A READER was in one of those coffee shops where they write your name on the cup to make sure you get the right one. The chap in front ordered his coffee, and when asked his name was very precise in saying: "Bryan - that's Bryan with a 'y'." Our reader was much amused to see the busy barista wrote "Briany" on the cup.
END of an era as Alistair Don, owner of the great West End traditional bar The Doublet, is putting it up for sale so that he can retire and spend even more time on the golf course. My former colleague Tom Shields, who has been known to have the occasional shandy there, has been a participant in its pub quizzes. He once claimed that a Doublet regular always declined to take part in any of the teams, but would offer any correct answers he knew to any team which offered to buy him a pint. He quickly became known as The Quizling. Any other favourite tales of The Doublet?
BBC journalist Nick Eardley in London revealed yesterday: "A colleague has asked, 'I've just received an email from the SNP. What does 'sleekit' mean?"
WE mentioned Andy Coulson's phone hacking perjury trial collapsing at the High Court in Edinburgh. John Porter in London remarked: "Great news that Andy Coulson has been acquitted. I've left him a message of congratulations on Tommy Sheridan's mobile phone."
A CHAP in a Glasgow pub the other night was reminiscing that when he was young, he remembered that whenever his father inadvertently swore in the house he would add at the end "Pardon my French." The drinker continued: "So you can imagine the embarrassment on my first day at secondary school when the teacher asked if any of us knew any French, and I put my hand up."
THE Edinburgh Fringe brochure for this year was released yesterday. In a statement which will either fill you with cheer or absolute dread, the Fringe office announced on social media: "Calling all clowns, unicyclists, face painters and bagpipers! Registration is open for the Edinburgh Fringe street events!" You have been warned.
AN AYRSHIRE golfer tells us that a member in the clubhouse declared the other day: "Youngsters these days don't know how lucky they are. When I was young I had to walk nine feet across a shag carpet just to change the TV channel."
AS others see us. Says Terry McGeary in East Kilbride: "I picked up a tourist magazine, D-Mag, in Turkey, which featured Scotland in an article on 'bizarre wedding traditions'. I was fascinated to read, 'A day before the wedding the bride is taken out on the street to get dirty. Tomato sauce and egg is mixed up together. The bride, washed up and down with the mixture is walked among the city. At night, the bride sits with with the elders of the family and let them wash her feet. This tradition symbolizes the walk a couple takes through the path of happiness. For the wedding ceremony the bride places coins inside her shoes'.
"The last bit I sort of recognise, but the rest seems to be a family undoing some of the mess from some poor girl's excessive hen night experience at a Weatherspoon's pub."
AMONG the many managers tipped to become the new Rangers boss is former Brentford boss Mark Warburton. If he does get the gig then expect Scotland's sports pages to pull out frequent bread-based puns. Reader Joe Knox gives us a taste of what might be ahead by telling us: "If Warburton gets the Rangers job they will be hoping to have the league wrapped up so that they can get a slice of the action in the SPL. The players won't want them to be outsiders and they will hope they can earn a crust."
Expect a lot more of that, sadly.
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