Former Celtic and Liverpool star Frank McGarvey, pictured at foot, speaks plainly about his gambling addiction in his biography Totally Frank, published next month.

Although fighting addiction is a serious business, he tells about Gamblers Anonymous advising the taking up of a hobby so gamblers who stop going to the bookies keep busy.

Writes Frank: "One man came to a meeting for the first time in weeks and was asked if he had found himself a hobby. He said, Yes. I bought a greyhound'."

Laying claim A worker at an insurance office in Lanarkshire tells us they received a motoring accident claims form on which the driver had written after the question "Could either driver have done anything to avoid the accident?", the nonetheless truthful reply: "Travelled by bus?"

Fit for broadcast? At Glasgow's River Festival at the weekend, the BBC joined in the fun by having a marquee where you could try doing a football commentary. Broadcaster Derek Murray would give you a few tips before highlights of the Scotland v Italy game were shown and off you went.

One young lad got quite caught up in it, and intoned into the microphone: "A wonderful goal for Scotland!" before adding to give the scene a little more colour: "Get it right up ye, Italy!"

Derek's advice as the lad finished: "Perhaps more suited to Sky Sports than the BBC."

Ring of truth Ah, the pitfalls of having your show reviewed. Comedian Phil Buckley, whose Edinburgh Fringe show Laughable is on at the Meadow Bar, tells us: "Last year at the festival I did a joke about it being hard to meet a girl in Salford because you first have to step through her earring to talk to her.

"It got a huge reaction, and all I could think was, Well done, that's another star on the review' and I turned round to see a reviewer taking notes in the front row who had the biggest pair of hoop earrings I've ever seen."

Twisting the knife Rory Macpherson in Edinburgh received a letter from BT which had obviously gone through the dreaded spellchecker as it referred to him as "Dear Mr Machetes."

Mind you, at £125 to connect a phone, one wonders who was doing the scalping.

Art critic A reader, Mona Lisa - although we guess that might not be her real name - attended a recent portrait-painting class at the Glasgow School of Art where a fellow class member, after toiling for ages, and producing not much more than a stickman, suddenly burst into tears.

The teacher, on hearing the loud wails, came over to comfort the lady, and reassured her that everybody had to start somewhere. She wondered how comforting it was when he added: "Van Gogh's first five years of painting were terrible."

Forever young Stories of American tourists remind Angus Mackenzie of Mackenzie Holidays in New York of a client booking a holiday who then asked what would be available there to entertain his two boys.

Angus mentioned pony trekking and fishing before asking how old the boys were.

"Twenty-five and twenty-seven," the chap replied.

Time is money A doctor living in Hyndland tells us he was in the kitchen at a west end party where he got talking to a lawyer, and they discussed the mutual problem of strangers boringly telling them their medical and legal problems respectively.

"How do you deal with it?" the doc asked.

"Oh, I just give them my advice and then send them a bill," the lawyer replied.

The doctor was sitting in his office later in the week when a bill arrived from the lawyer.

Black and blue OLD story alert (or nostalgia, as we like to call it). Our tale about the Corps of Commissionaires reminds Jim Scott of when David Robertson was signed by Rangers from Aberdeen. Says Jim: "Davie, a nice country lad, was told he would have to fill in a questionnaire. So he went and kicked lumps out of the doorman at Ibrox."