Grapes of wrath
STAGGERING out of a supermarket while hefting heavy bags, Paul Cook was waylaid by a tramp requesting a hand-out. Our reader offered him a bunch of grapes from a bag.
It would not be an exaggeration to say the tramp was a tad disappointed.
“Wit am I meant tae dae wi’ them?” he harrumphed, glaring scornfully at the grapes. “Bung ’em in a bucket and bounce on their heids ‘til they turn intae Buckfast?”
Spellcheck
SPELLING standards at the BBC are falling, reader John Mulholland informs us. During a news item about the re-opening of non-essential shops in England, he swears he heard a reporter say: “There’s a ‘Q’ in Primark.”
Sunny side up
WE’VE been devising slogans for Scottish towns and cities. Alas, the exercise seems to have degenerated into a savage squabble between the residents of different postcodes. One reader promoted Beith at the expense of Leith. Now Russell Smith from Kilbirnie enters the fray with the following blurb celebrating his hometown:
“Beith is sunny,
But sometimes it urny.
Better by far
To bide in Kilburnie.”
Computer hacker
“A SPIDER crawled onto my computer,” reveals reader Marc Henry, who adds: “Don’t worry. It’s under cntrl.”
Silly cookie
A RECENT Diary story reminds Mary Duncan of the time she was out with her sister, Isabel. Entering a coffee shop, Isabel sat at a table while Mary went to the counter and called over to sis, asking what she wanted to eat.
Isabel replied: "Is that a cream cookie or a meringue?"
Chances such as this arrive only rarely in a lifetime. Mary made sure not to squander her moment in the sun. She replied exultantly: "No, you're quite right, Isabel. It's a cream cookie."
Cowboy salesmen
A LITERARY tale. “I was in a store where there was a third off all DVDs,” explains reader Dorothy Fowler. “So I bought The Good, The Bad…”
Clouding judgment
WHILE sitting in a classroom as a schoolboy, Jimmy Simpson had a habit of gazing dreamily out the window. On one occasion he was meant to be completing an English test, though his eyes were fixed, as usual, on the drifting clouds in the sky.
His teacher woke him from his reverie by snarling: “You won’t find the answer out that window, sonny.”
Jimmy glanced at his textbook and realised, with a snigger, that his teacher was wrong.
The question Jimmy was meant to be answering was: "Fill in the blank. 'I wandered lonely as a…'”
Fido-ishly funny
A DAFFY doggy joke. “What do you call a dog than can do magic?” asks reader Beth Wright. “A labracadabrador.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here