A READER sees the BBC news story "Top Gear host Jeremy Clarkson, 54, is suspended" and tells us how stunned he is by the news.

As he told us: "I'm stunned that Clarkson is only 54. You would never believe it looking at that lived-in coupon."

GOOD news if you like a pint. It is reported that beer consumption in Britain is rising again after being in decline for decades. It reminds us of the student at one of Scotland's ancient universities who read up on the uni's history, and discovered an ancient university ordinance entitling him to a free pint of beer while studying for his examinations. He pestered the senate for his right, until it finally gave in - and then fined him £5 for not wearing a sword.

MUST say we liked the full-length portrait of First Minister Nicola Sturgeon by artist Gerard Burns, showing her with a no-nonsense air as she stands with her hand on her hip. Reader Donald Macaskill in Glasgow tells us: "From ladies at an adjacent cafe table discussing the pose. 'Aye, that's her declaring, 'Well, it's no' my turn to do the close and the stairs.' said one of them."

WEATHER still a bit bracing in the west of Scotland. As Jane Martin on the petite island of Iona remarked this week: "Iona's only road sign was felled in the wind tonight. So that's the creeping urbanisation halted in its tracks."

WATCHING telly with an older generation continued. Says Barry McGirr: "My pal was visiting his elderly parents in Dunblane one afternoon recently and they were glued to their TV watching the old Bruce Forsyth gameshow "Play Your Cards Right" on one of the satellite TV stations which shows old classic television. After a while they intimated they were 'stopping watching this, the prizes are going right downhill! Who wants a Mini Metro nowadays?' I don't think they'd quite grasped the vintage of the programme."

THE great Glasgow International Comedy Festival began this week, and we like the description that the organisers put out for the event, now in its 13th year. "Top comedy stars from around the UK and beyond," they stated, "will be coming just to entertain you, only to realise the Scottish money they've been paid in can only be spent in this country and that they can never go home again."

We also like the interview on the festival's website with Lloyd Langford, appearing at the Stand Club who insisted on asking the questions that he himself answered. The reason? As Lloyd put it: "It's because in a recent chat I had with a local newspaper, the journalist's printed transcript had about as much semblance to what I'd said as a tin of alphabet spaghetti emptied over a rock."

THE Herald story yesterday about the professor who argued that we don't really need pupils to have five A Highers in order to become doctors reminds us of the remark by artist Moose Allain: "Doctor, doctor, I think I'm turning into a terrible pushy parent."

"Daddy, why are you calling me 'doctor'?"

AND talking of education, Donald Grant in Paisley says: "I overheard a conversation between two ladies in a bus queue at Paisley Cross, when one of them said, 'Ah'm no sayin' that she was bummin' but according to her, their son has mair degrees than a thermometer'."