That Inking Feeling
SINCE you were about to ask, yes, we do have another crop of film titles for you, all of them minus one letter.
l Point Beak: a crow gives directions
l The Lion Kin: Relatives of the king of the jungle
l Forrest Gum: Life in a rubber plantation (all Tom Fleming)
l Pretty Oman – Arabian state tarts itself up (John Mulholland)
l The Norse Whisperer: a Swede with tonsillitis
l The Lady Varnishes: unavailability of male painters and decorators (both Blair Miller)
l That Inking Feeling: the emotions of someone who works in a tattoo parlour (John Ewing)
l Dead Pets Society: canine zombies conspire against humans (David Hamilton)
l Chariots of Fir: an epic road movie about the rugged truckers who bring Christmas trees to the cities.
l The Pawbroker: an expose of the illicit trade in moustachioed Dundee fathers (both Alison Campbell).
The prize, as you’ll be aware, is a champagne dinner for two at the Urban Bar & Brasserie, St Vincent Place, Glasgow. More entries, in all probability, tomorrow.

Raintown
YESTERDAY, 7.59am: HeraldScotland posts story about giant “umbrella” planned for rain-plagued Fort William. Thirty-one minutes later: Reader Keith McAllister posts the following: “It’s 08.30 and I’m dismayed that there isn’t one comment yet blaming the SNP for the rainfall in Fort William. Standards are slipping as we near Christmas.”

Name, dropping
OLD jokes’ home: bloke named Sajid says he has had his ID stolen. He’s now just known as Saj.

Singing the Blues
A CURIOUS spat has broken out on social media between fans of Rangers and fans of, um, Little Mix, the girlband best known for [insert name of random song here].
Long story short: the former want to see The Dave Clark Five’s Glad All Over top the Christmas charts, in honour of striker Joe Garner. The latter, outraged by such effrontery, would really prefer it if the band’s new song, Touch, got the number one spot.
There’s been some amusing back-and-forth between the two camps, prompting a caustic observation from a Morton fan on Twitter: “Rangers used to have Gascoigne, Laudrup & De Boer playing for them. Now they’re arguing with 12-year-old lassies about Little Mix being #1.”

Diminished returns
AMONG the ingenious excuses offered to HMRC by self-assessment customers for failing to complete their tax return on time: “My tax return was on my yacht… which caught fire”and “The postman doesn’t deliver to my house”.
Some went even further. “I couldn’t complete my tax return”, wrote one woman, “because my husband left me and took our accountant with him. I am currently trying to find a new accountant”.
The taxman cautioned yesterday that none of these excuses led to successful appeals against HMRC penalties for late returns. But it got us thinking: what’s the best excuse you’ve ever heard – or given?

Dead certainty
SIGNS that you are getting old, more of: David Donaldson overhears a “woman of a certain age” addressing her silver-haired friend with elbow crutches in Epicure’s, Hyndland : “We’ve all reached that age where every year’s four funerals and a wedding”.