Lost in translation

ONE of the Diary’s pub pals tells a tale from a few years back, when a brigade of Wee Happy Buses tootled round Glasgow. (If you don’t remember these extraordinary vehicles, with their manic, grinning faces plastered across the front, they were an acid flashback for people who never took acid.) One time our friend witnessed a Dutch student attempting to hop on such a bus. As the student didn’t have the correct change, the wee angry driver inside the wee happy bus told him to: “Get aff ma bus right noo!” The downcast Dutchman did so, while repeating in a dazed manner: “Wee happy bus? Wee happy bus?”

Telly torture

IN our cheery corner of The Herald, the diary has been pondering hell of late. Or, to be precise, what hell would be like if tailored specifically to torture lost Scottish souls. Neil Wagner, from Uplawmoor, believes there would be no need of flames and pitchforks. Instead, hell would include a sofa and television. On this sofa a victim would be tied, with the telly switched on. So he could enjoy a box-set of Breaking Bad? Nope. Latest episode of Corrie? Uh-uh. Our suffering Scot would endure the 1966 World Cup Final. On a loop. For all eternity.

Poll position

MODERN politics. It’s a puzzle. Lucy Stewart from Corstorphine is certainly bamboozled by recent events: She gets in touch to complain: “I can remember when the news focused on opinion polls. Now it’s all about pole-dancing poles. What next? We’ll probably replace Hansard, the official transcripts of Parliament, with crumpled old copies of Playboy.”

Fiscal fight

WE continue to demand the installation of blue plaques to acknowledge previously uncelebrated Scottish achievements. Reader Walter Plimpton notes there are plenty of blue plaques indicating where military campaigns were fought. But one battle has never been officially recognised. “We should put up a blue plaque to celebrate the first doughty Scot who stood firm at an English shopping till and demanded his Scottish currency be accepted as legal tender,” says Walter.

Weighty matters

KEEPING fit, it’s never easy. Reader Claire Rodger is struggling to lose weight for her daughter’s wedding in six months. “I joined a slimming club, but it was right next to a McDonald’s,” she sighs. “Which is like holding an AA meeting in a Wetherspoons.” Claire, who has gained six pounds in the last month, informs us she has now quit the diet club. “In future, I’ll go straight to McDonald’s,” she says, “And cut out the middle man.”

Neighbourly nagging

READER Phil Sutherland grumbles that his discourteous neighbour keeps pestering him by ringing Phil’s doorbell at three in the morning. He says these disturbances have the potential to be even more irritating, but luckily Phil’s always awake at the time, playing his drums.