Pandering to bears

THERE’S been a lot of hoo-ha about immigration - both legal and illegal - into the UK.

Occasionally migrants do exit Blighty, such as Tian Tian and Yang Guang, the two pandas who returned to China after vacating Edinburgh Zoo, their base of operations for the last 12 years.

(When we say "operations", we don’t mean this literally. Pandas are notoriously indolent creatures, who don’t do much of anything, except smugly chew clumps of bamboo. You’ll never spot a panda running in a marathon, clambering to the summit of Ben Nevis or learning the rhumba.)

Gavin Weir from Ochiltree is not especially sad to see the pandas vamoose, for he gets in touch to comment on their media coverage.

“I’m beginning to wonder,” says Gavin, “if Edinburgh’s pandas aren’t called Frank and Sinatra, given the endless farewell ‘tour’ every night on the Beeb.”

 

Posh nosh?

WHILE buying lunch in Greggs, reader Trish Doyle overheard a young lady in a smart business suit say to her equally svelte pal: “I’m in here all the time. I bet I know the Greggs menu better than the people working here.”

Her elegant chum was suitably impressed by this show of sophistication, and replied: “Get you! The ultimate gal about town.”

 

Tip-top tache

THE recent death of Paisley writer, painter and dandified gent John Byrne was a loss to the nation.

With his wondrous moustache and snappy suits, Byrne was a bona fide bohemian, and you don’t get many of those, nowadays.

The drooping ‘tache was especially iconic.

Reader Nicola Harris was once in an art gallery with her husband, studying a Byrne self-portrait.

“I used to have one of those,” said her husband, pointing to Byrne’s moustache.

“You’ve never had a moustache,” said Nicola.

“True,” conceded her husband. “But I did have a Harley-Davidson motorcycle. And the handlebars looked exactly like that moustache.”

 

Poet’s pub

OUR creative readers are adapting William Shakespeare’s plays into high street businesses.

David Donaldson suggests a hostelry called A Midsummer Night’s Dram.

 

Brainy bugs? Barely

WE’RE discussing the best ways to murder houseflies. A reader recently pointed out that it isn’t  as easy as you’d hope, for they’re smart wee rascals who disappear from sight when you roll up a newspaper.

Martin Cooper says: “Surely if they were genuinely intelligent they’d stick around to read the newspaper. Or at the very least peruse the sports section.”

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Quirky quiz

“WHAT begins with E and ends in E but only has one letter?” asks Roger Christie. “Envelope.”