INDEX
DESPITE the Baltic weather, stylist and presenter of Channel 4's How to Look Good Naked, Gok Wan, posed with four disrobed women in Glasgow's Buchanan Street to promote his show at the Armadillo on November 30. One elderly passer-by asked who he was, and when told "Gok Wan" replied without missing a beat: "Where's Gok Two and Gok Three?"
Grate expectations
OUR story about the mother threatening her kids that Santa would only bring them coal, reminded Margaret Thomson in Kilmacolm of telling her primary class that something was as black as coal. When one child asked what coal was, Margaret remembered that one of the other children, Sally, had a coal fire at home, so she said: "Sally, you tell us about coal. You have a coal fire at home."
But a puzzled Sally replied: "No, miss, it's a hot one."
Job half done
TALKING of Santa, reader Ally Buchanan is thinking of rewriting her kids' Christmas present list after getting them
to clean her car at the
weekend. She was telling the folk at work what a good job they had done until one of her workmates looked at the car and burst out laughing.
True, the driver's side was gleaming, but the passenger's side was still a mud-spattered nightmare, and Ally had driven it for three days without noticing.
Bigger picture
WE overhear two chaps discussing the merits of the Ayrshire town of Troon, with one arguing that it was no longer just a large retiral home and was now popular with younger commuters. His mate, though, was having none of it. "There's so many old folk in Troon," he argued, "most of the shop windows are made out of bifocal glass."
Rude neighbours
AUSTRALIA is stumbling towards a General Election this month, with opposition leader Kevin Rudd doing the usual round of tightly scripted photo-opportunities - until he met John Young.
John, aged 74, emigrated to Oz from Springburn, Glasgow, years ago. He was playing the accordion in his old folk's club in Tasmania, accompanying his partner singing That's Amore, when Kevin burst in with a media circus, interrupting the performance. To the delight of the media, bored until then by the carefully stage-managed events, John threw down his accordion and told an embarrassed Kevin, above, in a still strong Glasgow accent that he was a "rude bastard" and a "galah" - a reference to a loud cockatoo, before storming out of the club.
Aye, you can take the boy out of Springburn . . .
Hot head
THE growth of Japanese restaurants can have unfortunate side-effects. One chap sitting down at such an establishment didn't realise that the green pellets in a dish were actually wasabi, the strong and pungent Japanese horseradish. Being on the greedy side, he scooped up about 10 of them and stuffed them in his mouth before the burning sensation hit him and he spat them out on the floor.
A weary waiter came over with a cloth and remarked: "Plenty of people make the same mistake with just one - but I've never seen such well-punished greed."
Safety catch
IAN Vince's just-published The Little Black Book of Red Tape reveals that staff at the Health and Safety Executive are twice as likely to suffer a workplace accident as other workers, with 41 staff per 1000 reporting injuries compared with the average of 21.
Reported accidents by HSE staff included an injury caused when someone walked into a warning sign.
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