JOHN Motson, the English football commentator who has retired from covering internationals, always irked Scottish football fans with his knack of mentioning England's 42-year-old World Cup win at every turn.

As one fan opined in the pub at the weekend: "If I wanted someone constantly to interrupt my enjoyment of the fitba' with stupid, pointless, rambling, ill-informed comment, then I'd get a girlfriend."

Over and out
A CALL-CENTRE worker in Glasgow's Ibrox saw that the girl he worked beside seemed a bit down.

"I've split up frae ma boyfriend," she told him.

This puzzled him a little as he asked: "But isn't that the ninth or tenth time it's happened?"

"Aye," she replied. "But only the second time for good."

Flight risk
A READER in Australia tells us he has been trying to persuade his mother to fly out from Paisley to visit, but she is adamant she is not getting on a plane in case it crashes.

"C'mon mum," he tried to reason with her in that fatalistic west of Scotland way. "When your time comes, it doesn't matter whether you are up in the air or on the ground."

"Maybe, son," she told him. "But I want to be on the ground when the pilot's turn comes."

China crisis
An eye-catching moment in Glasgow's Bath Street last week was six chaps struggling to take a life-size terracotta warrior down the steps to stand guard at the new restaurant/bar Tao. Tao director Bobby Tsang bought two of the large figures in China but one broke before it had even left the country. The shop, though, refused to refund his money.

However, it did not realise that Bobby grew up in Glasgow and was made of sterner stuff - he simply stood outside the shop telling every potential customer what a bunch of robbers they were until the shop owner gave him his money back so that he would go away.

Berry fashionable
NEW technology still baffles a few folk. A young girl found a BlackBerry, the hand-held phone and e-mail device (above), in the back of a Glasgow taxi, and took it home, telling her mum she was wary about handing it over to the taxi driver.

"What would he want with a hat?" mum asked.

Das bite
TEETHING problems, if that's the phrase, with the NHS website. If you type in most Glasgow postcodes, looking for your nearest NHS dentist, a map of Germany pops up.

Unless, of course, that actually is where your nearest NHS dentist is.

Water palaver
TOM Laurenson, formerly of Oban, now living on Whidbey Island, north of Seattle, tells us of a vehicle alarm wailing on the ferry, en route to Whidbey, much to the chagrin of the passengers on board.

A crew member announced: "Would the owner of the white Mercedes with California licence plates please return to their car and cancel that alarm.

"You might also like to know that in the 70-year history of Washington State Ferries, we have not yet had a car stolen while on passage."

"Muted applause," says Tom, "could be heard throughout the ferry."

The plate show
A READER phones in with a tip for motorists wishing to save money in these expensive times.

"Don't bother with the cost of a personalised number plate," he declares. "Nobody cares who you are."

Bets is off
WE are told about the minister who uses his word processor just to find-and-replace the name of the departed on his notes for funerals.

All went well until he had to change the name Mary from his previous service to that of Betty. It meant that when he got to the Apostles' Creed, he read out "Jesus Christ, born of the Virgin Betty."