of panic on the young book buyer's face that Jack opted for the safer, 'All My Love'."
THE death of great Hearts and Scotland player Dave Mackay reminds us that when he later signed for Spurs he celebrated by buying a Jaguar Mark II sports car. He then showed where his feelings still resided by having the silver car resprayed maroon - the colour of the Hearts strip.
AND sports writer Matt Vallance tells us: "I always liked the story about Jim Baxter, who liked to augment his income by taking-on fellow members of the Scotland squad in a challenge, asking them to hit the centre of the cross-bar from the 18-yard line. Baxter did say, however, 'I never challenged Mackay - the b****** would have beaten me."
THE new show The Songbook of Judy Garland will be staged at Glasgow's Theatre Royal in June. Fellow journalist Alison Kerr, who researched Judy Garland's actual visit to Glasgow's Empire Theatre in the early fifties, tells us: "Halfway through her first night at the Glasgow Empire, a very nervous Judy complained that her feet were sore and asked the audience if she could take off her shoes. Like a little girl, she sat down on the stage and anxiously twiddled her stockinged feet as she sang."
Before the show, Judy had a press conference where she sipped whisky, smoked cigarettes and ate a chocolate and some crisps before remarking: "Maybe today I can forget about the diet."
Is it just us, or does she sound as if she was actually born and bred in Glasgow?
GETTING old continued. A reader admits to us that his little grandson came to visit him, but found he was too low down in the chair when sitting at the kitchen table. "You could sit on the phone book," said granddad, trying to be helpful.
"What's a phone book?" asked the young one.
NEWCASTLE owner and multi-millionaire Mike Ashley has been fined £7500 by the SFA because of his influence on Glasgow Rangers. A football expert phones to inform us: "He's going to pay the fine by selling Kris Boyd, Kenny Miller, Ian Black and Nicky Law. And then top us the remained with his own cash."
A COLLEAGUE wanders over to interrupt us with: "I was distraught when I got home and my wife said my six-year-old son wasn't mine.
" I really need to pay more attention on the school run."
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