Picture this

BEFORE we leave the subject of Christopher Nolan’s Dunkirk film, we had to note Kate Griffin’s lament. “It took longer to exit the IMAX cinema carpark following a recent screening of Dunkirk than it does to cross the English channel”, she said. “Operation Dynamo needed!”

Switched on

BBC Scotland weather presenter Judith Ralston said on Twitter yesterday that she had asked her eldest son to hoover his room. She could hear the vacuum working but after a while realised that it had been on for a long time. So she popped her head around his door. And what did she find? The hoover was indeed plugged in - but her son was sitting reading.

Hair today, gone tomorrow

A DEGREE of panic struck rehearsals for Morag Fullerton’s Fringe production, Doris, Dolly and the Backstage Divas, which opened at the Gilded Balloon Rose Theatre last night.

Morag realised that a vital prop was missing – namely, Dolly Parton’s wig. “Gail Watson’s performance as Dolly brings the house down but she just isn’t Dolly without the wig”, she says. “It wasn’t with all the rest of the wardrobe and it wasn’t until someone, who will remain nameless and without gender, said that they had borrowed it for a fancy dress party, that the search was over.

“We had to forgive them when they said they had won best costume – unlike the singer herself, who came second in a drag Dolly Parton lookalike competition many years ago”.

Honest to a fault

RECENT tales of awkward interviews remind Gordon Smith of the time he and his colleagues were looking for an admin worker. After going through one applicant’s CV they asked what she felt were her strengths, then what she considered to be her weaknesses. After some thought she responded: “I think I would have to say honesty and being forthright”.

Gordon observed that he didn’t think honesty was a weakness, only to be brought up short by her caustic response: “I don’t give a **** what you think”.

Sweet talking

LANGUAGE difficulties, more of. John Mulholland says that many years ago his wife relocated to Scotland from England. During the first few weeks in her new job the bloke she was working with would ask her at lunchtime if she wanted some sweets. She always declined the offer but couldn’t understand why he always came back from the canteen with a can of cola for himself. It transpires that the poor chap was merely asking, ‘Tin ae ginger, hen?’

Bon mot

SPEAKING of languages, Eric Arbuckle said he thought he’d brush up on his French. “I tried to look up the meaning of ‘Ça ne fait rien’, but couldn’t find it after much searching, so I gave up. It doesn’t matter, I thought”.

Heart to heart

DIARY reader Jack Minnock is just out of hospital after a heart scare, so naturally his friends wanted to know all the details. Once he’d told them everything, one of them mused about growing old. Funny how life changes, he said. “When you were a teenager they used to tell you to carry a condom in your wallet and now that we’re all pensioners, they advise you to carry an aspirin in your wallet”.

And finally ...

DON’T throw away your concert ticket-stubs. They might be valuable one day. Seen on eBay yesterday - an “original and extremely rare” ticket for a concert by The Cure at Tiffany’s, in Glasgow, in May 1981. Price? A snip at £222.95.