WE read in the trade magazine Nursing Standard that while humour benefits patients, researcher May McCreaddie of Edinburgh University suggests that no-go areas for humour include psychological crises, emergency situations, ethnicity, gender, politics, sex, religion and football.

So presumably nurses in the west of Scotland have nothing to talk about to their male patients.

Crash course
A SOUTH-SIDER tells us she was driving her 4x4 in heavy traffic when she bumped the car in front. The driver of the other car pulled over to the kerb and she parked behind him, but was a bit befuddled by the bump, and she hit the car in front again.

The chap got out, looked at the back of his car, saw there was no real damage, and told her not to bother about it.

He then added: "But give me a five-minute start when I drive off."

Elementary
A YOUNG reader phones to tell us that Dr Watson was in his local pub, had too much to drink and was getting a bit rowdy at closing time.

"Come on," said the barman. "Haven't you got Holmes to go to?"

Awkward spud
ENJOY the Taste of Scotland, the nation's biggest food and drink fair, was in Glasgow's George Square over the weekend. Doug Bell, on the potato stall of supplier Greenvale AP, tells us he was in Ayr once, giving out free samples of Ayrshire potatoes, when he was approached by an older lady, who on tasting her sample exclaimed: "They're no Ayrshire tatties!" And despite the packaging evidence in front of her argued this until she was blue in the face.

Doug then tried to appease the situation by offering her a free bag of potatoes. "Why, what's wrong wi them?" came the suspicious reply.

Pure mince
TALKING of looking a gift horse in the mouth, Ian Clarke of Strathmore Foods, also at the fair, tells us of the lady who approached the McIntosh food stall in Edinburgh, and was outraged that their stovies were made with mince and informed him: "Real stovies are made from the remainder of the Sunday roast, plus King Edward potatoes." "I'm from Morningside," she added, before turning on her heel to walk off.

Insult to injury time
FORMER Celtic assistant manager Murdo MacLeod tells the tale of the infamous Rangers-Kilmarnock game in Mark Guidi's book, The Inner Sanctum, about Celtic's league-winning season in 1998.

Celtic fans have always claimed that referee Bobby Tait had kept on playing injury time when the game was nil-nil in the hope that Rangers would score a winner. In the end it was Kilmarnock that won with a very late goal.

Says Murdo: "Bobby is now on the after-dinner speaking circuit and says that after Kilmarnock scored he played on for 10 more minutes in the hope that Rangers would equalise.

"Eventually Rangers manager Walter Smith shouted to him from the dugout, Bobby, just blow for full-time. We're never gonny score!'"

Getting skirty
A FORTYSOMETHING woman arrived for a night out with her pals in a fashionable, but short, skirt. "This is my godmother outfit," she told her pals. "Whenever I put it on my teenage daughter says, My god, mother! You're not going out in that, are you?'"

Reading like rabbits
WE hear the latest version of the old excuse that "my dog ate my homework". At the vet library at Edinburgh University, a student returned a book that she claimed had been nibbled by a rabbit.

The librarian did, indeed, find teeth marks and fluff in the book, but as it was the vet library, decided not to fine the student.