RIVER City actress Victoria Liddelle has Ninja skills. Not that she uses them to slither through museum skylights in the dead of night to nab priceless gems. Instead, her talents are put to use in the domestic arena. “My son asked me to buy him two boxes of Quality Street,” she says. “He’s a teen and pretty selfish about sharing. So I sliced open a box and stole two chocolates, then super glued the box back together.” Having succeeding in her wily scheme, Victoria could easily have enjoyed a self-satisfied cackle of triumph. Instead, she opts for introspective soul searching. “Am I evil?” she muses. “Or just weirdly desperate for Orange Chocolate Creme?”

Toilet training

BLOOD is thicker than water. But thickest of all? People who offer unnecessary advice in blood donor centres, as Donnie Pollock discovered. On a recent visit to such an establishment he was ordered to drink three glasses of water before arrival, then another 500ml while waiting to hop on the couch. He was also advised to undertake simple exercises to prevent fainting, including crossing legs, squeezing thighs and tensing stomach.

“Let me assure you,” says Donnie. “If I drank that amount of water, these exercises would come quite naturally.”

Dead disappointing

THE late mother of Leslie Goskirk, a native of Sutherland, found herself exiled to the exotic metropolis of Glasgow. Understandably, she always looked forward to the delivery of the Northern Times. In that paper she hoped to read news of family, friends and acquaintances back home, though was often disappointed. One week she read the paper front to back, then cast it aside. “I don’t even know a living soul in the Death Notices” she sighed.

Geographical jiggery-pokery

A FULL house attended last week’s funeral of Caryl Godwin, a well-kent figure in Glasgow’s west end. Caryl never lost an opportunity to play down Glasgow’s “No Mean City” image, especially if she could do so at the expense of Edinburgh’s more refined “Jean Brodie” one. Visiting a London pub with English friends, she witnessed an obstreperous Scot being ejected from the premises – though not before letting everyone know he was from Possil. Asked where in Scotland Possil was, Caryl hesitated briefly then replied: “I believe it’s somewhere outside Edinburgh.” As she later pointed out, this wasn’t exactly a lie.

Brought to book

DODGING her daily writing chores, Kirsty Logan almost bought a book called How to Write Your First Novel by a writer who didn’t appear to have written a novel (Unlike Kirsty, who has published two). “It will always be easier to think about doing the work than actually get you’re a**e in the chair and do the work,” points out Kirsty.

Cool present

FEELING generous, Jack McCourt bought a fridge for his wife’s birthday. “I can’t wait to see her face light up when she opens it,” he says.