Herald Diary: Holiday liberties

Worth a shot

SHOCKER of a start for local star Rory McIlroy at The Open's first round at Royal Portrush with an eight at the first, followed by a 13 at the seventh by former world Number 1 David Duval. As our old colleague Ruth Wishart put it: "A one-time golfing superstar has just run up a 13 at a single hole. Thirteen! May have to dust off the clubs currently adding a sporting touch to the garage."

Whoopsie

WE asked about your trips to France and Richard Hunter in Killearn says: "I clear up the dog poo – 'caca' in colloquial French – on the lawn of our French holiday house each week before my lovely gardener comes round to do his stuff. One week I said to him: 'J’ai fait le caca dans le jardin', intending to say I’d cleared it for him as usual. We both split our sides when he asked me in French where in particular I’d done the caca."

Nursed it

REMEMBERING the Moon landing, continued. Recalled Glasgow actor Gavin Mitchell: "I actually remember watching the Moon landing, I even remember what I was wearing – it was a nurse's uniform free with Twinkle, a girls comic. This consisted of a plastic Red Cross apron and hat. And I kept trying to administer treatment to my big brother who was lying on the couch trying to watch the event as I got in his way. I always had a sense of theatricality, gender fluidity, pushing my range, and being bloody annoying."

Remembering Rony

SUCH sad news that Rony Bridges, scriptwriter, actor, gallery owner, pub manager and more recently charity organiser, has died. Starchild, which he organised with his lovely partner Michaela Foster Marsh, has helped build and run a school in Uganda which has more than 100 pupils. His other big success was when he wrote Six and a Tanner, a moving play about growing up in Springburn with an alcoholic domineering father. It was put on at Greenock Prison, and afterwards a chuffed Rony told actor Tony Roper: "One lifer told me it was the most powerful piece of drama he had ever seen."

"To be fair," replied Tony cautiously, "he probably doesn't get out much."

Drink to that

LOTS of folk on social media going on about an app that takes your picture and shows you what you would look like when you are older. "I got the same result just looking in the bathroom mirror," says one reader. And as Mike Ritchie tells us: "The social media excitement about FaceApps didn’t extend to one disgruntled Facebook poster in Glasgow. 'If you want to see what you’ll look like when you are old then you should just go to The Lismore,' he said, referring to the regulars in a more traditional bar in the city's west end."

Wishy washy

DAN Regan tells us of a conversation which illustrates the tensions that can suddenly appear in a marriage. "Wife: 'Did you put the clothes in the washer?' Me: 'Yes'. Wife, 'Did you turn it on?' Me, 'You didn't tell me to'."