Making a splash
WE like the way folk remain topical in their insults. Barrie Crawford was at his local swimming pool yesterday where one of the old regulars, commenting on the erratic swimming of one of his fellow bathers, commented: “He’s swimming about there like a Trident missile.”

Sinking feeling
THE Celtic Connections music festival is well under way in Glasgow, and Mike Ritchie tells us: “ Fire alarm went off at the Royal Concert Hall on Saturday evening during a live broadcast by Celtic Music Radio of the Danny Kyle Open Stage event. 
“As the crowd made to leave, final act The Deadly Winters asked show host Liz Clarke if they should keep on playing. To which the ever genial Liz replied, ‘It’s no’ the Titanic’.”

Sign of the times
MORE on the anti-Trump marches with Kate Woods in Denver, Colorado, passing on to us: “Went on my first protest march since I was at uni in Glasgow. Best sign I saw at the rally was, ‘Ikea has better cabinet choices than Trump’.”

Bear necessities
A GUEST arrived at a Burns Supper on Glasgow’s south side at the weekend with her baby wearing a kilt. As the gathered women oohed and aahed at the child someone asked where on earth you could possibly buy such a small kilt.
“The Build-A-Bear Workshop” she confided.

If the cap fits ...
OUR tales of school caps remind Ian Jones in Stirling of travelling as a young child on the Subway with his dad to see a Rangers game at Ibrox. Says Ian: “I was also a member of the Cubs and wore my Cub cap. So there I was, sitting on the Glasgow Subway wearing my Rangers scarf and a green-and-gold cap. One Rangers supporter, spotting this, said I must be one mixed-up kid.”

Cupboard love
TODAY’S piece of whimsy comes from a reader who says: “I found a jar of chilli powder in the cupboard that said on the side ‘Best before 2015’ and I thought to myself, ‘Weren’t we all?’ so used it anyway.”

Bottling it up
THE Herald story about a message in a bottle being found in Germany after 40 years reminds a Bearsden reader of being on holiday in the Caribbean when his bored teenage son decided to leave a message in a bottle that he then cast in the sea, hoping it would be washed up on a tourist beach.
Instead of leaving an inspiring message his son simply wrote: “Are you sure you switched the oven off?”

Screen sensation
A READER heard a mother moan to her pals in a Glasgow coffee shop: “ I took all my kids’ electronic devices away so we could spend some quality time together. Turns out they are really terrible to be around so I gave them their stuff back.”

A gripping tale
TOMMY Fleetwood, who won the Abu Dhabi golf championship, has an unusual claw-like grip when putting, similar to that used  by American golfer Chris DiMarco. Former Scottish player turned commentator Ken Brown wrote in one of his books that, while commentating live on the Masters for the BBC, he asked fellow commentator Peter Alliss if he had ever seen a grip like that. “Not since they closed the public toilets at Paddington Station” 
he cheerily replied.