BARCELONA'S Leo Messi, who scored four goals in the club's Scottish friendlies, was being ferried from the club's hotel in St Andrews in a chauffeur-driven Audi when a number by the cheesy pop band Steps came on the radio.

As the driver kindly reached to change the station, Messi stopped him, and started bouncing around to the perky tune. Asked if Messi was a fan, a club spokesman conceded: "He may have shown some brilliant moves on the park, but he's still capable of some dodgy Steps."

Steel don't get it
A READER back from holiday continues the debate on whether Americans understand irony by telling us he asked an American in Texas what irony was and he replied: "Something to do with metal, isn't it?"

Unless, he was, of course, being ironic.

Monster mashed
THE continuing appeal of horror films reminds a reader of watching a zombie film in Newcastle where a local lad was walking to his seat with a couple of ice creams when out of the gloom came a shambling monster in ripped clothing with festering wounds - it was, in fact, a member of staff helping to advertise the film.

Our reader cannot forget the Geordie screaming like a girl and, still holding his ice creams safely, kicking the hapless cinema attendant between the legs, who then fell to the floor groaning like a real zombie, if there is such a thing.

Ah, you just don't get entertainment like that at the cinema these days.

Save the profiteers
OUR Washington correspondent tells us: "The price of oil has dropped to under $125 a barrel for the first time in two months. Gas at the pumps is down six cents a gallon.

"So we're just waiting for President Bush to come up with emergency plans to bail out the struggling oil companies."

The bicycle thief
AFTER Conservative leader David Cameron, right, had his bike stolen from outside a supermarket, reader Peter Reid spots that some likely lad has, tongue-in-cheek, put it for sale on the internet auction site eBay.

The description reads: "This bike is not exactly' new but it is nearly' new because it has only been used for a couple of photo-opportunities.

"It is big and blue and despite looking quite well-balanced it leans oddly to the right.

"Set of bolt-croppers available for a fiver more."

Yes, we think they are joking.

Writing on wall
"Carol Vorderman," said the chap enjoying his pint in a Glasgow beer-garden, "knew her job at Countdown was in trouble when she picked out the letter P and the numbers 4 and 5 in successive games the other afternoon."

Genius steals
COMEDIAN Tom Rosenthal, performing in the dark comedy play Lucidity at C Venues at the Edinburgh Fringe, admits to being star-struck when he appeared on a previous bill with Stephen Merchant, the award-winning writer who also starred as Ricky Gervais's hapless agent in Extras.

Tom even admits to a bit of sycophancy when he brought in the scripts from Extras and asked Stephen to sign them for him.

Afterwards he e-mailed Stephen, asking for a quote about his performance. For days he heard nothing, thinking that either Stephen is inundated with e-mails or he is too big a star to reply. And then a reply came, which we thought was rather a nice thing to tell a comedian. Stephen wrote: "I have already stolen some of Tom Rosenthal's great one-liners for dinner parties, best-man speeches and funeral eulogies."

Holy bowler
TIME, surely, to give cricket a mention. So we pass on from the magazine Scottish Cricketer, Sandy Strang's story of Church of Scotland minister Jim Aitchison who played for Kilmarnock as well as Scotland some years ago.

Playing against Ferguslie, the obdurate padre failed to walk after two successive catches as the umpire judged that he had not made contact with the ball even though the bowler was convinced he had.

The fact that a church minister would not admit to hitting the ball didn't help matters.

With the next ball, the bowler removed two of Jim's stumps, leaving a solitary leg stump standing.

Writes Sandy: "As he trudged disconsolately up the Meikle-riggs hill, he passed lugubrious Ferguslie veteran Larry Tracey. Surely you're not leaving us now, Jim?' mused a mischievous Tracey. There's still one left'."