Bum deal

A DIARY tale about Handel and Beethoven reminds Brian Logan from Langside of the Hungarian composer Zoltan Kodaly, whose name is pronounced in a similar way to "could I".

Brian tells us of the occasion when a customer entered Biggars Music store in Glasgow and asked for sheet music for a piece titled Could I But Express In Song.

This request confused the assistant, who returned minutes later to apologise and explain that the shop didn’t have a copy of Kodaly’s Buttocks Pressing Song.

Local lingo

BEING an engineering officer in the Merchant Navy is highly educational, says Malcolm Boyd from Milngavie, who recalls with fondness his time spent acquiring new skills and visiting exotic ports. Then there was the learning experience that took place in the Officers’ Bar…

Our correspondent had just finished a drink when a colleague produced from his uniform shirt pocket a folded slip of paper which he stood up in Malcolm’s glass.

Malcolm removed the paper, opened it up, and read aloud what had been written there, which was the letters MT.

"Thanks very much,” responded his naughty nautical colleague, handing Malcolm his empty glass. “I’ll have another beer."

Fight night

COMPETITIVE reader Alan Thompson says: “I want to put a humidifier and a dehumidifier in the same room to see which one will win.”

Fizz falls flat

ONE of the more surprising Scottish business success stories has been the exporting of Irn-Bru to Russia, where it has proved to be a popular beverage – though the offloading of fizzy orange liquid is now to be curtailed, with AG Barr, the makers of the drink, cutting off Russian supplies because of the invasion of Ukraine.

Reader David Donaldson says: “As the Irn Curtain descends, I can just picture Putin with his head in his hands, saying ‘Et tu, Bru?’”.

Hero not super

LEAVING a screening of the new Batman movie, reader Louisa Frost spotted a young woman shrugging her shoulders and saying to a gal pal: “Meh. Too much bat. Not enough man.”

Local lingo: 2

THE famous traffic cone atop Glasgow’s Duke of Wellington statue has been decorated in the colours of the Ukrainian flag to show solidarity with that nation.

This is a warm gesture, though reader Kevin Miller says: “I’ve often wondered how my fellow Glaswegians communicated with the rest of the world before the medium of traffic cone was invented.”

There’s the rub

“IF you want a job in the moisturiser industry,” says reader Sophie Hunt, “the best advice I can give is to apply daily.”

Read more: A dirty deed and a monumental mistake