Bear necessity

AN Ayr reader tells us about his local pub quiz where the teams were asked which disease almost caused the extinction of Koalas in Australia. When the answers were read out one of the quizzers got a bit of a red face when he shouted out rather loudly: "Yes! I got chlamydia!"

Just fine

SCOTTISH dialogue misunderstandings, continued. Says the BBC's Reeval Alderson: "When one of my daughters was six or seven, she was walking down the street to play in the local park. It was the late 1980s, so it was acceptable to throw your kids out of the house to play in those days. She passed a neighbour in his garden who was notoriously forgetful of names, and when she greeted him, he replied, 'Who are you?' 'Fine,' she replied, carrying on down the street."

Had a butchers

GREAT to see the return this week of Scotland's funniest sit-com on TV, Two Doors Down. Amongst its stars is Alex Norton of Taggart fame who explained in his autobiography that before he became an inspector in Taggart he actually played a murdering butcher in one of the very first Taggarts. He wrote that when filming the crime series outside a gay nightclub in Glasgow, a chap in the queue pointed at Alex and told his companion: "See that guy ower there? He wiz the butcher in Taggart."

Alex said the the chap's more flamboyant pal gave him the once-over and declared: "Butcher? Christ, I've seen a lot butcher than him."

Chew on this

YES, the Burns Suppers will soon be upon us to relieve the January gloom. Clark McGinn in his just published book The Burns Supper: A Concise History, says that while many people are revolted by the idea of haggis, many countries have some equivalent basic foodstuff based around the parts of animals you wouldn’t otherwise eat such as Andouilette sausage in France, lungmos in Sweden, forsmak in Finland, or splinatanero in Greece.

Clark tells us: "When I asked a New Yorker for his equivalent he said the only thing that dangerous was a hot dog from a street vendor."

Any other favourite Burns Supper stories?

Check him out

TV presenter Richard Osman was musing this week that he originally would never use a self-service checkout, and now it is the only type he uses, which he sees as a handy reminder that he is almost always wrong. When challenged about why he has changed his mind, he said: "I just don’t want a fellow human being thinking, 'Why does he need all those multipack crisps and supersize chocolate bars?'”

Glass half full

OUR story about Glasgow's La Bonne Auberge having a glass amnesty because so many folk have swiped their attractive gin glasses has led to a spate of confessions by readers of purloining iconic vessels in the past. As Margie Dobson put it: "Many years ago, when I was a student in Pitt Street, The State Bar, which was a subsidiary Student Union, served draught Tuborg lager in half-litre jugs which were, of course, a rarity in pre-decimalisation days. Every student flat had a few, and mine lasted at least 20 years."

Any other glass confessions?

Weighty question

YES, many folk are venturing back to the gym after the Christmas and New Year break. A reader phones to ask the question: "Why have they increased all the weights at the gym?"

Game on

TODAY'S piece of daftness comes from a reader who emails: "My girlfriend said to me last night, 'You treat our relationship like some kind of game!' Which unfortunately cost her 12 points and a bonus chance."