THE DIARY TUESDAY 24 JUNE 2008

OUR tales of surreptitiously teaching foreigners Scottish insults reminds Heather Black of when she worked at OKI in Cumbernauld, where the new export manager from Japan was told that, just as it was honourable to add the word "San" after someone's name in Japan, the Scottish equivalent was adding the word "Hen" to females' names. Thus, the chap cheerfully went around calling the girls in the department "Carol Hen" and "Heather Hen" - which was quite nice really.

Bin there, done it

THOMAS O'Connor from Paisley was crossing the border from Argentina to Chile, and as he shuffled through no-man's land, he noticed that the holly-green wheely bin there really was a Glasgow City Council bin complete with a "No Hot Ashes" warning.

Says Thomas: "Normally, taking pictures at border crossings is a big no-no, but the lady guard who posed with me thought I was daft for getting excited about a big smelly bin." No explanation why it was thousands of miles away from home - all we could think of was a fan using it for his cairry-oot at the World Cup in Argentina then abandoning it, but who knows?

Born loser

A REVELLER emerging from Selkirk's Common Riding Ball at the Victoria Hall at 4am hailed a taxi. "Where'd you come frae?" asked the driver. "Roslin," replied the passenger, and promptly fell asleep.

He was wakened for further instructions at Roslin in Midlothian, where he had to explain that, while Roslin was his birthplace, which he foolishly thought was the question, he did, indeed, now live in Selkirk - which meant a £50 taxi bill from Selkirk to Roslin, and another £50 for the return journey home.

Dream on

"I do 10 sit-ups first thing every morning," said the chap in the pub the other night.

"It might not sound like much, but there are only so many times you can hit the snooze button."

Woolly thinking

Chester Studzinski attended the outdoor performance of Shakespeare's The Winter's Tale by London Globe at Glasgow University and said there was fevered anticipation at the interval as the programme referred to the shepherds attending a "sheep sharing festival" - but fortunately it turned out to be a misprint.

Bagsy first

WE mentioned Glasgow Jazz Festival opening act The Blessing asking for four paper bags in their rider to wear over their heads. Marketing manager Craig Reece eventually found the ideal bags in a Chinese supermarket, where he had to haggle hard to buy four of them as they came in packs of 500.

So the band did, indeed, perform their first number wearing the bags - but they later confessed that, although they always asked for them, no venue had actually produced them before, so they felt obliged to give it a go in Glasgow.

On safari

WE hear about the Queen of the South fan who got lost in Glasgow going to the Scottish Cup Final at Hampden against Rangers last month. He eventually arrived a quarter of an hour late. His pals have now nicknamed him the Big Game Hunter.

Betting legends

THE death of risk-taking Scottish bookmaker "Fearless" Freddie Williams reminds us of the Diary story when Freddie was taking bets on how many goals Cumnock Juniors would beat a wee diddy team by in a cup tie.

The visitors' committee didn't fancy their chances, either, and backed their side being beaten 5-0. At half-time it was nil all, and after a stern lecture, the visiting goalkeeper amazingly let in five goals, and the committee collected. Freddie, though, had already taken a bundle from locals backing Cumnock to win by at least six.