THE DIARY

It lists the makes of dresses such as "Mary Gorman in Gucci", so readers were surprised by Tracy Grabiner, wife of Arcadia's chief operating officer, Ian Grabiner, as being listed as "in an outfit by Oxfam". As hubby's company owns Wallis, Topshop and Dorothy Perkins, to name a few, surely she could have found something there. Or was it merely a catty remark overheard and put in the mag by mistake? Surely not.

Fired up

GIOVANNA Eusebi, right, who is holding a food and wine night in House for an Art Lover on November 29, attracted a BBC film crew after opening her delicatessen Garlic in Glasgow's east end. The telly crew wanted to illustrate how the east end was flourishing, with such an upmarket shop opening.

Giovanna had just said how she enjoyed serving the diverse and upstanding mix of locals, when a drunk appeared over the horizon, fixed his beady eye on the crew, and asked them what was going on.

In a rather posh London accent, one replied: "I'm the producer."

This information was digested by the drunk who asked: "Well, gonnae produce a fag then?"

Footballer booked

CELTIC captain Neil Lennon, above, turned up early for a book signing at East Kilbride's Ottakar's, which was selling his autobiography, Man And Bhoy, so he was put in the manager's office. While waiting, the phone rang, and as no-one was about, Neil picked it up and told the caller: "I'm not sure if we have that in stock, but if we haven't then we can certainly order it for you, and I will make sure someone will phone you back to let you know."

Replacing the phone, he told the publisher's representative: "I always wondered what I could do after my football career - now I know."

But the rep merely gave him into trouble for not suggesting Neil Lennon's book to the caller as an alternative.

Eyes down!

FUN-LOVING actor Rupert Everett returned to Glasgow's Citizens' Theatre this week to talk about his autobiography, Red Carpets and Other Banana Skins. He told the audience that when he worked at the Citz there was a simple way to put off award-winning director Philip Prowse if you did not want to rehearse: you simply said to him: "What about Coronation Street last night?"

As for the Glasgow audiences, which Rupert loved, he did confide that many folk came to see a show at the Citz in the seventies simply because it was cheaper than going to the bingo.

Railing at unfairness

GLASGOW stand-up Janey Godley, whose autobiography, Handstands In The Dark, has now been published in America, tells us she caught the Friday tea-time train from London to Oxford the other week.

She says she had never seen so many business types fighting and elbowing their way to get a seat. Failing to find one herself, Janey sat in first class, where a ticket inspector told her she had the wrong ticket.

She told him: "Look, mate, there are no seats on this train and I am not paying GBP18 to stand in a fat man's armpit outside a toilet in a corridor for an hour, so I am taking this seat. I refuse to be dangerously rattled about on this shaky s*** train, so deal with it."

At that he moved on, leaving a small lippy Glaswegian with a minor victory.

See you!

OUR story about a chap being helped across the road because the curtain rod he was carrying looked like a white stick, reminds Des Divers in Dunoon of when he was a bus driver in Glasgow and was on a special run picking up workers for the Blindcraft factory.

At one stop, a chap with an alsatian attempted to get on, and as all the other blind workers had labrador guide dogs, Des asked him was he sure he was going to Blindcraft as he did not have a labrador.

Obviously it was the moment the chap was waiting for, as it allowed him to reply: "How? What the hell have they given me?"