Doing a runner

THE mixed reception to the BBC's new Scottish channel reminds us of TV stories in the Diary over the years including Glen Michael, who hosted Cartoon Cavalcade on the telly for years, being stopped in the street by an 11-year-old fan who showed him a cartoon he'd drawn of his favourite animated character, Wile E Coyote. Glen dutifully looked at it and noticed the boy had drawn the coyote actually catching hold of his nemesis the Roadrunner. What really caught Glen's eye was the boy's caption which read, "Beep-beep now, ya b******.”

What's the score?

VETERAN newsreader Mary Marquis was one of the most poised and professional presenters on BBC Scotland. But even Mary once admitted that the first time she was handed the football results to read out, she simply read down the first column, rather than across the way. Said Mary: "Till then, I hadn't realised how passionate Scottish football fans are, and I learned a lot of new words when the complaints came in."

Hot stuff

THE Rev Eric Hudson, who was involved in religious broadcasting, once told us that they were approached at a TV drinks reception by the late great Chic Murray who offered to appear on the religious slot Late Call with the well-known minister the Rev James Currie. A bit puzzled they asked why, and he replied: "Because you could call it Chic'n'Currie.''

A bit sketchy

A READER once claimed that he was in a pub in Glasgow's east end where the discussion turned to TV celebrities, and a local chipped in with: "I was on the telly once.

"Well, not me exactly, but an artist's sketch of me.”

What a card

ALL these channels you can now get can be a bit confusing. A reader visited his elderly parents in Dunblane when they were watching the old Bruce Forsyth gameshow Play Your Cards Right on the TV station Gold. After a while his dad remarked: "The prizes are going right downhill! Who wants a Mini Metro nowadays?"

And a Bearsden reader says all the new channels change how you look at things. He said he received an invitation to a wedding that said "+1" and for a moment he thought he had to arrive an hour after the other guests.

Milked it

MANY excuses have been made for not having a TV licence. A resident in Stirling once explained: "Guy from the TV licensing chapped my uncle's pal's door who told him he didny have a telly, and the guy was like, 'You've got an aerial on your roof'.

"He replied: 'I've got a pint of milk in the fridge – disnae mean I've got a coo out the back' and shut the door.”

Bit of a tube

WE once overheard a group of students discussing the virtues of buying a high-definition television screen. "My mum came round to the flat and turned our ordinary TV into a high definition one," declared one of them.

When asked how she managed that, he told his pals: "She ran a duster over it.”

Aerial view

A GLASGOW reader told us he heard a woman on the bus into town tell her pal: "My boyfriend's that thick that when he saw on my portable TV the sign 'Built in Antenna' he said he didn't know where that was.”