Bit of a downer

YES it can get a bit stressful in the shops at this time of year. We pass on the tale of a Glasgow woman who tells us: "Left my handbag in the changing room at TK Maxx but only discovered it as I descended the escalator. So as you do, I panicked and tried to run back up the down escalator, much to the bemusement of everyone waiting to go down. I tell you, those two last steps are undoable, so I 'instructed' a lassie at the top to advise the shop workers of my stupidity and I would be with them shortly. Down I went then up again. Thankfully the bag was there. Ah well, that's what Christmas is all about. Madness and a bruised shin."

Stiff rejoinder

GROWING old, continued. Says Robin Mather in Musselburgh: "A pal at the golf club - neither of us in the first flush of youth - told me of visiting a pub/restaurant where a five-year-old girl in a family party took pity on him waiting for his food and offered him a chip. 'That's very kind,' he said. 'When you grow up I'm going to marry you.' She replied, 'No you won't, because by the time I've grown up you'll be dead'."

Saucy

A COLLEAGUE turns our attention to social media where a young chap called Liam has written: "Convinced a boy a work wi' fae Edinburgh that it’s a Glasgow tradition to put brown sauce in pints to make it a darker colour, and that HP stands fur Happy Pints. He’s only gone 'n' done it. Says it’s heavy decent."

Curtains for Bob

WE poked some gentle fun at New Zealand accents so we should accept how difficult the Scottish voice can be at times. Reader Bob Jamieson confides: "I moved from Glasgow in 1969 and have lived down south ever since. I still have a Scots accent, but it’s a little more refined from the one I used in Barlanark 50 years ago.

"Even so I have had my problems. When my wife sent me out to buy curtain rails, I kept getting served with cotton reels."

Play it again

OUR tales of going to a football match for the first time remind Alison Masterson in Inverkip: "My eldest son went to his first match and confessed when he got home that he had been waiting for a replay of the goal that had been scored."

A decent proposal

KEITH Bruce was writing in Saturday's Herald about Glasgow University's Queen Margaret Union celebrating its 50th birthday in University Gardens. Former students have written to the union about their memories, and one told the sweet story: "Friday evening, February '93, my then boyfriend of four weeks and I were standing in the main foyer waiting to go into the disco. We had a conversation about marriage proposals. I said I had been asked twice and the next one I would accept, at which point he gets down on one knee and asks me to marry him. I laughed. Then realising he was serious started crying and ran out of the building in shock. So, 25 years later we are still together, with two kids, one of whom will be 25 at the end of November, yeah work it out." Romance, Glasgow style.

Any other unusual proposals out there?

Take a bow

TODAY’S piece of daftness comes from a reader who emails: “William Tell talking to his son, ‘Do you know anyone who’s good at shooting arrows?’ ‘Not off the top of my head Dad’.”