Russell Leadbetter
SO what are the phrases that make your heart sink like a stone? "Unidentified item in baggage area"? "Your call is important to us"? "We need to talk"?
We only ask because #PhraseThatMakesYourHeartSink has been busy trending on Twitter.
Among the better entries: "Please welcome President Trump" and "There are insufficient funds in your account."
Can Diary readers think of any others? (We trust this isn't one of these phrases that cause your heart to sink.)
SHOWBIZ news, part 1.
Sir Brucie Forsyth recalls in his memoirs that he topped the bill at the Glasgow Alhambra in 1966. At the interval an audience member came to the stage door, demanding to see him. Bruce was too busy but sent word that he'd see the man after the show.
In the second half, Bruce's long solo spot was interrupted when a beer bottle, thrown from the upper circle, smashed onto the stage. A stagehand grabbed the offender, who in short order was dragged off by the fuzz, detained overnight in the cells, and fined £50 in court.
Brucie says he hadn't been interested in pressing charges, but as he notes, the bottle "could have killed someone. It could have killed me!"
The Glasgow press was eager for him to shake the man's hand after the court hearing, but he told them: "You've got to be joking."
SHOWBIZ news, part 2.
Rod Stewart's fabled eye for the ladies didn't escape the attention of his mischievous bandmates in The Faces.
Once, while touring Australia, they tried to interest him in someone they'd met in a bar, saying she was absolutely gorgeous and that they had all tried to pull her.
Inevitably, Rod ended up in his hotel room with her, whereupon he realised that she was actually a he. "I said, 'Well, you better go now'," he tells the new edition of Uncut magazine.
"It's something I'm quite proud of, actually," Rod adds. "The fact that they set me up with this transvestite." The next morning, he told them: "Brilliant, I would have done it to you."
JENNIFER Connell, of Manhattan, sued her 12-year-old nephew, claiming that, when he was eight, he had jumped into her arms, causing her to fall and break her wrist. She had sought $127,000 in damages from the boy, whose mother died last year. A jury, however, awarded her zero damages.
Her life, she said, had been “very difficult” since the injury because of “how crowded it is in Manhattan." The line that melted the Diary's heart was: “I was at a party recently, and it was difficult to hold my hors d’oeuvre plate." Jennifer, we've all been there.
READER Jim Arnold, spotting a story in The Herald, notes that fifth-year pupils studying mathematics qualifications at St Aiden's, in Wishaw, have been asked to sign a "contract" that says “I will work hard to try and achieve my target grade.”
But he advises Higher English candidates to refuse to sign unless the contract reads the more correct “try to”. Jim quotes Eric Partridge’s authoritative ‘Usage and Abusage,’ page 338. Who are we to argue?
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