The bald facts

THE movie version of the Alasdair Gray novel Poor Things appears to have been gutted of its Glesga bits, which is a pity, because the original is a gloriously Glesga-ish slab of writing.

Nevertheless, the film looks set to be a Barbie-sized hit with audiences. It isn’t released for another few months, though a screening at the Venice Film Festival received an eight-minute standing ovation.

What would the late author have thought about such adulation?

Not much, perhaps, for Alasdair was a humble chap.

Heralded as Scotland’s finest author of modernist literature, he nevertheless was content to once describe himself as: “A fat, spectacled, balding, increasingly old Glasgow pedestrian.”

 

Boaty badinage

ONE of the CalMac ferries being built at Ferguson shipyard is to be named Glen Rosa. Reader Raymond McMillan likes the moniker, though thinks it should have been called the Glen Michael, “because the whole ferry saga has been a Cartoon Cavalcade”.

 

Toilet humour

A MILNGAVIE reader tells us about a chap he knows who owns a successful painting and decorating firm in Glasgow.

The son of this entrepreneur left his private school to join the family biz, so dad arranged for him to go out on a job.
Shortly after arriving at the west end site he was obliged to ask the lady of the house if he could possibly use her toilet.
“Just do it in the bushes,” she instructed him.

The young fellow proved that his expensive education had been worth every penny when he displayed truly aristocratic levels of class and sophistication, by saying: “Would you like me to face the house, or away from it?”

 

Illuminating ingesting

HEALTH-CONSCIOUS Jennifer Hill from East Kilbride tells us: “I’m on a light diet. I eat by daylight, lamplight and sometimes even the fridge light.”

 

Cop that

IN Los Angeles a police robot (yup, they have such things in LA LA Land) ordered a woman to go away after she tried to report a crime. The machine then trundled off, singing a wee song to itself.

Says Scottish comedian Leo Kearse: “I can't believe they've managed to create a robot that's exactly as effective as a real police officer.”

 

Flat out weird

A DIARY yarn about housework inspires reader Helen Russell to say: “I love wearing freshly-ironed clothes but hate ironing… which is a little ironic.”

 

Game on

AMBITIOUS reader Lee Cooke has devised a board game that combines chess, Connect Four and battleships. “It's called rook, line and sinker,” he says.