A DRIVER visiting Glasgow for the first time noticed on the overhead gantry on the M8 motorway at the city's boundary the flashing sign "Keep your distance", and he thinks to himself: "Whatever happened to Glasgow's legendary friendliness?"

Three of a kind SCOTS folk band the Tannahill Weavers were playing in Dayton, Ohio, supported on the bill by an American singer named Tom Scheidt.

Tom immediately told them that he had played with inquisitive Scottish bands before, so before they asked, he could confirm that he did not, in fact, have a brother named Doug.

Still, the Weavers were delighted to learn, after a few libations with Tom, that he had a cousin called Wayne.

Bleak outlook CREDIT crunch, continued. Possibly the only company in financial services just now with a sense of humour is Glasgow stockbroking firm Bell Lawrie. The business sponsored a carol at a fund-raising night at Glasgow's Royal Concert Hall last week for the charity CLIC Sargent - and chose In The Bleak Midwinter as the one to sponsor.

Feline fine "I don't know why people say that the training process with cats is difficult," said the woman having a large chardonnay after the late-night shopping last week. "Mine had me trained in two days."

Taking a bow OUR story about a so-called touching moment at a wedding reminds Joy Campbell in Dunfermline of her own wedding, when her full-length veil snagged on the corner of a pew as she turned towards the altar, threatening to pull it off.

Fortunately, her bridesmaids came to her rescue as she bent her head forward to free it.

However, after the ceremony her husband's granny sought her out to say it was wonderfully moving the way she had stopped to curtsey to her mother.

River of dreams SIMPLE Minds frontman Jim Kerr and co-founder Charlie Burchill brought the band back to Glasgow for sell-out appearances at the SECC and a Cash for Kids charity gig last week.

Kerr was telling folk that Burchill jumped in a Glasgow taxi and the driver said: "Don't I know you from somewhere?"

As the band had numerous number one hits around the world, Charlie was modestly saying nothing.

After much brow furrowing the driver eventually exclaimed: "Got it!

"You're on that River City?"

Arresting idea GLASGOW crime writer Robert Jeffrey, author of Gangs of Glasgow, heard a couple of dodgy characters in the city discuss the police arresting Conservative MP Damian Green in the Commons.

One of them, declaring his shock at no warrant being produced, added: "I know parts of Glasgow where the first words a wean speaks is, Let's see the warrant'."

Dearer green place ON the subject of Glasgow waitresses, reader John Hannah from Scotstoun was in a west-end Chinese restaurant when he asked what the difference was between the sweet and sour chicken on the menu and the sweet and sour chicken Hong Kong listed further down.

"One pound twenty-five," the waitress replied.

Fruit machines "I told my kids," said the loudmouth in the bar, "that when I was their age, all I got at Christmas was an orange and an apple.

"But all my son said was, Wow, a mobile phone and a computer - not bad'."