Herald Diary: On a puzzling note

Garbage advice

WE asked about the worst advice you have heard, and David Martin tells us: "A friend of mine, Martin Jamieson, was asked by Shirley Manson, then of Angelfish but previously Goodbye Mr MacKenzie, what he thought of the offer she had received to sing some demos with three American guys with a formative band. 'Seems a bit dodgy, best give it a miss,' he advised. Just as well she ignored him, as after multi-million selling success with the band Garbage, she is now playing soon to a sell-out gig at the Alhambra, Dunfermline."

Clothes line

AS we are now well into the Glasgow Fair Fortnight, we pass on the observation by Dan Gibson: "Definitely getting old. My 19-year-old daughter is packing to go to Magaluf with friends tomorrow, well supervising really, while my wife packs. She asks me, 'What do you think of these outfits?'

I ask her, 'Where's the rest of them?' Needless to say it has been made clear my assistance is no longer needed."

Big softy

AND talking of holidays, a reader back from his hols last week confides: "Still haven't taken my 'on holiday' automatic reply off my work emails. It's bliss."

And novelist Dolly Alderton fumed this week: "Was just charged by Ryanair for having a carry-on. I asked when this new policy began and the flight attendant said rather boastfully that there has been 'a soft launch' for a few months, like it’s a hotly anticipated wine bar."

Hand it to him

TALES about visiting France, continued. Says Gavin Weir in Ayrshire: "On one of my first visits to Paris in the early eighties, my wife, who had lived in France for some years, took charge while crossing roads as Parisians can be aggressive drivers. Leaving the Eiffel Tower to cross a busy road, she took my hand during a lull in traffic – only it was the hand of a tall, well-dressed black fellow this red-headed Scots woman grabbed, to drag out onto the road. A big surprise for both of them."

Dark thoughts

WE like parents' confessions about bringing up their children, and we detect just a hint of bitterness as a female reader declares: "My kids ask me why I wear so much black. I told them it's because I'm in mourning for the body I used to have before they came along."

Flushed with success

AS we continue to remember the moon landing, George Beagrie in Kilwinning – and please, this is not a reflection on folk from Kilwinning – recalls: "In July 1969 we were in a Vienna campsite while on a motoring and camping holiday in Central Europe. Whilst being amazed at the technology involved in the landing, and with crowds watching the fuzzy television pictures, there was another piece of advanced Austrian technology to intrigue and amaze me. In the Gent’s toilet block, there was a mysterious electronic beam in front of the urinals, which when passed through, caused an automatic flush. Therefore on the night of the supreme event on the moon, there could be seen a Scottish camper, walking forwards and backwards towards the urinals, intrigued by the automatic flushing."