Tantrums and tigers

AND so the year 2021 is proving to be everything we hoped it would. A return to normality, with freedom from fear, restrictions and…

Wait. Sorry. Scrap that. We’re unsure how the above paragraph sneaked into the editorial process. It’s from a draft article the Diary team wrote in the early hours of January, back when our minds were fogged by that fourth magnum of Hogmanay champagne.

In truth, 2021 is turning into a 2020 reboot. The same plot, the same cast; though a bigger budget and wilder special effects.

So here comes the American mob. The tanned Trump tantrums. (He’s this generation’s version of Agent Orange.) UK wide lockdowns.

We’ll soon all be watching Tiger King on Netflix again.

Though sometimes visiting the past can be a balm from bampottery. In this spirit we now recall some of our favourite classic Diary tales…

The legal brain

HOLIDAYS. Remember them? A Milngavie reader was enjoying a break in the US when he got into conversation with an American woman who was with her teenage daughter. The mother was bragging about how bright her daughter was, and how she was going to university to become a lawyer, as she was so smart. It was with perfect comic timing that her daughter interrupted by declaring: “Mom! I’ve got chewing gum on the camera lens.”

The plot thickens

A READER was visiting the Glasgow Boys art exhibition at Kelvingrove a while ago. It included a number of garden paintings with rows of cabbages.

As he studied George Henry’s A Cottar’s Garden, a fellow visitor told her companion: “En plein air’ just means that the artists painted outside instead of in the studio.”

“I’m not surprised,” remarked her companion, “if they ate all those cabbages.”

Lap cat

GETTING on a bus, once, a reader heard the girl in front of him tell her pal: “I’ve discovered lots of features on my laptop I never knew existed.

She then added: “Only because Tipsy my cat walked across the keyboard.”

Lager lout

A CHAP was about to take a drink in a Glasgow pub (mind them?) when he was interrupted by the barfly next to him who said: “I wouldn’t touch that Tennent’s Lager if I were you. It’ll make your teeth fall out.”

“Why would that happen?” asked the puzzled chap.

“Because it’s mine,” replied the barfly.

What’s the beef?

SOME Glaswegians are still getting to grips with vegetarianism. A reader once told us he was in a city-centre shop buying his lunchtime sandwich when a young girl asked the shop assistant: “Are you sure these are vegetarian? It says beef tomatoes on the package.”

More beef

THOUGH it seems that some football fans are becoming health conscious. A reader once attended a dull Ayr United game when a bored fan took out a Weight Watcher’s points card and excitedly exclaimed: “Bovril’s only one point!”

Tea for two

A DALRY reader once watched a chap who, after being asked, “Any chance of 10p for a cup of tea?” by a beggar, reached into his pocket for a coin, and told him: “Here’s 20p. Get me one as well.”