Picture perfect?

ON your marks, get set… goof! It seems the race to find the next Divinely Anointed Monarch of the Free World – sorry, the next leader of the SNP – has suffered a few initial hiccups.

Humza Yousaf made his opening leadership-bid speech standing next to an "Exit" sign over a door.

Meanwhile, Angus Robertson announced he’ll not run to be leader, while loitering in front of a cemetery.

Optics, guys. It’s all about the optics…

Neighbourly? Nae way

STROLLING down Ayr High Street the other day, local lass Sue Wade couldn’t fail to overhear a chap with a microphone screeching and a-preaching.

How unkind people are nowadays, roared this pugnacious proselytiser, reminding his audience that in the Bible it says: “Love thy neighbour."

Before he could take his next breath, a wee Ayrshire wummin waiting for a bus replied with firm conviction: "Ah hate ma neighbour."

Cue sniggers and titters from the crowd, and, alas, no religious conversions for the man with the microphone.

Bad faith

MORE from the spiritual world. One of the Diary's more religiously-inclined readers – and a keen fan of the Kirk's magazine, Life and Work – tells us he was intrigued to see Scottish Opera advertising in it this month.

“But,” he says, “I wonder if the description ‘Puccini's devilish black comedy’ was custom-written to appeal to the Church of Scotland readership…”

Half-baked baking

A DIARY yarn about an unhygienic method of preparing Empire biscuits reminds author Deedee Cuddihy of a tale in her non-fiction collection of anecdotes, Scottish Sweetie Addicts and Chocoholics.

A woman interviewed by Deedee recalled one of her aunties who, when given sugared almonds as a gift, sucked the sugar-coating off them and used the almonds for the top of a Dundee cake she was making.

Mmmm – yum!

Patch = pooch

TIME for a bizarre non-sequitur. Laurie Hooper from Airdrie recently told a gal pal that she had started wearing a patch on her arm for hormone replacement.

Laurie’s chum considered this information for a deeply thoughtful moment, then said: “I used to have a dog called Patch.”

Sadly sappy stories

WE mentioned Roald Dahl’s children’s books have been rewritten to make them less outrageous, crude and colourful, and thus more in-step with today’s censorious attitudes.

Says reader Deborah Grant: “They’ve turned Roald Dahl into Roald Dull.”

Hard to swallow

DISCIPLINED reader Sarah Hunter tells us that she has started a new diet. “Instead of eating food, I look at people serving it,” she explains. “It’s called Watch Waiters.”


Read more from the Diary: The dulling of Dahl