Flight of fancy

THE Herald covered the story of the plane to Dusseldorf that followed the wrong flight-plan and flew to Edinburgh instead. A bit harsh surely of a reader who contacts us to declare: "The British Airways flight to Dusseldorf that landed in Edinburgh still landed closer to Dusseldorf than Ryanair's flight to Dusseldorf."

Phoning it in

THE old Glasgow dance-hall, the Dennistoun Palais, is remembered with the opening this week of the latest bar on Duke Street called The Palais Bar with owner Paul McJimpsey wanting folk to have fun and let their hair down as dancers did at the dance-hall. I swear Duke Street could become trendy. Anyway, our favourite Dennistoun Palais story was when the band The Beatstalkers were at the height of their appeal, and had to cancel a night at the Palais as they had to record an album in London. Management instead put cardboard cut-outs of the band on stage and relayed a phone call from the band in London. The crowd roared with approval. Support act the Bo Weevils still played and our old chum Eddie Tobin, then manager of the Bo Weevils, said: "I presume they were paid an enormous fee for not appearing… and we did all the work and got buttons."

Dog days

DOG owners will no doubt agree with Liz Hackett who points out: "Having an older dog means ten seconds after you drop a piece of food, you have to drop an even bigger piece of food so they can find it."

Route 66

GROWING old, continued. Ian Power opines: "I’m now at an age where my new passport photo looks like he should be the father of my last passport photo."

And Margaret Forbes muses: "Growing old is when you went to bed one night aged 46 and wakened the next day aged 66, and wondered where the last 20 years went."

Paws for thought

NOPE, still not making sense of Brexit. One of our more clever readers tells us: "To keep both Leavers and Remainers happy, why don't we go for the only thing that will keep us both in and out of the EU. Schrodinger's Brexit."

Happy times

EAST Renfrewshire has been ranked the happiest place to live in Scotland in a new analysis by Royal Mail based on markers including life expectancy, crime levels and earnings. It reminds us of a story in the Times Educational Supplement which recorded a schools inspector visiting an East Ren school and asking the little tots for an example of something that normally came in a dozen. It was the first time he got the answer "Oysters."

Anyway perhaps it finally explains why Nazi leader Rudolf Hess crash-landed near Eaglesham during the war – he just wanted to be happy.

Revealed: East Renfrewshire rated happiest place to live in Scotland

Having a ball

THE arguments over Scotland's poor showing in the football internationals continue. Someone on Twitter pointed out: "The population of San Marino is less than that of Falkirk. And they don't even have Kelpies." Falkirk Council immediately replied: "Leave us out of it."

Folded

DEAR, oh dear. A colleague wanders over and feels the need to tell me: "I had a letter saying I lacked the imagination required to join origami college. Don't know what to make of it."