Chippy chappy

WE live in an increasingly health conscious era, where fit-as-a-fiddle folk sweat it out at the local gym before going home to pick away at a plate of (yeuch) healthy nibbles.

Reader Pam Murphy notes that even the elderly population are under the sway of this taut and trim ideology, as she discovered the other day while sitting at a bus stop in Glasgow city centre.

She overheard one old chap say to another: “The wife wis sayin’ that I should be eatin’ salad, cos it’s good for me. Well, I just telt her that potatoes are a vegetable, which means a bag o’ chips is salad.”

After a pause, he added rather forlornly: “Course she wisnea havin’ any o’ that. I still ended up bein’ force-fed lettuce.”

Spoiler alert

RETIRED English teacher Martin Lee tells us that one of the works he liked to teach was the Arthur Miller play Death of A Salesman.

Not all of his students were enamoured by this modern American classic.

He recalls one frustrated scholar shaking his head in disappointment when told the name of the book he would be studying.

“What a rubbish title,” harrumphed this young fellow, who added: “Clearly there’s going to be no surprises. It should’ve been called: Death (Or Maybe Not) Of A Salesman.”

Clobbered

SOME thoughtful advice from reader Ted Edwyn, who says: “If you see someone wearing camouflage, make sure to walk right into them, so they know it’s working.”

Triple talent

ANOTHER tale involving barfly badinage. Gareth Lloyd from Stenhousemuir was in his local watering hole when he overhead a bloke say to his pal: “I’ve become one of them multitaskers.”

“Zat right?” slurred the pal.

“Yup,” said the first fellow. “I can listen, ignore and forget, all at the same time.”

Carousing curtailed

Reader Jenny Hogan's husband was worried that he was getting too old to party. To prove he was still young at heart, he arranged a night out with the chaps. The plan was to go boozing and carousing for at least 10 hours solid. However, after a 7pm start, Jenny’s hubby returned home at 9.45pm.

“We’re still going to party for 10 hours,” he informed Jenny, before heading off to bed with a cup of cocoa. “But we decided it’s best to do it in incremental shifts.”

Brought to book

“I ORDERED a book online called How To Scam People,” says reader Oliver Jones, who adds: “That was four months ago. It still hasn’t arrived.”

Read more: Here we go again with the Abba puns