EDINBURGH author Irvine Welsh has been shortlisted for fiction book of the year in the annual Saltire Society's Scottish book awards, for his irreverent novel set in the capital, A Decent Ride. Although Irvine is currently living in Chicago, he has not forgotten his roots. With the Chicago Cubs playing their last game of the season just down the road from him at Wrigley Field, Irvine remarked yesterday: "After Cubs game there are helicopters flying over the house. Thought I was back in Muirhouse."

A TROON grandfather tells us he was in the cafe balcony with his four-year-old grandson at Glasgow's Central Station doing that time-honoured tradition of watching the trains coming and going. He tells us: "At two o'clock we noted the long Virgin Train leaving Platform 2 for London, winding its way out of the station. At two-twenty I pointed and said, 'Here's the Virgin Train arriving from London'. 'That was quick,' said my grandson."

NOT long to Hallowe'en so get those mini Mars Bars stockpiled folks. With supermarkets already festooned with vampires and ghosts, a reader tells us: "The most common ghosts are the visions dressed in white sheets with flailing arms. These are people who died changing their duvets. They roam bedrooms forever trying to find the corners."

WE mentioned the Scottish folk group the Tannahill Weavers visiting Glasgow in Kentucky. Roy Gullane from the Weavers contacts us from there to pass on: "One of the guys went into a local 'gas' station to get himself a couple of beers. The proprietor was very pleased to meet a Scot from all the way 'across the pond'. He said he had been over there a few times. On leaving the premises, my colleague heard the American voice from behind him say 'Auf Wiedersehen'."

TALKING of America, it is now over 25 years since deadbeat dad Homer Simpson first appeared on our television screens. As one American commented: "Sad that 25 years ago Homer Simpson seemed like a loser in American culture, but nowadays folk are impressed that he not only has a job but owns his own home."

JOHN Maidment in Carnoustie is reading the sports headlines on his television and wonders if the journalist was intentionally going for a pun when he wrote the headline about the new Liverpool manager, "Youngsters treated like horses - Klopp".

THE new Bond film was reviewed in The Herald yesterday, and already the gags are being fired off. Ian Power sends us the conversation: "I've been reading about the new James Bond film. Did you know his rank?"

"In Spectre?"

"No. Apparently he's a Royal Navy Commander."

And Jake Lambert muses: "What if his middle name is James, and his first and last names are actually both Bond?"

THE Volkswagen emissions testing scandal roles on. Newton Mearns reader Stuart MacDonald tells us: "I recently received a letter from Volkswagen informing me that my car was, indeed, affected by the well-publicised emissions software issue. Perhaps I should have expected this, given that the salesman who sold me the car last year was a Mr Cheetham."

WE keep our head down but a colleague still manages to catch our attention. "The wife and I have just gone through a rough patch," he tells us.

Then adds: "Bellshill."