Pupils at Glasgow’s Holyrood Secondary can now order their lunchtime snacks by text using their mobiles to send their order ahead to the quaintly-named “Healthier Options” fast food van which sits outside the school entrance. They just pay and collect to avoid long queues, some of which include texting staff as well.

Exactly what the healthy eating tsars might make of this is open to question, but anyone looking for a lesson in enterprise, need look no further than the owner of Healthier Options. He has already changed the van’s opening hours to be able to serve up brekkies to accord with the school’s new 33 period-week timetable - while taking the tasty texts as well.

Bright spark

Brian Cooklin, the leader of School Leaders Scotland, was in reminiscent mood when he appeared before Holyrood’s education committee recently.

He revealed himself as a Mastermind contestant in the 1980s, his specialist subject being “women in the novels of Thomas Hardy”. His local paper thought differently, however, and reported it as two topics - women and Thomas Hardy. In the opening round Cooklin got all his questions right, but he eventually lost out by one mark.

Let’s hope the Holyrood note-takers at least get his name right. Whitehall’s education department once sent him a letter addressed to “Brain Cockin”. The first name he thought was a compliment but he wasn’t sure about the second, he quipped.

Only in Glasgow

The Sunday school children were being tested to see if they understood the concept of getting to Heaven.

“If I sold my house and my car, had a big garage sale and gave all my money to the church, would that get me into Heaven?” the teacher asked.

“No,” the children answered.

“If I cleaned the church every day, mowed the garden, and kept everything neat and tidy, would that get me into Heaven?”

“No!”

Excellent, the teacher thought. “So,” he continued, “how can I get into Heaven?”

The angelic tones of a six-year-old boy rang out: “You’ve got to be f****n’ deid.”

Put it another way

The recent Selmas conference on leadership featured a panel discussion with four speakers, whose topics were leading change, council budget cuts, the context of leadership and succession planning. Colin Russell, the head of Dean Park Primary in Balerno, characterised it thus: “I’m here to talk about how to lead change, Gillian is here to say we can’t afford it, Iain will tell you you won’t be allowed to do it anyway and Judith will suggest you can always take early retirement.”