WE like the following description from Glasgow TV director Iain Davidson: “You know when you're in a restaurant and there's an obnoxious, drunk ****hole shouting at the waiting staff and talking loudly about people at other tables? Then his pals take him home and the entire exhausted restaurant sighs in relief? I imagine that's most of America.”

Headcase head?

LIKE a historian attempting to understand an ancient and bloodthirsty military campaign, such as the Battle of Bannockburn, the Diary continues accruing facts about the peculiar goings on at a Paisley primary school many years ago.

Our readers will recall that an entire class of unruly reprobates (give or take the odd goody two-shoes) were forced by the headmaster to belt each other.

Norman Geddes, a survivor of that day, further helps us comprehend the inhumanity of it all by adding an alarming detail.

Apparently when the headmaster galloped into the classroom in the John Neilson Institution and discovered the youngsters making an almighty racket, he roared with righteous relish: "Right, we're going to have a massacre!"

Doll-drums

ON the subject of school shenanigans... Reader Moira Campbell was once the registration teacher for a class of third year pupils. In order to understand parenting skills, the youngsters were given computerised dolls that behaved like genuine babies, and ordered to look after them overnight.

Moira passed one shattered-looking lad the next morning.

“Bad night?” she enquired.

The traumatised fellow replied: “Put it this way, miss. I’m going to die a virgin.“

Crimbo cracker

WE’RE focusing on Christmas early this year, so we can tell some yuletide yarns before festivities are cancelled then replaced with a day of thanksgiving for the ministrations of St Nicola.

Our recent mention of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer reminds comedian Andy Cameron of Rudolph’s wee pal Boabby the Brown-Nosed Reindeer, who ran immediately behind Rudolph, but wasn’t very good at stopping.

Killer comment

RELAXING in a cafe, reader Adam Burns spotted two fellows talking. One chap wore a Duffle Coat.

“Like ma new coat?” said he to his pal.

“Nice,” responded the pal. “But how many duffles died so you could wear it?”

TV or not TV?

READER Mary Blunt overheard a young woman on a bus admit to a pal she had dumped her disappointing boyfriend, explaining: “When he asked me round to watch Netflix, we actually watched Netflix.”

Biting remark

THOUGHT for the day from reader Robert Williams, who says: “Whoever decided to call them dentures missed a great opportunity to invent the word ‘substitooths’.”