A flare for poetry

GREG Hemphill hasn’t been idle since the demise of Still Game, the sitcom he co-created with Ford Kiernan. Rather than vegetating he’s been versifying, producing a lyrical ode about the frequency of flaring at the Mossmorran chemical plant on the outskirts of Cowdenbeath.

If only Keats had stumbled upon such a blissful subject. Generations of schoolchildren would have avoided the tedium associated with recounting the home life of some twittering birdy.

Being a lover of all things poetical, the Diary now quotes Greg’s poem in its epic entirety…

“I do not care

For the Mossmoran flare.”

Feud for thought

ELTON John’s festering feud with Rod Stewart is like a rendition of Rocket Man belted out on a karaoke machine by the office manager during a work night out. No matter how excruciating the song and dance, it would be a treasonable offence for someone to attempt to halt it in mid-flow.

Even so, Rod has held out an olive branch to his former chum, emailing an invite for Elton to bring his sons over for a game of footy. Elton, luxuriating in his huff-and-a-half, hasn’t responded.

Tom Coburn says the curmudgeonly crooner could have turned up and continued his feud.

“All Elton needed to do was dress his kids in Rangers strips,” explains our Machiavellian reader. “Then Rod would have rammed his olive branch where the sun don’t shine.”

Boris’s hammy performance

BOMBASTIC Boris Johnson claims that wind turbines will soon power every home. James McEnaney, author of A Scottish Journey, is most impressed, believing the announcement can only mean one thing: “Within five years we'll be installing hamster wheels on the sides of our houses and having our children run as fast as they can in the hope of switching on the wee light above the cooker.”

Jim-jam joke

A QUIRKY question from reader Charles Butler: “Do you think Jeff Bezos sleeps naked? Or with pajamazon?”

Far-flung feuding

WHEN reader Kate Mitchell’s son revealed he wanted to join the Army she asked when was the last time the gentle lad had been involved in combat of any sort. I slagged off some guy on Twitter,” replied her son. “It definitely would have come to blows if I hadn’t been in Scotland and he was in Canada.”

What a card

“MY friend struggled to pay his water bill,” says reader Bob Garner. “So I sent him a ‘get well soon’ card.”

Biting humour

DAFT joke time. “What do you call someone who eats other people slowly?” asks William Ferguson. “A cannibble.”

Read more: Those were the days