THE DIARY: WEDNESDAY DECEMBER 17, 2008

PRIME Minister Gordon Brown's Christmas tree at 10 Downing Street has been supplied by Buchlyvie farmer Euan Duff.

That is not an excuse, however, for visitors to No 10 to ask about his "Duff Christmas tree".

The naked truth
BROADCASTING moments continued. A reader heard a BBC radio sports reporter comment on distracting advertising signs around a football ground, who added that "the health and efficiency people should ban them."

As Health and Efficiency was a naturist magazine much favoured by prurient schoolboys, one wonders if he actually meant, of course, Health and Safety.

• WHICH brings us to Strathclyde Fire and Rescue, who are putting on a short panto at its Hamilton headquarters today to highlight the serious issue of accidents at work. Already they qualify for the bad pun award by calling it "Santa's Elf & Safety".

Claus for thought
HUNDREDS of charity runners dressed up in white beards and red suits for the Santa Dash in Glasgow at the weekend when they were sponsored to run a 5km race. BBC presenter Brian Burnett approached one of the runners as he finished the race and asked: "What's your name?"

Naturally, the puffing runner replied: "Santa".

Fit for purpose?
THE Washington Post has calculated that President Bush spent nearly 2500 hours on exercise machines while he was at the White House. Our Washington correspondent tells us he only wanted to go on a treadmill for half an hour - but couldn't work out how to switch it off.

Jack's Bogie man
GLASGOW southside boulevardier Jack McLean was most put out when he went in to the Granary bar in Shawlands this week and was asked to remove his trademark fedora. It seems that bars with CCTV want customers to be bareheaded so that they can be identified if they cause trouble.

It is aimed, it has to be said, to hoodie or baseball cap-wearing troublemakers rather than elegant chaps in fedoras.

Jack's telling remark to the barmaid, "So I suppose you wouldn't serve Humphrey Bogart in here?", lost much of its impact when she asked who Humphrey was.

Binned by bag lady
A READER thought he was doing his bit for the environment when a shop assistant stuck the Christmas card he had just bought in a plastic bag.

"I don't need the bag," he told the young lady.

But his effort was perhaps spoiled when she took the card out of the plastic bag then scrunched the bag into a ball and threw it in the bin.

The pay-off . . .
ON the back of the Bernard Madoff's $50bn pyramid investment scandal, reader Norman Dryden ponders: "It's interesting that in the US it's considered a major crime if the original investors' money goes missing, and it's covered up by paying them from the contributions of new members.

"Here, we call it the state pension scheme."