TO err is human, it is often said. Which means there can’t be many humans working in the Diary office, for our crack team of scribes rarely stumble in their duties.

The last time a Diary minion made a mistake was in 1921, when a reporter accidentally used a semicolon when he meant to use a comma.

After a painstaking investigation, and several hours of painful torture, the reporter was sacked then banished from Scotland, and forced to eke out the remainder of his days on a barren rock a few miles north of Greenland.

It was later discovered that the reporter’s grammar wasn’t at fault. The mistake occurred when a bluebottle became trapped in the innards of his typewriter.

Now it seems another error has occurred, for we recently claimed Lulu won the 1969 Eurovision Song Contest.

An irate reader harrumphs: “Have you, like many, forgotten she was joint-first with competitors from France, Holland and Spain?”

We can only apologise.

(That last sentence was emailed to The Herald from a barren rock not far from Greenland.)

Poor show

A MOVIE version of Alasdair Gray’s 1992 novel, Poor Things, is released this year, and a trailer for the film has dropped on the internet which is visually sumptuous and triumphantly bonkers.

All of which is true of the source material, which was both written and illustrated by the late author.

The trailer, however, suggests that the film will have little of Glasgow in it, which is a pity, because the Glasgow setting was integral to the book.

Reader Bert Walton is disappointed that his home city won’t be shining on the silver screen.

“We should figure out a way to discriminate between book and movie,” he argues.

“I suggest the film continues to be referred to as Poor Things while the Glesga novel is called… Poor Hingmies.”

Liquid laughs

A FRUITY thought from reader Gail Fletcher: “Why aren’t iPhone chargers called Apple Juice?”

Does Chuck suck?

A DIARY entry regarding the use of Roman numerals to denote both film trilogies and monarchs makes Grant MacKenzie from Bearsden wonder, “if Charles III, like The Godfather III, will prove to be the least critically acclaimed.”

Gastropod in Glesga

OVERHEARD by John Delaney on a Glasgow train. A woman, signing off at the end of a (long, loud) phone call: “That’s me at Central, hen. I’ll need tae run like a limpet…”

Fun with Fido

“WHAT do you call a dog that does magic?” asks reader Paula Henderson. “A Labracadabrador.”