OUR tale of motorists attempting to scoop up spilled whisky at a traffic accident reminds Alasdair Hendry of the tales his dad told of being an excise man at a bonded warehouse in Glasgow's east end.

One chap was caught ostensibly taking a couple of bottles of milk home of an evening. Closer inspection showed the bottles were merely painted white, and were filled with whisky.

Another worker always made a great show of consulting his pocket watch which was on a chain at his waist. In fact, there were no workings inside the watch at all - he merely opened it and used it as a spoon if there were any spillages from the whisky casks.

Yesterday's man
A READER was at a drinks reception when a woman tapped a chap on his shoulder and said: "Hello." When he turned round, she looked puzzled, and blurted out: "Oh, sorry. You're not the man I thought you were."

"My wife says that all the time," he told her.

Storm brewing WE mentioned former curry magnate Charan Gill, below, going into the brewing business with the West microbrewery and restaurant at Glasgow Green. His partner in the business is Petra Wetzel, who brews the beer to the Reinheitsgebot standards of purity used in Bavaria.

Charan jokes that he went into the brewery when Petra was meeting her insurance broker who told her that the buildings were covered for fire, but he suggested storm cover also.

"OK," replied Petra, "but how would I start a storm?"

Monkey suits
RATHER cruelly, Marion White in Florida tells us she saw on the television news that the largest chimpanzee enclosure in the world had opened in Edinburgh. She was annoyed that news of the Scottish Parliament opening had taken so long to reach America.

Brush off
PROVING that selling art shouldn't be like pulling teeth is the Pomegranate Gallery, which has put on an exhibition in the foyer of the Kalyani Dental Lounge in Glasgow's Bath Street. What impressed us was that dentist Ambi Jeyabalan was going around the guests at the opening offering everyone chocolates and sweets. So, not drumming up future business there, then.

Oneupmanship
"SHE'S always got to go one better than everyone else," said the woman in the coffee shop describing a fellow worker to her friend.

"I swear if you came back from holidays and said you were in Tenerife, she would immediately claim she was in Elevenerife."

Noodle brain
"SHOW me a bloke who comes home every evening, and is greeted with smiles and compliments, has his jacket taken, his shoes removed, pillows arranged for him, made to feel comfortable and welcome in every way, then served a delicious meal," opined the chap in the pub.

"And I'll show you a bloke who lives in a Japanese restaurant."

Sabre rattling
A SCIENCE fiction fanatic phones us to tell us that Sunday was Star Wars Day. When we asked if he was sure as we'd never heard of it, he told us: "Absolutely. May the fourth be with you."

Anyone taking part in the Edinburgh 10K race on Sunday would have known, as the picture above shows.