THE Pope is on a visit to the United States, and to mark the occasion, a Catholic charity there has launched a "Joke with the Pope" campaign where you send in a gag, and the best one wins $10,000 for charity. TV host Conan O'Brien got the ball rolling with: “The California drought is so bad, people in Napa are asking the Pope to change the wine into water.” Not bad, but we feel the suggestions deteriorated somewhat. Someone else submitted: "What is red, and is bad for your teeth?"

The answer being: "A brick."

WE mentioned film and TV actor Rupert Everett being in Glasgow for the Citizens Theatre's 70th birthday celebrations. Keren Nicol at the Citz tells us: "As well as enjoying a quick pre-show pint in Sharkey’s Bar, Rupert shared his memories of performing in the Gorbals, and of his delight on returning to Glasgow one season and discovering the gay nightclub Bennet’s. This prompted him to perfect a new phrase, repeated on Sunday night in a fairly decent Glasgow accent, 'See you? See Me? See Bennet’s?'. He said that could ‘either result in a black eye or a tongue sandwich'."

INCIDENTALLY Sharkey's is one of the last remaining bars in Gorbals, tucked away inside a railway arch where thespians and locals rub shoulders in somewhat dated surroundings it has to be said. But we like one visitor to the bar who described it in lyrical terms on social media: "Sharkey's is a bit like finding that all you wished for has just been wrapped in a wee parcel that is straining the string to burst into song. And as you walk into the bar, feel the warmth of the smiles, the sound of music plays an overture to your soul - not many pubs you can say that about, is there?"

Someone less lyrical added his review: "What do I think of Sharkey's? Don't know. I was too drunk, but my sister said I had a cracking time."

CAR company Volkswagen is in deep trouble for falsifying emission tests on its diesel engines. A reader phones to put it in perspective: "Where the cheating VW guys went wrong is not being a bank. They could have had a bailout and a knighthood."

THE Herald carried the obituary this week of acerbic art critic Brian Sewell. A reader tells us Brian was not often complimentary about his fellow critics. "The story is told," he tells us, "that Brian, after an earlier heart attack, checked himself out of the private hospital he was in because the paintings on the walls had been chosen by a rival critic whose opinions he did not respect."

AH the politics of office life can be difficult. A reader who should remain nameless passes on: "Someone has brought cream cakes into work. A colleague who always says she 'hardly eats a thing' has loudly said, 'I couldn't possibly!' She's just started her third."

A MOTHER of a teenage boy is overheard in Glasgow giving her friends the advice: "Do not look under a teenage boy's bed - and never, ever ask him and his friends what they are laughing at - two things I've learned the hard way."

FORMER England cricketer Ian Botham is playing in the Alfred Dunhill Championships in St Andrews next month along with footballers Johan Cruyff and Luis Figo and Eagles musician Don Felder who wrote Hotel California. We remember when Scotland's most famous village cricket team, Freuchie, won the National Village Championship at Lord's, Botham joined in the celebrations. Freuchie captain David Christie later recalled: "I wouldn't say he gatecrashed our party because he was more than welcome - but he drank quite a bit of my whisky. I'd been presented with a gallon-bottle of whisky and every time I passed, Botham's big arm came out with a glass."

AN Ayrshire reader was at his local golf club where a fellow member was ranting angrily about being woken up in the middle of the night by someone phoning the wrong number. A wise old-hand further up the bar commented: "There are worse things than someone calling the wrong number in the middle of the night - it could have been the right number."