White and wrong
THE Diary isn’t a pulpit for fire and brimstone sermons. We leave the moralising to internationally recognised religious leaders and Gary Lineker’s Twitter account. Occasionally we do feel it necessary to take an ethical stance.
For instance, we were disgusted when a famous rock star recently behaved inappropriately towards a fellow musician. Jack White, who is most famous as the former singer with The White Stripes, discovered a pedestrian had smashed an Edinburgh busker’s guitar. White took it upon himself to provide a new guitar for the busker. Outrageous!
Doesn’t White realise a smashed guitar is a glorious thing in the rock world? More aesthetically pleasing than the intact variety, as any fan of The Who or Jimi Hendrix would agree?
The Diary also delights in destructive behaviour, as these cataclysmic tales from our archives prove, such as the reader who once explained he was jumped on by a "Karachi expert".
Double trouble
ONE of our readers once recalled being in a misbehaving primary seven class in the 1960s whose teacher declared they were all going to be belted. As he didn’t want to spend the time belting them all, he brought them forward in pairs and got them to belt each other.
“I can’t begin to imagine the furore should such a thing happen these days,” concluded our reader.
Bus(t) up
A SCOTTISH football vignette. A reader heard a footy fan discussing his trip to an away game in the SPL, and how he managed to cadge a lift back on a supporter’s bus.
“So they had a spare seat?” asked his pal.
“Aye,” the chap replied. “It was full originally, but fortunately someone got lifted.”
Dressing down
BEWARE of feisty females of the more senior variety. A young lady at a work night out in the West End cattily told an older colleague: “You need to be younger to dance to that song.”
The more mature lady came back with the rejoinder: “And you need to be prettier to wear a dress like that.”
Boxing (not) clever
“I BOUGHT a self-help CD entitled How to Handle Disappointment,” a chap in a pub was overheard to remark. “When I got home and opened it, I found the box was empty.”
Slipping up
AN employee arrived an hour late for work, one winter’s morning, and explained to his boss that it was so slippery outside that for every step forward he took, he slipped back another two.
“Is that so?” replied his suspicious boss. “Then how did you ever get here?”
“I gave up and started for home,” replied the tardy worker.
Delaying tactics
SOME relationships are very much of the destructive kind. A reader was in a Lanarkshire pub when he overheard a chap further up the bar impatiently answer his mobile phone: “I told you I’d be there in five minutes. Stop calling me every ten minutes to check.”
Food for thought
OVERHEARD in a swanky Glasgow restaurant: A maître d’ asked a couple if they had reservations. The chap replied: “Yes, but we’re hungry so we’ll eat here anyway.”
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