YESTERDAY'S Diary had an item about the most inappropriate places where mobile phones have been used.
Reader William J Harris emails us with a cryptic contribution: "Herald journalist, Tennent's Bar toilets a few Hogmanays back, between urinal & wash-hand basin," he says.
The Diary wracks its brains (never the most challenging of exercises) and can assert, reasonably confidently, that it has never been in Tennent's.
Not at Hogmanay, anyway.
Sanity clause
MID-October, and already the first signs of a Santa Claus backlash.
An @OfficialSanta account has just been launched on Twitter. Word reaches DJ Chris Moyles, who responds grumpily: "I'm not usually a 'bah humbug' person, but this guy can p*** off for at least another 6 weeks..."
Living on a prayer
VIA Robin Gilmour we hear about a young boy called Jamie, who sat down with his parents to Sunday lunch at grandma's, and got stuck in as soon as the food appeared.
"Jamie," cautions his mother. "Wait 'til we say our prayer, son."
"Don't need to, mum," he replies
"Of course you do," she insists. "We always say a prayer before eating at our house".
"That's at our house," he explains. "But this is grandma's house ... and she knows how to cook."
Doomed romance
FURTHER evidence that romance can flourish in the most unlikely of places - even the Edinburgh Dungeon, which revels in the dark and bloodier side of Scotland's history.
One bloke who visited it has publicly declared his admiration for a "small, cute actress" who works there and has suggested dinner.
Which has prompted the Dungeon to respond (light-heartedly, we think) that it's not running a dating service ... and that all of its small, cute staff are now firmly under lock and key.
Fowl play
COMEDIAN Susan Calman got herself into a bit of a mess on a train yesterday.
As she tweeted to her 45,000 Twitter followers: "On train. Dropped half a coronation chicken sandwich down my jumper. Tried to rub it off. Smeared it over a larger area. Bringing sexy back."
Even better was the response of one of her followers: "Should keep you safe in the event of a vegan zombie apocalypse though. It's not messy, it's forward planning."
Top of the pops
LAST week saw 'Super Thursday' in the UK book trade, with no fewer than 315 new hardbacks hitting the bookstores in the run-up to Christmas.
Glasgow author Deedee Cuddihy missed out, but remains philosophical: "Maybe it's just as well," she says. "After all, if 'I Love Irn-Bru 2' - my follow-up to 'I Love Irn-Bru' - had come out at the same time as books by Ray Winstone, John Cleese and Paul Hollywood it might have damaged their sales."
Nice little plug there, Deedee. Well done.
Hang on a second
'THREE more suspended in Tesco profits investigation', read the headline in the Herald business pages the other day.
"There may be nothing wrong with a good hanging - it might even do them some good," counters Russell Smith, but still, it does seem a little bit drastic.
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