Ed master

JUST over three weeks to the Edinburgh Festival. Trying to think of our favourite gag from the Fringe and can only come up with Ed Byrne's "I have two boys, five and six. We're no good at naming things in our house." But the Festival is far more than just one-liners. Any favourite Festival stories?

That's torn it

AMERICAN actor Rip Torn from The Larry Sanders Show and the first Men in Black movies has died at the age of 88. I remember a film buff on The Herald once telling me that Rip was supposed to play the role Jack Nicholson made famous in Easy Rider but pulled out as the salary wasn't big enough to pay a tax bill he had. Fellow Easy Rider star Dennis Hopper later claimed on a chat show that Rip had been sacked after pulling a knife on him. Rip sued, a witness came forward to say that it was Hopper who pulled a knife, and Rip was awarded damages of half a million dollars – more than 100 times the fee he was offered.

Good to talk

A GLASGOW reader swears to us he heard a woman in a west end coffee shop tell her pal: “I’ve worked out that I’m paranoid and needy at the same time. I think people are talking about me – but not as much as I’d like.”

Passport queue

WELL, what did you make of the Boris Johnson and Jeremy Hunt debate on television. We liked the subtle reaction of Scots journalist Ruth Wishart who mused: "The more I listen to Boris Johnson the more I long to find a French/Irish/German/Greek granny."

Tough break

WE mention Chic Murray a lot, and a Falkirk reader makes an interesting point: "One of my favourite jokes of his was when he said he had fallen and was lying in the street when an old woman came up and asked, 'Have you fell, son?’ He answered, 'Naw, I’m just trying to break a bar of toffee in my back pocket.’ Would today’s youngsters ever buy a bar of toffee, far less know how hard it was to break one?"

Mum's the word

OUR favourite joke today from Woodrow Peel. “We have a first time caller on line one.” “I called you on your birthday, mom.”

Mud in your eye

OUR tales of being stopped by the police remind Gordon Casely: "Many years ago I was riding my cycle speedway bike in the darkness along Auldhouse Road, Glasgow, after a speedway match. For new readers, cycle speedway bikes were raced without brakes, and here was I on the public highway without lights either. An old cop flashed me down, and shone his torch all over my bike. 'Brakes, son?' 'Lights, son?' I was done for.

"He must have realised my youth, and that this was possibly a first offence. 'You do realise, son, that it’s illegal to ride your bike without mudguards?' which was his way of saying. 'Off you go and don’t let me catch you ever again'. And so far, he hasn’t."

Hot air

AFTER the Herald story about the Orange marching band expelling one of its members after trouble at the annual Battle of the Boyne parade through Glasgow, reader John Dunlop asks: "Thought for the day. Is to be expelled from your flute band a new euphemism for passing wind?"

Read more: 1953: Happy scenes in Buchanan Street as Queen drives past