A DEFINITE candidate for the top shelf in your local video shop is an
offering from the European Commission Directorate-general for
Agriculture's Veterinary and Psychosanitary office.
The Euro dung-fuhrers have produced a trilogy of video nasties
cheerily titled Slaughtering Cattle, Pigs, and Sheep. Since you dear
readers may still be breakfasting, we will not go into any great detail.
Well maybe just a bit. The sheep video includes shots of ''skinning of
the head using the appropriate machinery''. Hannibal Lecter and The
Silence of the Lambs haven't got a look-in.
High and mighty
FANS of the Rab C Nesbitt programme may recall a recent episode in
which Mary and Ella had a night out at a club where they were
entertained by an exotic male dancer described as a ''rhinestone heather
cowboy'' called Highlander.
This chap's agents, JT Entertainments of Dalgety Bay, Fife, have
circulated sundry pubs and clubs in Glasgow intimating that Highlander
is available for gigs.
Why is an upmarket operation like the Herald Diary telling you this?
Well, we were impressed by the sheer variety of Highlander's talents. As
well as his Highland dancing, he is an accomplished drag artist, it says
here. In ''his own notorious creation'' he appears as a transvestite
called Wilma Bumdoo.
We are sure Highlander is great fun and extremely talented and we're
not just saying that because he stands 6ft 4in tall and, it says here,
is very muscly.
Foiled again
A NAE Luck Award, this time to Hugh McMahon, the campaigning Euro-MP
against whom there will never be a cash-for-questions scandal. Like most
of the Scots MEPs our Hughie will happily raise an issue, especially if
it results in a wee mention in the papers.
This week he received a letter from a high-heid Eurocrat in the
Brussels Commission with which he had taken up the case of a foreign
national constituent who is illegally being prevented from working in
Scotland.
The Commission promised to investigate, pointing out that Hughie would
not have to pay for the case. Much as this gratified the Member for
Strathclyde West, he was disappointed to read: ''To protect your rights
the Commission will not reveal your identity when dealing with the
authorities of the member state against which your complaint is
directed.''
Under the weather
THE scene is a school in darkest Lanarkshire, where teacher has asked
her little charges to write a short story about the weather. To help
them, she has written a list of useful words, including windy. Thus one
of the offerings: ''The windy cleaner cums tae ma bit but it's too windy
tae wash the windys.''
Going bananas
IT has been brought to our attention that the Diary has been remiss in
offering prizes of ardent spirits and on the basis that any old excuse
will do, we offer the Great Langs Banana Rum competition.
This peculiarly Scottish drink is about to be launched at our English
chums. Ricky Agnew, the chap who used to run the chain of off-licence
shops where there was always change, is the man who plans to get them
going bananas for the drink south of the Border. ''Langs Banana Rum is
one of Scotland's favourite niche products. Everyone knows it,'' says
Ricky.
We have a quantity of bottles of the product to dispense and the first
will go to the first person who contacts the Diary with the answer to
the simple question: How many bananas does it make a bottle of Langs
Banana Rum: a. One dozen; b. One; c. None.
Answers to the usual address. Employees of Langs Banana Rum and Ffyfes
may not enter.
OUR thanks to Jane C Lang of Bridge of Weir who has brought back from
her travels not one but two photies. From West Berlin we have a Chinese
restaurant which appears to celebrate the breaching of a certain wall.
And from Cahors in France a street sign which proves that Alexander
Graham Bell had a separate secret identity.
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