Not remaining

WELL, that was some day at Westminster. We liked the reaction of Irish writer Padraig Reidy in London who contacted the Irish Embassy and asked: "What time is the chopper leaving and what are we allowed to bring with us?"

And a whimsical note from Joy Dico who says: "I’d secretly quite like Theresa May to win a confidence vote by a margin of 52/48 per cent and then watch Brexiteers argue for a second vote."

Hit right note

THE other big story yesterday was the launch of the John Lewis Christmas advertisement featuring a piano-playing Elton John looking back on a childhood Christmas. As one reader who saw it emails to tell us: "A lot of people are knocking the new John Lewis advert featuring Elton John. Idiots. The foresight needed to pick out a young lad and film him at various times over the next 60 years, knowing he’d become a rock star, is just amazing."

Thirsty work

TRYING to take our minds off Brexit yesterday was comedy writer David Baddiel who informed us: "Filming for a TV show. A very nice woman just brought me a bottle of water, but I was on my way to the loo. She said, 'Do you want me to hold it while you’re in the toilet?' Thankfully awareness of what I believe is called the present climate stopped me from saying 'oo-er'.”

Well judged

WE asked about courtroom tales, and Robin Mather in Musselburgh says: "My favourite story concerned the lawyer who was pleading for leniency on behalf of his client who had just been found guilty. He suggested that his sentence should be in terms of months rather than years. The Judge agreed – and sentenced him to 60 months."

Sharp rejoinder

IS the new The Herald Diary book now in the shops the only book you are going to talk about, asks a reader. Not at all. Sports writer Matt Vallance tells us that Glasgow Rugby Old Geezers at Braidholm have published the booklet A Legacy of Laughter to raise money for charity. It includes the tales of the late after-dinner speaker Roy Dingwall. Says Matt: "Roy was a Glasgow Academical, and managing director of a leading metal recycling group. I liked the story of when his company had visitors from a Korean company to their Blantyre site and one of his workers there said he could speak Korean.

"He addressed the visitors but they seemed upset, and when Roy asked what he had said his worker replied, 'I just said: "Lie still or I'll stick a bayonet in you."

It's what I learned from my National Service in the Korean War."

Blowing bubbles

OUR readers tell us cute things their grandchildren have said, and we are still debating to be honest if this fits the category. But as a reader passed it on, here goes: "One of the grandchildren was leaving at the end of a visit when she said very loudly, 'I've got a bubble in my bum'. As we thought that over she then passed wind very loudly."

Cheeky

STORIES of men struggling in shops, continued. Says John Love on Glasgow's south side: "I went into a chemist chain to purchase some toothpaste and the assistant asked me if I wanted to buy, for half price, a large tub of women’s beauty cream which was displayed on the counter. As an 80-year-old bloke I was, to say the least, nonplussed."

Hark The Herald

READERS have passed on uses for The Herald newspaper – other than reading it, of course. I should add to the list by telling you of the printer back in our Albion Street days who told me that he had to walk home to his east end house at night, and for his protection he carried a rolled-up copy of The Herald. A bit puzzled, I told him that I didn't think hitting someone over the head with a newspaper was much of a deterrent. "No, you idjit," he replied. "You can prod an attacker in the eye with the rolled up end," and promptly did so to my stomach. Bloody sore, and I had the bruise for weeks.