Hear hear

HAPPY birthday to the NHS. As an Edinburgh woman once declared: "I won't hear a bad word said about the NHS," before adding: "That's because I have an NHS hearing aid."

We are very fortunate in Glasgow to have the state-of-the-art Queen Elizabeth University Hospital. Reader Lesley Wilson was having her appendix removed recently, and when her husband popped down to their local without her, a couple they knew asked him where Lesley was. "She's in the Queen Elizabeth," he replied. To which the wife of the couple asked: "Wow! That’s lovely. Where's she going?”

Entitled

CONGRATULATIONS to actor Peter Mullan receiving his Honorary Doctorate of Drama from the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland this week. He told the graduates that he was indeed already a doctor, twice. “I told my sister that she had to call me Doctor Doctor. A short time later she was at a dinner with the Principal of one of those universities and she told him that her brother was a Doctor Doctor. He responded by saying that you only use the one title and never the two. 'Aye ye dae,' she said. 'Peter told me you dae!'"

Badge of honour

SIR Paul McCartney is to play at The Hydro in Glasgow in December - his first gig in Scotland since his show at Hampden Park over eight years ago. When he was in Glasgow then he was out for a jog through Glasgow Green when he called in at the Winter Gardens for a cuppa. When he said "Hello Samantha" to the catering lady - fortunately he didn't actually sing the Cliff Richard song - the star-struck lady asked how he knew her name.

"I'm a qualified clairvoyant," Paul replied - then pointed at her name badge.

An age thing

MUCH talk of protests when President Trump comes to Scotland later this month. Leo Kearse explains: "Trump’s unpopular in Scotland because they don’t trust anyone who lives to 70."

In a spin

READERS have been recalling their jukebox stories, and Frank Murphy, in his younger years on the entertainments committee at Notre Dame College of Education, tells us: "We declined most of the latest chart hits from Sims Automatics who serviced the jukebox and stuck our own choices in the racks. We did accept a copy of Save Your Kisses for Me by Brotherhood of Man, but replaced it with John William’s Theme from Jaws whose cellos sounded even more menacing in a sleepy common room. Would-be punks who pressed for a profanity-strewn punk single were treated to The Brotherhood of Man. We were of course easily amused."

Step up

SIMON Caine, appearing at this year's Edinburgh Fringe, reveals: "My dad says to me, 'I'm going to Tesco's, do you need anything?' I tell him, 'Yeah. Can you wear my Fitbit? I'm pretty sure I'm not going to hit my 10,000 steps'."

Raised eyebrow

GROWING old continued. Says John Milligan in Kilmarnock: "Sorry, don't agree with Jim Inglis when he says you know you are getting old when you have more cut off your eyebrows than your head. You know you are really getting old when the barber takes more hair out of your ears than your eyebrows and head combined."

And for those still coping with technology, a reader heard a woman on a train into Glasgow tell her pal: "My mother answers her mobile phone as if it's a Second World War field telephone while under heavy bombardment."

Sleep on it

TODAY'S piece of daftness comes from a reader who emails: "My girlfriend told me that she slept with five men before she met me.

"I usually wouldn't mind, but I was only 20 minutes late."