FOLK are still unhappy with Heathrow's new Terminal 5. BBC Scotland's Jeff Zycinski was there last week when he overheard two Glasgow-bound women walking through the vast concourse.

One said to the other: "If I'd known I had to walk as far as this, I'd have got my pals to sponsor me."

Grainy image
MITCH Murray's book One-liners for Wedding Speeches records the fact that brides are increasingly speaking at their own weddings. He recalls one bride saying at the reception: "It wasn't exactly a proposal as such. He took me out to a Chinese restaurant for a romantic meal and asked, How would you like your rice? Fried or steamed?' I looked him in the eye and whispered, Thrown'."

Seat of learning
A FORMER student walked into the Charles Rennie Mackintosh-designed Glasgow School of Art this week to return a loo seat that he had borrowed from the school for an art project 20 years ago.

"We are not sure whether the former student thought it was an original Mackintosh throne, or it was merely a rather belated guilty conscience," said a spokesman for the college.

But they've sent it to the college's archive department just in case it has any historical significance.

Wrong note
WE are told about a young woman who made her first public singing appearance at an Ayrshire church social. As her melodies filled the hall, she caught sight of her mother watching very proudly in the front row, and both she and her mother shed a tear or two with the sheer emotion of the occasion.

As the chairwoman of the evening stood up to thank her, the young woman apologised for the interruption.

"Oh, don't apologise," replied the chairwoman. "If I were your mother, I'd cry, too."

Brussels clout
A CHAP from Lochaber tells us he was manning a West Highlands seafood stall at a food fair in Brussels last week. It attracted such a huge amount of interest that he did not notice the chap who emerged at the head of the queue, held out his hand, and said: "Salmon."

Our stallholder uttered: "Sorry, we're prawn and crab specialists," before he realised it was, in fact, First Minister Alex Salmond introducing himself on a visit to Brussels.

Rash
THE Herald's news story about the firefighters in Glasgow mopping up after a tanker of whisky overturned on the Clydeside Expressway makes reader Alec Logan, of Tarbert, ask, very unfairly: "Is it true that some of Glasgow's finest had to go to A&E suffering from gravel-rash of the tongue?"

Mistaken identity
FORMER First Minister Jack McConnell, the next British High Commissioner to Malawi, was increasingly irritated in his previous job when Labour politicians down south got his name wrong, most notably Health Secretary Patricia Hewitt called him "Jack McDonnell" twice during a Scottish TV debate.

Last week Jack was down at Westminster's foreign affairs committee, giving evidence about his new appointment. Hansard, the official report of proceedings at parliament, lists him as "Mr John McConnell MSP". Oops.