Hard to swallow
FOLK will be heading back to work this week after the Christmas and New Year break. We remember the Glasgow City Council worker we met at this time last year in Gregg’s who told us: “I always take a dozen doughnuts into my colleagues on the first day back. To see the looks of torment on the faces of the ones who have started a New Year diet is worth every penny.”

Shake on it
SO how was your New Year? As Trisha Martin tells us: “A respectable widow was returning to her house on Arran around 0.45am on January 1, having given a guest a lift home. Two men were leaning over next door’s wall. ‘Sorry, hen,’ says one.
“’That’s ok,’ she says. ‘Happy New Year’. And the chap replied, ‘’I’d offer tae shake yer haun but I’ve just had a pee. But I could gie you a kiss,’
“The widow regretfully declined!”

New Year resolution
A READER in a Glasgow bar at Hogmanay heard a chap suddenly declare: “That’s me. I’ve stopped drinking for good.” He then took a swallow of his pint and added: “From now on I’m drinking for evil.”

Initial reaction
GORDON Rigby was sitting in a great wee pub in Rosemarkie on the Black Isle beside the fireplace where the lintel is an old marriage stone placed there in 1691 with the couple’s initials I.M. and I.A. placed between the numbers so that it reads “16IMIA91”
He heard a Glaswegian customer ask: “Is that the wifi code? Great that you have it in Braille.”

The ring of truth
DEALING with cold callers, continued. An Ayrshire golf club member hears 
a fellow member explain that after 
a couple of unwanted calls he told the young chap offering some boiler cover: “Excuse me, but can you possibly ring back in about 90 seconds? l’m actually making love to my wife at the moment.”
After a short silence the caller replied: “Sorry sir, no problem,” and hung up. He never did call back.

Happy trails
THE news story about Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher authorising troops at Faslane to shoot trespassers if need be reminds Gerry Burke in Strachur: “A friend on guard duty on a sun-drenched hillside above the Coulport base fell asleep. When he woke he had no idea how long he had been asleep.
“However there was a 3ft trail by a snail on his trouser leg and as he recalled snails travelled at a foot per hour he reckoned it must be break time and headed off to the mess where he was sent back on duty with a flea in his ear as he was far too early.Turns out it’s a yard per hour that they travel.”

His cup runneth over
AMERICAN thriller writer Harlan Coben has revealed his favourite email he received last year from a reader. It said: “I have recently read two of your books and both were excellent but I must point out that in both books you refer to Styrofoam cups. They do not make cups from Styrofoam. Styrofoam is the trade name of the Dow Chemical Company for their extruded rigid board insulation. The cups you mention are made from EPS (expanded polystyrene). Over the years many authors have made this mistake in books I have read.”

Got his number
WE used the picture of the car with the registration “BAW84G” in The Diary book, which at first glance reads as “BAWBAG”.  Graeme the owner got in touch to say he enjoys folk taking pictures of his Audi. Incidentally, he bought the plate at a DVLA auction of unusual numbers so he reckons there must be a Scot who works there with a sense of humour who suggested putting it up for sale.