Scone to war
THE new blockbuster movie about the life and violent times of Napoleon Bonaparte is soon to be released.
It promises to be a celebration of those grand and sweeping events of history, when a paradigm shift takes place in the annals of our species, and nothing is ever the same again.
Meanwhile, author Deedee Cuddihy has written a dinky wee book about scones. And Napoleon Bonaparte doesn’t appear. Not even once.
Deedee, who is based in Glasgow’s west end, subscribes to the Dinky Wee Theory of History, which states that all of the truly seminal events in the chronicles of mankind can easily be slipped into the back pocket of a pair of jeans, much like a Deedee book.
"I Love Scones" - available on funnyscottishbooks.co.uk - contains many amusing anecdotes about people’s passion for baked treats, including the fact that the phrase "mad-scone" was once submitted for possible inclusion in the Collins English Dictionary.
Apparently the term means that a person has acted in an unexpected manner.
For example: “See that Napoleon Bonaparte? The mad-scone has only gone and invaded half of Europe.”
Fighting talk
WE’RE figuring out what certain objects would be called if they had been named by the same bright spark who decided to call a two-way radio a walkie-talkie.
Douglas McCulloch from Cumbernauld suggests that a boxing glove would be referred to as a… punchy-wunchy nosey-crunchy.
Life lesson
A DIARY epic about a cheeky high school scallywag reminds English teacher Jan Cassidy of the first day of term, when a young scholar marched into her class, flopped down at a desk, then said in a very curt manner: “Well, go oan then, miss. Gie us the answers tae life, an a’ that. We huvnae got all day.”
The name game
EAGLE-EYED Diary correspondent John Mulholland noticed that the BBC website published an article about Scottish health secretary Michael Matheson’s hefty iPad bill from his Moroccan holiday. The problem was allegedly caused by an out-of-date SIM card.
Our reader assumes the BBC reporter is an expert on such matters, because his name is… Philip Sim.
Poling results
THE Diary is celebrating madcap workplace monikers. David K Gemmell from Lanark says: “Over 50 years ago, when I worked in England, a Scottish colleague from Glasgow, Henric Radzivonik, gained the apt and amusing nickname, Caber… the Scots Pole.”
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No can do
TECHNICALLY-MINDED reader Chris Robertson points out: “A can opener that doesn’t work is a can’t opener.”
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