WE return to workplace nicknames as Malcolm Boyd in Milngavie recalls: "When I worked at the British Leyland Albion plant in Scotstoun there was an employee who was known as 'Jehovah' because if any incident happened in the factory he was first on the scene to say that he had witnessed it."
Adds Malcolm: "A few years after I had left the Albion, it was bought over by the Dutch manufacturer, Daf Trucks. Met one of my former colleagues who told me that the factory was being renamed. The new name - LayDaf."
GOOD to see impassioned left-wing stand-up Mark Thomas appearing at The Tron in Glasgow this week. We recall when he did a May Day celebrations gig in Glasgow and handed out sticky labels - the type you see in bookshops - to audience members. The stickers read "Also Available in Charity Shops" and "Staff Recommendation: Keep the Receipt". He suggested folk surreptitiously put them on books by Tony Blair and Jeremy Clarkson when they are in a bookshop.
NEWS of yet another leadership change at Ukip, and reader John Henderson comments: "No truth in the rumour that Ukip’s new leader of only 18-days, Diane James, resigned her post as she wanted to move further to the right, and has applied to join the Tory Party?"
And of course Nigel Farage's temporary return to the post has not gone unnoticed. "Reports suggest his family want to spend less time with him," remarked one reader..
OH what larks. Glasgow humorist Brian Limond of TV show Limmy fame, told his fans on social media after musing about the chaotic state of world politics: "I can feel a war coming on. A big one. Not a world war, but a western one. Maybe 2022. Put all your money on it."
One of his fans, Jamie, took him at his word, contacted Sky Bet about Limmy's prediction and received the reply: "Hi Jamie, thanks for the request. Unfortunately this is not something we would be able to price up."
RANGERS player Joey Barton, who has created quite a bit of controversy since arriving in Glasgow, has now been charged by the football authorities with making 44 football bets. "That's more bets," says a reader with his eye on the statistics, than all the goals he has scored in his entire career."
A KICKSTARTER campaign has begun to raise the funds to make a bronze bust of Jim Haynes, the American backer of the arts who helped found the Traverse Theatre in Edinburgh, and who also hosts just the best Sunday night dinners every week at his apartment in Paris. The bust, by sculptor Deirdre Nicholls, would be donated to the Traverse.
Apart from the Traverse, Jim also started up Edinburgh's first paperback bookshop where he stocked Lady Chatterley's Lover while it was still banned. The shop's fame was assured when one outraged Edinburgh denizen paid for a copy and then picked it up with a pair of tongs, and burned it outside the shop.
FOR sheer daftness we commend a colleague who wanders over and interrupts us with: “I opened my front door not realising my dad was on the other side fixing it. He really flew off the handle.”
TODAY'S piece of whimsy comes from a reader who says: "Can we stop calling it 'Breaking news' on the telly and start calling it 'bloody hell what now?'"
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