Put foot in it
WELL, did you have a good Christmas? A Glasgow reader felt for the woman in Buchanan Street last week, weighed down with bags, who announced to anyone listening: "I don't know what's going to give out first - my feet or my money."
And for a touch of topicality, Mike Vecchione declared: "I made my nativity scene contemporary, by facing everyone away from each other, while on their phones."
A cracker
IT can be a difficult time of year. As East Kilbride-born crime writer Denise Mina, author of the Garnethill crime trilogy, confessed to friends on social media: "Texted a pal a porno Santa pic with 'Happy Crimbo, bitch!' but she was visiting her mum in hospital and had left her phone on the bed while she went to the loo. Now we have to pretend the dark web stole my phone from my handbag. I'm 52."
Breath of fresh air
AND some of us can identify with Mary who was out Christmas shopping and passes on: "The cashier said I love your perfume, and I said, 'Oh I'm not wearing any perfume'. Then we both noticed the lady browsing about 15 feet away. Then we both got real quiet and didn't say anything more about it."
Get a grip
OUR stories about funerals - yes, it's being so cheery that keeps us going - remind Sybl Wallace: "Coming out of the Crematorium at Maryhill we were greeted by a frozen landscape. Conditions underfoot were treacherous. There was the linking of arms to get down gingerly to the carpark. Someone was overheard remarking that, 'At least they might have put down some ashes'."
Number's up
AND another Diary story reminded Stuart Forbes: "One evening I got off the train at Alloa to find there were no taxis. I decided to go to a local hostelry and get the barman to phone for one, and a local toper offered to get me a taxi from his phone. However, he could not remember his pin number. Seeing a Celtic tattoo on his arm I helpfully suggested 1888, the year of Celtic’s formation, or 1967, the year they won the European Cup, to which he replied, 'Naw mate. It’s my prison number!'"
Drink to that
DID you get one of this fancy gins as a Christmas present. As a reader tells us: "I'm so old, I remember when gin only came in gin flavour."
Bit of a Paddy
SAD to hear of the death of former Liberal leader Paddy Ashdown. One of our political writers once told me that he liked Paddy's gag in his last speech as party leader when he said that one of the more memorable pronouncements of Labour's hapless John Prescott was, 'The Green Belt is a Labour achievement - and we are determined to build on it'.''
Take it away
AS talk grows of folk hoarding foodstuffs and medicines in fear of a hard Brexit, a reader tells us all he seems to have hoarded is about 50 plastic bags under the sink, 12 menus for Chinese takeaways he has never been to, and 80 business cards from folk he has no recollection of ever meeting. Any other unusual hoarding out there?
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