IN 1986 Gordon Wright’s company published scripts from TV programme Scotch and Wry.
Rikki Fulton, the show’s star, agreed to a signing session at a Glasgow bookshop. Rikki was curious to know where Gordon was taking him for lunch afterwards.
Gordon explained it depended on how many copies of the book sold. Seventy five or more and the menu would be majestic. Chicken, fish… white pudding at a push. This was the only time Rikki ever seemed amused by Gordon’s witticisms.
Luckily the book sold well, meaning the chaps ended up in the Chip rather than a chippy. Glasgow’s splendiferous Ubiquitous Chip, that is.
Fizzy theory
POLITICALLY-MINDED Reader John Dunlop notes that Donald Trump’s Attorney General (AG) William Barr is known as AG Barr. He wonders if this explains his current boss’s distinctive orange colouring.
The big chill
ROD Stewart’s Essex mansion is currently as chilly as a medieval ruin in midwinter. A result of the singer being refused permission to install double-glazing in the Grade II listed property.
Reader David Smallwood suggests a solution to Rod’s problem. He says: “Mr Stewart should warm the place using those weight-bearing and locomotive anatomical structures that he’s always singing about. You know, the ones with a particularly high temperature.”
Or in layman’s terms: Rod should heat his house with a pair of hot legs.
Present perfect
IT’S that time of year when spouses start dropping hints about what they want for Christmas. Malcolm Boyd from Milngavie has worked out that his wife wants an animal-skin coat.
“I hope she likes her new donkey jacket,” he adds.
Happy daze
IT seems increasingly likely that a coronavirus vaccine will soon be available, which is why the Diary is luxuriating in a bubble bath of optimism, with the help of author Adam Sharp.
The writer has compiled a list of phrases from different countries that all mean to love life.
He notes that in the UK we say: “I’m on cloud nine.”
Meanwhile, in France it’s “I have the potato” while Germans say: “I feel poodle-well.”
We wonder if there’s a specific phrase Scots could use? “I’ve got a sprightly sporran the morn’,” perhaps?
Rental freeze
HELPFUL Scotland-based Welsh comedian Thomas Craven says: “If the vaccine has to be kept in ultra-cold storage at below minus 80 centigrade, my previous rental property is still available.”
Weird science
THE person who invented anti-itch cream probably wasn’t as clever as the developers of the coronavirus vaccine, concedes reader Keir MacLeod. Though he still believes they did an impressive job. “After all, they had to start from scratch,” he explains.
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