THE Diary team are a trusting bunch of journalists without a cynical bone in our bodies, who tend to believe almost anything we’re told.

If someone informed us: “The earth is flat,” we’d reply, “Wow! Is there a fenced-off area to stop people tumbling over the edge?”

If someone said: “Alien spaceships have landed in Falkirk,” we’d say, “Gadzooks! Are they parked next to Callendar House or the Howgate Shopping Centre?”

And if Nicola Sturgeon assured us that her resignation was a result of feeling a wee bitty exhausted, and had absolutely nothing to do with her statements on gender, we’d say: “Aye, right.”

(We’re a trusting lot, but not THAT trusting.)

Currently. we’re swithering whether to believe Edinburgh poet David Macpherson, who says: “One of the strangest laws in Scotland is that if you eat a Tunnock’s Teacake you’re legally obliged to stretch the wrapper out into a perfect square before you throw it away.”

Hmmm. Sounds entirely plausible to us…

Bar-room badinage

WHEN reader Bob Travers was enjoying a tipple in his local watering hole the other day, the TV next to the bar was broadcasting a political interview with a Conservative grandee who was discussing internal discipline in his party, which led him to say: “I don’t think heavy-handed whipping is the answer.”

Which inspired the wag sitting next to Bob at the bar to say: “Bet he’s the first Tory tae say ‘No thanks’ when it comes tae a bit o’ whipping.”

Balls up

THE Diary adores a juicy malapropism, so we were delighted when Gordon Fisher. from Stewarton. got in touch to inform us he was recently out with his mother and took her for an Italian meal.

“We looked over the menu,” says Gordon, “and when the waiter came to ask if we were ready to order, my mother said, perfectly seriously: ‘Aye son, I'll have the Meatballs Marijuana'.”

Licky biccy

THE grandmother of Scottish music historian Eddie McKenzie used to work for a small bakery, back in the 1930s.

“She said the baker used to lick the half-cherries to attach them to the Empire biscuits,” says Eddie, “which is why I'll only ever eat one with a jelly tot on top.”

Lonely lag

A DIARY yarn referring to Barlinnie Prison’s scheduled closure leads Grant MacKenzie, from Bearsden, to wonder, “if the last-remaining, lonely prisoner will be in his cell…”

Identity issues

“PEOPLE call me self-centred,” admits Hilary Mitchell, from Newton Mearns, “but that's enough about them…”