Can't lick it
WHO doesn't want an ice cream in this sunny weather? But, as Gerry McBride confesses: "Me, 'I'll have a 99 please.' Ice-cream man, 'Syrup?' Me, 'What have you got?' Ice-cream man, 'Chocolate or strawberry.' Me, 'Eh, how about the green one?' Ice-cream man, 'That's antibacterial hand wash'."
Taking the heat
THE barbecues are wafting their rich aromas over the suburbs just now. A Bishopbriggs reader was at a neighbour's the other night when a fellow invited neighbour came down the path and said: "I've brought some vegetarian kebabs. Where will I put them?" The chap flipping the burgers merely replied: "I think the bin's over to your left."
And a reader emails the good news: "All the local councils are delighted that the melting roads are filling in their own potholes."
Winging it
THAT great 1960s band The Kinks – who can forget their seminal album Live at the Kelvin Hall – are reportedly back together making a new album, and may even tour again. The mainstays of the Kinks, brothers Ray and Dave Davies, didn't always get on. A reader once told us that on stage Ray once introduced his brother with the words: "Let's let the little twerp express himself as best he can." An upset Dave stomped off the stage – and played the rest of show out of sight in the wings.
A bit off
THE fractious behaviour of some World Cup players has had readers reminiscing about Scottish footballers. Says Mike McGeachy: "I was at a function where Dunfermline stalwart Jim Leishman was a guest speaker, and he recounted the tale of a Pars game against Rangers at East End Park. Jim was given the unenviable task of man marking Gers legend and captain John Greig by manager Harry Melrose. 'Gie him a kick whenever ye can, Jim' said Melrose, 'and if ye can get him carried off, so much the better'. Jim said, 'Boss, but whit if I get sent aff?' Melrose replied, 'Dinna worry about that son, they'll miss him mer than we'll miss you'."
Seeing red
OUR gag about colour blindness reminds Stephen in Erskine: "Sitting at traffic lights, my wife asked, 'How would you know whether or not to stop if you were colour blind? How would you know the red light was on?' I explained that everyone knew the top light was the red light so if the top light is lit then you need to stop. A few moments silence. 'But what if you couldn’t tell if the light was lit or not?' 'Well,' says I, 'then you’d actually be blind and you shouldn’t be driving'."
Fringe benefit
THE curiosities of social media. Someone asked online about mundane meeting with celebrities, and a Peter Gravestone replied: "A drunk I stopped falling in the road in Edinburgh insisted on introducing me to comedian Jasper Carrot saying repeatedly, ‘Jasper, this man just saved my life.’ I was mortified. And it was Frank Skinner."
Bottled it
AFTER the news story about police officers being taken to the island of Lismore after the first housebreaking in living memory, reader John Marshall in Auchtermuchty recalls: "In the early-1960s we spent a long day on Lismore, and my Father went into the phone box to contact the Appin ferryman to get an earlier crossing. He came out to say there was a full bottle of whisky on the shelf. When he quizzed the ferryman he was told that when a local ran dry he would phone the mainland, the ferryman left the bottle and he would collect and pay later. 'We are all honest here,' he said. 'There is no thieving on Lismore'."
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