A DOCTOR in the Home Counties, who is very proud of his time in the Black Watch, tells us that a new patient signed on, an elderly lady, who had moved to the area from Dundee.

Knowing, of course, that Dundee is the main recruiting area for his old regiment, he leaned across his desk to show her his regimental tie, and asked: "You'll know what this is?"

She peered at it before replying hesitantly: "Gravy?"

Grave mistake
WE hear about a retired police officer attending a funeral in Holytown, Lanarkshire, who was asked by a local for a lift from the church to the cemetery.

He agreed, but as the chap jumped in, the ex-cop was heard to remark: "Danny, I'm just thinking. This is the first time I've put you in the back of a car without a blanket over your heid."

Taking the biscuit
OUR whisky smuggling stories remind retired Lanarkshire teacher Fred Gibbons of when a colleague brought half-a-dozen Tunnock's caramel wafers to staff meetings for three days in a row, before the supplies abruptly stopped.

The teacher explained they had been a gift from a boy in his first-year class. The teacher offered to pay for them but the boy refused, saying: "It's all right, Sir. Ma maw works in Tunnock's." It was only on day three when the teacher insisted on paying that the lad added: "But, Sir, she smuggles them oot inside her knickers."

Says Fred: "It was a long time before any of us ate another caramel wafer."

Stout defence
WE watched two women having lunch with a pal who had to leave before them, and one of the remaining two commented that their friend had been putting the weight on.

"She has an underactive thyroid," said the other lady more supportively.

"More like an overactive knife and fork," was the less supportive reply.

Risky goal
AS the excitement levels for Rangers fans go off the scale, one supporter told the fans' website that his daughter-in-law had just given birth to a wee boy, and that his name could depend on who scored the first goal tonight.

One fan replied: "If Anatoliy Tymoschuk scores an own-goal, I don't fancy the wean's chances." But a more optimistic bear merely wrote: "Just call him Nacho (pictured) and be done with it."

Mixed messages
READER Ian McNeish notes that trendy handbag makers are now selling environmentally-friendly shopping bags with a label attached urging buyers to use the bag and "decline plastic bags wherever possible". The environmentally-friendly bag, he further notes, comes neatly packaged inside a plastic bag.

Desultory Des
LABOUR MSP Des McNulty, cruelly described as one of the dullest members of the Scottish Parliament, is fighting back. While all the other MSPs simply have their names as their e-mail addresses, Des has changed his e-mail address to "Des Direct", presumably hoping it makes him sound like a political superhero fighting for the good citizens of Clydebank and Milngavie.

Alas, others think it makes him sound like an e-mail catalogue company.

A life on the microwave
OUR mention of folk not used to cruising, reminds Angus Mackenzie, now running a travel agency in the States, of a first-time lady cruiser calling the cabin steward to complain that the microwave in her cabin was not heating her coffee.

As the cabins didn't have microwaves, he went along to investigate - and found her coffee in the cabin safe.