WHY DO EVIL EX-CLASSMATES WANT TO BE MY FRIEND?

WHATEVER happened to staying in touch with mates by letter or a quick phone call? I am too old to understand the networking websites such as Bebo, Facebook and MySpace. I do have accounts with all three as, being a stand-up comic, it's important to get a handle on new media, though such is my confusion with this technology that I have to get my daughter Ashley to explain the workings to me.
On the Facebook site, I have apparently been bitten by 14 zombies and three people have thrown a sheep at me – all in cyberspace, of course. Who does that to their friends in real life?

There are so many different applications you have to download and manage that it would take a full-time job to throw sheep back at people and bite chumps daily (whatever that means).

Some people from my old school have started getting in touch and adding me as their friends.

I never liked most of them, and the reason I lost touch was because they either irritated or bullied me when I was a kid. Thirty years later, a friendly request and a few smiley-faced e-mails are not going to heal those wounds.

Meeting people from your past is an awkward situation at the best of times. Meeting people who called you "a smelly, flat-chested gnome" is even worse, especially when they send you a deeply emotional e-mail that explains how much they loved you at school.

It's an extraordinary experience.

I was severely unpopular at school. I was the poor kid. I was also incredibly skinny and so flat-chested I made an ironing board look voluptuous. Young guys in my class would tease me and call me a boy. They would try to pull up my shirt to reveal my bony, flat chest. I was 15 and desperate for breasts to grow. I was horribly jealous of the girls who boasted pointy boobs and wore bright white bras that glowed proudly through their school blouse. I had no need for a bra back then and have no need for friends like these now.

These evil ex-teenagers now send me their contact details and assume I have had a stroke and my past memory has been wiped out.

"Hi Janey, I recall when you were Janey Currie you and I used to hang out together in the second year of Eastbank Academy and we dated for two whole weeks in 1974," wrote one bloke whose name I vaguely recalled.

This was an outrageous lie. I never had a boyfriend in my entire school days. I wished I had snared myself a boyfriend back then. How I yearned to be like the cool girls who always had a boy waiting for them at the school gates.

So I wrote back: "Dear pathological liar, you were the good looking guy in the bright blue acrylic jumper that had three silver stars on it; two were placed inappropriately over both your nipples and one where your tummy button would be. It was a fashion mistake, but the 70s were full of them so don't take it personally. Fashion was your thing back then because you always slagged me off for wearing the same jumper two weeks running (I was very poor back then). You always made sure everyone noticed my dirty shoes and unwashed hair. I was not your girlfriend. I may have been underprivileged but I wasn't blind and mad. You must mistake me for some girl who fancied boys that inflicted pain on them. Your ex-bully victim, Janey Godley."

I have quite a few of these messages on various networking sites. I don't consider myself famous – I am not even a Z-list celebrity. So what makes these guys come out now and declare to me their puppy love of the 1970s?

I have stopped replying to them as I have become increasingly nasty to these old, fat men who used to be young, skinny, long-haired, insecure bully boys. I laugh out loud when I look at their profile picture. I thank God I never dated or married any of them. I am not saying time has been kind to me, but I still have a full head of hair and most of my faculties.

True friends never need to search for you on the web. They never lose touch in the first place.

I am off now to throw a sheep at an old teacher who gave me the strap but has now declared me her favourite pupil.

ANOTHER SCOT WITH THE X FACTOR

IT'S a good year for the Scots boys. First, back in July, my mate John Smeaton brought the word Braveheart back into the national consciousness. Then, on Saturday, our own wee Leon Jackson bravely took on the might of the Welsh warbler Rhydian and sugary-sweet toothy-twosome Same Difference in The X Factor.

Music supremo Simon Cowell begged the English to vote for his smiley duo. He assumed the population demographics would swing it, but Scotland got on the phone and made young Leon from Livingston king of the night.

I loved Leon; he was shy, cute and, despite his youth, an amazingly versatile singer. Watching his wee mammy cry at him winning the £1 million recording contract was so emotional I even shed a tear myself.

Scotland can overcome the odds…but just no' at fitba'.

'OOH, LOOK AT THAT SLUT, MUMMY'

LAST week my 10-year-old nephew, Shaun, looked out of his window, clapped excitedly and shouted: "Slut!"

His mum was aghast.

"What did you just say, Shaun?"

"It's slutting out there, mum! It's rain and snow mixed together."

"Shaun, that's sleet," his mum said. "Slut is a nasty word and you must never say that."

"Oh, no!" He threw his hands up to his face: "I did a drawing at school and it showed a winter scene and I wrote on it 'Slut comes at Christmas'. I am in trouble now."

His mum was horrified and Shaun promised to retrieve it from the art box at school and adjust the spelling the very next day.

"So what's a slut?" he asked.

His mum had to explain the meaning and wee Shaun ran to school early the next day and ripped up his artwork.

He now has a picture of a snowman.

CRACKLING KNICKERS

LAST Friday, I asked my husband to pack the suitcase for me as I was too busy and he handed it to me at the airport.

On arrival in London, I unpacked and realised there were no pyjamas, bras or socks.

There were the red satin knickers that I don't really wear and a scratchy black nylon basque that has been in my closet since the 1980s. The material crackled with static as I dragged it out. I was aghast. When did he see me in this?

I called him to complain: "Do you think I am a fat old stripper?"

His answer was simple: "Why is that stuff in your knicker drawer if you don't wear it?"

"Because you bought me that crap for Christmas years ago and I kept it in case you became a cross dresser."

Guys, this Christmas let your women buy their own underwear.