Conventional thinking Book publicist Moira Macmillan looks at all the coverage of whether the British navy personnel seized by the Iranians should be allowed to make money from writing about their ordeal and wonders: "Perhaps the Geneva Convention should be changed so that all that prisoners of war should be obliged to give is name, rank, and serial rights."

Suits who? Actually Leading Seaman Faye Turney, who has already made money from talking about her time in Iran, did at least manage a joke about the situation. When she was asked about the ill-fitting suits that her fellow captives were released in, she replied: "The suits were champion, made to measure - obviously not for the lads who were wearing them."

Fact of life WE are always great fans of conversations overheard on buses. Thistle fan Jim Rudge caught the bus to Firhill one Saturday and, while travelling through Springburn, two ladies well into their seventies sat in front of him and discussed a spinster friend of theirs getting married at the age of 79.

"Well, at least she'll no die wonderin'," was the final comment on the subject.

Mull this over AH, the internet; a wonderful thing. The Tron Theatre in Glasgow received an excited phone call from a theatre-goer on the Mediterranean island of Cyprus who couldn't wait to find out where on the island the Tron was putting on a show. Puzzled staff checked their website where the expat had read: "Mull Theatre: Cyprus." Alas she had to be gently told that the Mull Theatre Company was putting on a show entitled Cyprus at the Tron in Glasgow and that there were no plans to appear on Cyprus itself.

The show is, in fact, about the Iraq war and the monitoring carried out by the intelligence community on Cyprus.

Still, at least they now know there is some interest if they ever think about going there.

Horses for courses OUR mention of folk abroad attempting English phrases and not quite getting there, reminds Richard Dye in France of consulting an English-speaking French lawyer when the subject of dishonest lawyers came up.

"Yes," said the lawyer, "we do have a few dark lambs."

Richard assumes the phrase he was looking for was "black sheep", unless he was suggesting that the French lawyers were perhaps just not quite as bad as that.

On the bounce TIME to put the malapropisms to bed for a while, but we will end with Tony Carlin telling about a former work colleague who announced that his granny's house had lost some tiles in high wind and he had to go round "to put a trampoline on the roof".

"Endless fun for the pensioner," thought Tony. "But surely a wee bit dangerous?"

Further educational worries. Annie Thornton works in a corner shop where there is a notice in the window publicising that all ice-cream was reduced by one-third. Two teenage boys were having a discussion as to whether a third was more than a half.

Keeping the faith AND, of course, it is not just general education which readers will argue is not what it used to be - religious education is not what it was either. A reader overheard a discussion involving his 16-year-old sister and two friends over the meaning of Easter.

One of them was busy explaining how it was to celebrate the day that Jesus "rolled an egg down a hill", only to be corrected by her friend, horrified that the others didn't realise that Easter Sunday was the day Jesus was born.

It's a point of view SINGER Madonna is to appear at Wembley Stadium this summer in a concert which is part of a series of events to highlight the threat of climate change.

Madonna is, of course, not averse to telling folk what she thinks about a whole variety of subjects. As she once memorably put it: "Everyone's entitled to my opinion."