Novel idea
AUTHOR Jenny Colgan has revealed people aren’t always blown away by her literary output. “You would be astounded how often I get asked if I wouldn’t like to write a real novel,” she says.
Jenny, we should add, has written more than 40 best-selling works of fiction. Though if she isn’t allowed to call them novels, we’re not sure how they should be labelled.
"Pagey-Turney, Ready-Wordy Hingmies", perhaps?
Bricking it
ONE of Tom Law’s golfing buddies at his club near Dunoon admitted to Tom that he deliberately sliced a ball at the last hole of a competition to avoid delivering a winner’s speech.
“I can't see Tiger doing that,” says Tom.
Though Mr Woods plays for slightly more prize money than your average golfer. So we assume he overcomes any speech-making shyness by imagining each word he utters is a tiny gold brick leaping from his mouth directly into his bank account.
Old soak
A DIARY yarn about a phone reminds reader Simon Paterson of the tale of the elderly gent who decides to visit town. His daughter attempts to dissuade him from such an epic adventure, but off he goes, nonetheless. An hour later the daughter receives a phone call from dad: “Help me, I’ve wet myself.”
“Stay calm,” she replies. “I’ll come and get you. Where are you ringing from?”
“The waist down,” he explains.
Religious identity
THEOLOGICAL thought of the day comes from reader Larry Cheyne, who asks: “Do members of the clergy have an altar ego?”
Food for thought
WHEN he was a student Colin Brown worked in a pub at weekends. One morning one of the regulars arrived, ordered a lager, and, placing a squidgy mass on the bar, said with a fair amount of pride: “What do you think of that?”
Colin told the fellow it looked like a bedraggled portion of fish and chips. The customer agreed with this assessment. Furthermore he revealed that he had discovered it under his pillow that morning.
“Presumably it was left there by the fish and chip fairy,” says Colin.
Bible baddy
BIBLICAL badinage continued. Reader Finlay Buchanan has discovered an early reference to hooliganism in the Good Book, where it is reported that there is a bam of Gilead.
Horseplay
ANOTHER misheard song lyric. Norma McGovern from Dundee first heard the song Sailor by Petula Clark in 1961. In the chorus Petula sings: "In Capri or Amsterdam, Honolulu or Siam." What Norma heard was: "On a hulu horse I am."
“For years I wondered what breed of horse a hulu was,” says Norma.
Open question
DAFT question time. Reader Tom Fowler asks: “When is a door not a door?” The answer, of course, is when it’s ajar.
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