Resolve

A GOOD New Year to all Diary readers. We have to ask, do people still make New Year Resolutions? A reader once told us: "I don't make new ones. I just repeat last year's but tell myself I really mean it this time.”

Ruffling feathers

THE great New Year's tradition in Scotland is our old chum Jackie Bird hosting the BBC's Hogmanay show. We remember one year the singer Paolo Nutini was a guest, and before recording his slot he told Jackie: "I've always wanted to meet you since me and my mates at the pool in the health club would watch you on the StairMaster, and we all said, 'There's Jackie Bird, she's quite fit'." Jackie later told us: "Wasn't that nice of him to stop there, and not complete what I reckon was the full sentence – 'There's Jackie Bird, she's quite fit for an old bird'."

A bit miserable

FUNNY to see the reactions to the latest TV version of Victor Hugo's great historical novel about France, Les Miserables, which began the other night. As one viewer angrily retorted on social media: "The next t**t to complain that an adaptation of one of the best novels of the 19th centuries doesn’t have any crappy singing in it gets thumped."

That's the one

WE are trying to remember all the benefits of a New Year, and we recall one a reader told us about which we had never thought of. A Fifer passed on to us that a friend was playing golf on New Year's morning and shot a hole-in-one at the 16th. As it was his first ever he was delighted to have finally achieved what all golfers long to do. He quickly realised the consequence of having a hole-in-one, but then suddenly remembered that the bar was closed as it was New Year's Day, so it didn't even cost him an expensive round of drinks.

Put foot in it

THINKING of starting a diet for the New Year? A reader swears to us: "If you start out with just one foot on the bathroom scales, then holding onto the towel rack, slowly edge your other foot on and slowly let go of the rack. Admittedly, this takes time, but it's worth it. You will weigh at least two pounds less than if you'd stepped on normally." That can't be true, can it?

That’s a date

HOSPITAL stories, continued. Says Daniel McColgan: “A friend who was recently attending a hospital appointment was asked the usual questions to check the details were correct and was finally asked if there had been any change to his date of birth. The receptionist obviously didn’t realise their error and my friend politely responded, ‘No’.”

Out with a bang

OUR mention of ex-Python Michael Palin receiving a knighthood reminds a reader of when Glasgow actor Ford Kiernan was filming a TV show about that great Scottish comic The Dandy, at the Edinburgh Book Festival. Ford bumped into Michael at the festival and showed him a Dandy Thunderbang – you remember, the stiffened paper triangles which made a loud bang. Michael inspected the Thunderbang before opining: "You don't get one of those with the Times Literary Supplement, do you?'

Heads up

WAS trying to slip out of the office but was trapped by a colleague who told me: “I used to always bury my head in the sand at school. He eventually expelled me.”