That’s torn it

THE Diary’s curious to know if any readers heard that loud ripping noise yesterday evening at 11pm. A noise that sounded very much like two huge strips of Velcro being torn asunder. That was the sound of Brexit finally being implemented, of course. Now the UK has broken free of the EU for all eternity. Or until our next referendum. (We do enjoy a referendum. So exhilarating! Such a fun way to make new enemies!) With the Brexit debate finally over(ish), and Nigel Farage galloping off into the sunset, we’ve decided to have a peek inside the Diary vaults, to study similar momentous decisions, that either turned out for the good, or for the bad. (Spoiler alert: It’s always for the bad.) For instance, there was the bloke who decided to chat up a young lady, only to be informed: “I’m not your type. I’m not inflatable.”

Steak out

A BUS driver taking a party on a coach tour of the Scottish Borders was invited to join his grateful passengers for high tea. As orders were taken for steak pie, gammon, or chicken, the driver decided to pipe up: “Can I have a cheese salad, please, as I don’t believe in killing animals for food.” This remark was met by a stony silence. The party he was driving were retired butchers and their wives, on an outing organised by the ancient Incorporation of Fleshers of Glasgow.

Ruff mission

WE recall the Scottish Television cameraman who decided to accept a job to go down to the Possil housing scheme “to get background shots for a programme on the drug problem.” The cameraman misheard the instructions. After a day risking life and limb filming on those mean streets, he returned with definitive footage of the Alsatians, and sundry other dugs, who roam the range up Possil way.

Dispatched dromedary

A SOLDIER in the Royal Scots was out in the desert a few days after the Gulf War ceasefire. There was still the odd alarming bang and thump as shells and other bits of ammunition were disposed of. Our man duly heard a loud bang. Then he noticed a three-legged camel stagger onto the horizon. The poor thing has lost a leg on a landmine, he thought, before fixing it in his rifle sight and humanely consigning it to camel heaven. (Or camel hell, depending on the life it had lived.) Enter, stage left, an irate Bedouin who had been in pursuit of the camel. The very same camel that was always escaping, and one of whose legs he had hobbled up, so it wouldn’t run away too far.

Seeing red

BEING a west of Scotland mother makes you particularly defensive about your sons. We were once told of the mum who made the mistake of waiting at the test centre while her son was sitting his driving test. She could see from his glum expression that he had failed, so she asked the examiner what went wrong. The examiner said her son had failed to stop at a red light. “Well,” persisted the lad’s mother, “just how red was the light?”

Taking the P

A POSTER was once spotted in the Braehead Shopping Centre, urging people to buy shopping vouchers. It could have been better sited, as it was stuck on a pillar in the gents’ toilet, where it proclaimed: “Splash out on a friend.”