Belly laugh

JUST a vignette from the streets of Partick on Friday evening. A woman jogging is running on the spot at the traffic lights on Dumbarton Road waiting for them to change. A chap in a T-shirt which appears to be attempting to keep his five bellies under control is outside The Rosevale Bar with his mate having a fag. "Nice boobs, hen," he tells the runner, although he might not have used the word boobs. As the lights change she replies: "Likewise mate," and heads off as smoker's pal laughs in his face.

A shoe-in

UP in the Western Isles reader John Mulholland tells us about a family passing by the mosque in Stornoway on Friday, and their son, who was about six, on seeing many pairs of shoes outside, asked what was in the building. The mother explained it was like a church where people went to pray to God. "Can we go to that church, Mummy?" asked the boy excitedly. "It’s got a soft-play area!"

Had her chips

RESTAURANT disasters were being discussed on social media the other day where one contributor revealed: "We were out at a family dinner when my sister, the scary opinionated type, doused her chips using one of those fancy vinegar bottles. I gently pointed out that it was actually a paraffin oil candle."

Any more restaurant mistakes out there?

Scratch golfer

GROWING old, continued. An Ayrshire reader tells us a retired chap at his local golf club let everyone in on a secret. "I write down fake chores on my to-do list then score them out so that when the wife comes home she actually thinks I've done something," he declared.

Write-off

FOLK are still discussing the impending departure of Prime Minister Theresa May. As you can imagine, Jan Ravens, who impersonates Theresa on the programme Dead Ringers, has told the Radio Times that she will miss her. Said Jan: "I’ll miss being her because she’s such an icon of incompetence and dysfunction. She’s like someone at school you thought would hand in her homework early and beautifully presented, but this Brexit business has been the worst essay crisis by the worst student ever."

In a spin

YES, the washing machine can break down at the most inopportune moment. A reader sends us the correct repair procedure for a washing machine going on the blink: 1, Injure your back moving it out from the wall. 2, Gag when you see the disgusting things stuck on the floor where it was. 3, Remove a bit of the machine which you don't know what it does. 4, Watch the kitchen floor fill up with water. 5. Drive to Argos.

On the march

THE death has been announced of the former Roman Catholic Archbishop of Motherwell Joe Devine. Joe could be quite a hard-liner on some of his views but we did like what he wrote in a letter to The Herald after criticism of Tony Blair joining the Catholic Church. After acknowledging some of the faults of Labour Party policies at the time, Joe added: "It is regrettable that some would have Mr Blair walk barefoot in sackcloth and ashes and make a public recantation of his sins. That being the case, I would in similar fashion have to follow alongside him and so would everyone else I know. It would be quite a procession."

Well beaten

A READER swears to us that he bumped into an old pal at the Newton Mearns shopping centre yesterday who told him: "We're looking after our grandson today. His electronic drum kit has stopped working so I've come down with him to get batteries. Told him it takes quadruple-A batteries, but the shops don't seem to have any."

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