Herald’s hack heroes
Iconic film director Steven Spielberg has claimed that Tom Cruise saved the movie industry.
For cinema-going was on its last legs, with audiences preferring a cheap night at home with Netflix and a Penguin biscuit rather than taking out a 25-year mortgage on a bucket of popcorn and a hotdog.
That changed when Cruise starred in Top Gun: Maverick last year, which proved to be a smash hit, leading audiences to dump their Penguin biccies and scamper back to the big screen.
Some would claim that the Herald Diary has, in a similar fashion to Mr Cruise, saved journalism.
For without our doughty efforts, what would be the state of the news-gathering industry?
Our team of serious-minded reporters have rigorously maintained standards of erudition and scholarship while soberly reporting on the grimmest of matters.
Let lesser hacks squander their abilities on trivial fripperies such as war, plague and famine. We’ll focus on the gritty stuff, which is exactly what you’ll find us doing in the following classic yarns from our archives, as we shine a spotlight on gym lockers, IKEA furniture and the wild dreams of a bloke called Dougie…
Dream on, Dougie
BROADCASTER Dougie Donnelly once presented the Law Awards of Scotland at Glasgow’s Hilton Hotel, and recalled that he himself bagged a law degree at Strathclyde Uni before working in radio. “I was telling the wife,” he reminisced, “that when I was at Strathclyde studying law, never in my wildest dreams did I imagine that I would one day present the Scottish Law Awards. She told me that, funnily enough, I was never in her wildest dreams, either.”
Pamphlet palmed off
A JORDANHILL reader was watching her husband make heavy weather of erecting Ikea furniture when she found the instructions and handed then to him, suggesting it would help if he read the leaflet. Gathering his dignity, he replied: “That’s their opinion. I’m equally entitled to mine.”
Folk tale
A GREAT response to hecklers. The late acerbic folk singer Danny Kyle once said to a chap who shouted out at a concert: “The last time I saw a mooth like that, there was a hook in it.”
Mum’s the word
MOTHERS are not known for their impartiality in matters involving their children. One mum once defined a show-off to us as “any child who is more talented than your own”.
Resolution retracted
ASH Wednesday was this week. A Glasgow chap was asked if he ever gave anything up for Lent, and replied: “Usually my New Year’s resolutions.”
Money matters
ANOTHER witty one-liner: Scottish comedian Martin Bearne once told us: “If I had a pound for every time I went to the gym… I’d be able to use the lockers.”
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