smile, please
n This is a week made for Anthea Turner, National Smile Week. Time to make those gnashers work, extend those lips, twinkle at the postman and the bus driver, and pray you haven't got muesli on your molars.
It's not actually so much to do with making the world a cheerier place (though if it serves that purpose, too, that would be no bad thing). No, it's all about oral hygiene and tooth maintenance. In Castlemilk, for example, on Wednesday and Thursday, you'll find relays of first and second-year pupils being ushered into an exhibition called Show Your Teeth You Care staged by 20 dental hygiene students from the School of Dental Auxiliaries at the Glasgow Dental Hospital.
Tutor Margaret Ross says it's not just about skiving off from science and geography, it's about how to care for gums and teeth and get that gorgeous grin as perfected by your TV heroes and heroines. Sugar-free products will be offered as a way of educating kids against the sugary stodge for which the West of Scotland is still notorious.
Toothbrushes will be distributed, plaque prevention demonstrated, and two electric tooth brushes offered as prizes.
''It's a good time to catch the pupils just as their second teeth are coming through,'' says Margaret Ross. It's also very good experience for the students, who do a lot of outside demonstrations as part of their training. Now smile, please . . . and put that chocolate biscuit back in the packet.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article