INVALUABLE advice from Irish comedian Michael Redmond, who is based in Glasgow’s west end. He says: “Break the boredom of lockdown by standing on your ironing board and imagine you’re surfing down a 200ft wave crashing towards the shoreline.”
Happy talk
YET another of our fine but frazzled educators gets in touch to boast she managed to escape the torments and terrors of the teaching profession. Having made the decision to retire, it was a month before she revealed the news to the little scamps – sorry, little scholars – in her charge .
One girl responded by saying she knew there was something different, adding: “You smiled wan day.”
Fusion cuisine
OUR contributors continue to recall waiting staff they have encountered whose finesse did not impress.
Back in the late 1970s reader Jack Davidson was dining in a fairly smart Dumfries restaurant. One of the company, having never heard of a certain item on the menu, asked the waiter what calzone was. This prompted the response: "Eh… it's kinda like… uh… an Italian Forfar bridie."
Paper tigers
DUMBARTON taxi driver John Sim recently drove a passenger who recalled being a paperboy in the 1970s. This chap once offered a rival paperboy the opportunity to buy his round for £70 .The competing media mogul declined, stating he would pay only £30.
The two entrepreneurs eventually agreed to settle the matter in a way that would make any capitalist society proud. They would have a square go, with the winner paying the amount he had proposed.
Is this also how deal-making is taught at Harvard Business School? The Diary is eager to find out.
Woolly yarn
A RECENT Diary story about the linguistic confusions that arise using the Scottish language reminds Grant MacKenzie, from Bearsden, east Dunbartonshire, of playing golf with a chum who was focusing his efforts on delivering the perfect tee shot, when his concentration was broken by the bleating of some sheep neighbouring the course.
He angrily turned to confront his woolly tormentors and yelled: “Shut it, yoose.”
Although perhaps our correspondent misheard, and he actually screamed: “Shut it, ewes.”
Either way, the sheep took no notice.
Job lot
INSPIRED by a recent Diary query about which professions are currently invaluable, reader Craig McCall asks: “Is a docker a quay worker?”
Predicting a windfall
A DUBIOUS money-making scheme from reader Jordan Nevill, who wonders: “If I played poker with tarot cards would I win a fortune?”
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