Pack it in

WHAT folk love about Glasgow, according to Jim White in Shawlands: "My daughter, home from Australia, was on a packed train heading into Glasgow Central listening to the guard on the tannoy explain that there should have been four carriages but 'we got stuck with two and that's how youse are aw squashed in like sardines. And, by the way, there's hunners a school weans getting on at the next station. So good luck with that'. Killing herself laughing, Kirsty suddenly realised how much she loved her home town."

Any other examples?

Nippy time

FUNERAL tales, continued. Reader Niall tells us: "Years ago an old friend fell into conversation with a gravedigger in an Aberdeen cemetery. On asking about unusual interments the gravedigger told of a farmer who had left two dozen bottles of whisky to be consumed at the graveside. Unfortunately there were two graves open that day and they managed to put the deceased in the wrong one. "Aye," he said, "the funeral was a grand, grand occasion, but the Resurrection was an awfu' dry affair'."

A cracker

YES, Christmas is racing towards us, and a Milngavie reader tells us about the primary school where the teacher sent a note home asking if the boys in her class could come dressed as elves as they would be helping Santa in a charity grotto. One of the boys turned up as Elvis.

And a competition by TV station Gold for new Christmas cracker jokes announced this as its favourite: "What does Donald Trump do after he pulls a cracker? Pays her off."

Oh shoot

OUR story of the Maryhill mother wanting less salt on her wean's sausage supper reminds Derek Miller in Torrance: "I stopped at McDonalds, in that same burgh, to get my son a quick burger. A local young worthy came in and placed his order, 'Heh mate, gonnae geeza large Big Mac Meal - and a Fruit Shoot furr the dug.' I was impressed that his wee Staffie was getting one of its five-a-day."

That's torn it

WE mentioned folk on Glasgow Corpy buses signing pink slips if they didn't have the cash for the fare, offering to pay it later, but using bogus identities. John Crawford in Lytham tells us: "In the early 80s when I was in the civil engineering department at Strathclyde, a story went round that if you were given a parking ticket, you should promptly send it to Glasgow District Council with an unsigned cheque for the correct amount. The council staff would then post it back to you with a request that you sign and return the cheque, but to save postage, they also enclosed a receipt that the fine had been paid. You then simply tore up your cheque."

Wooly thinking

MIKE Ritchie was at the Glasgow gig of wonderful American singer/songwriter Courtney Marie Andrews who told the audience this week that she was from Phoenix, Arizona, one of the hottest cities in America, and a place "where we wear scarves – but just for fun” said Courtney. A worried Mike tells us: "She's now going to Lerwick for a show, so I hope someone tells her that a scarf may well come in seriously handy."

A gas

OUR stories of folk with apt names reminds Finlay Buchanan in Edinburgh that the former training manager for Scottish Gas was A. Prentice, Andrew to his friends.

Coining it

AND today's Brexit observation from a reader: "Was looking at the chocolate coins we bought for Christmas and began wondering if they would be worth more than sterling pretty soon."