A RESPONSIBLE parent should always make sure his child is beddy-bye bound before it’s late in the evening. Though this rule is sometimes contradicted by an equally valid diktat: A youngster should be able to stay up until any ridiculous hour, as long as there’s a Tyson Fury / Deontay Wilder boxing match on the telly.

Reader Jeffrey Bradbury opted for this latter commandment, allowing his 14-year-old son to watch the bout live. Once it concluded, son’s energy wasn’t sapped in the least. “Let’s fight, me and you, right now!” squealed the cocky kid, bouncing round the living room.

“It’d be no contest,” replied dad, who added: “I could out-box you using one finger.”

This stopped the lad in his tracks. Though only for a moment. “That’s just stupid,” he eventually answered. “You’d never get a boxing glove small enough to fit your finger.”

Seasonal disruption

SCOTLAND is feeling a bit like Deontay Wilder, right now. Our plucky wee nation has jumped into the ring with yet another mighty storm, and now our legs are shaky and we’re on the ropes.

Luckily, some readers can see the funny side of the woeful weather. “I got on a train while it was sunny,” says Sam Perry. “After a while I glanced out the window and there was a blizzard.”

Later still, Sam noticed more sunshine. Followed by rain, hail, gale force winds, snow again, sun again, and finally all of the above at once. An epic journey, indeed, which must have lasted several hours.

“It was a 10-minute jaunt,” corrects Sam. “Though it seemed like I’d accidentally stumbled into a montage of my entire life.”

Jeremy junked

THERE was a time when the current leader of the Labour Party looked set to swagger through the door of Number 10. That certainly won’t happen now, though he is still remembered fondly by comedian Jeannie Jones. “I’ve bought a wee bucket for my new car, to put rubbish in,” she says. “I’ve called it Jeremy, Jeremy Carbin.”

Bean scene

OVERHEARD in a Muirend supermarket shopping aisle…

Mother (singing to toddler): Heads, shoulders, beans and toes, beans and toes!

Toddler (eyebrow raised sceptically): I don’t think that’s right…

Mother (oblivious): Heads, shoulders, beans and…

Toddler shakes head, undoubtedly thinking: Parents. You try and raise them properly. But they always grow up to be such a disappointment.

More bridge badinage

WE continue trying to find a suitable name for the proposed bridge linking Scotland to Northern Ireland. “How about the Suspension (of Parliament) Bridge?” says Iain Mills, adding: “It would remind us of Boris’s notorious proroguing escapade – as if we need reminding.”

Latin laugh

OUR run of nifty number gags continues, courtesy of Roderick Archibald Young, who says: “I can't remember how to write 1, 1000, 51, 6 and 500 in Roman numerals... IM LIVID.”