Can it
OUR story of the two theatregoers dressed as nuns reminded entertainer Andy Cameron: "In the eighties I was filming sketches in Blythwood Square for a TV series with actress Teri Lally playing a nun. As we were waiting for lighting and sound to set up a Glesga guy comes round the corner having obviously enjoyed a wee libation at lunch time, looks at Teri, takes a pound note out of his pocket and hands it to her with the instruction, 'There y’are sister, put that in yer charity boax and God bless ye hen'."
Pottering
THERE were many empty seats at the Europa League final the other night with many fans citing the distance, cost and difficulties of travelling to Baku for the game. A football fan phones The Diary to tell us: "Only a few Chelsea fans managed to make it to Azerbaijan. I heard one of them on the telly declare 'This place don't look nuffin like the Harry Potter film'."
Burning sensation
WE asked about your restaurant disasters, and David Russell tells us: "Visiting a chic eaterie in Lasswade near Edinburgh, my wife and I were handed massive menus. I watched, amused, as she studied hers, oblivious to the trendy tealight on the table as it gradually burned through the paper. In a scene reminiscent of the opening credits for Bonanza on TV where a map of the American West combusted, she threw the menu on the floor and stamped on it. The staff rushed to help saying, 'Don't worry, that's happened a few times.' Asked why I hadn't alerted her to the developing conflagration I could only admit I was enjoying the comedy of it."
Suits you
AND moving from restaurants to pubs, Brian Chrystal recalls: “In Sloan’s bar in the seventies we were joined by a friend just back from London. Resplendent in his trendy white suit he ordered four pints of lager. Betty the barmaid came back with just two. ‘Excuse me,’ says he, ‘I asked for four pints’. ‘Awfy sorry son’, says Betty, ‘Ah couldny hear ye fur yer suit’.”
Ticking the box
AS the Tory leadership contest threatens to become interesting, one contender, Sajid Javid, announces, with a touch perhaps of colonial arrogance, that he wouldn't "allow" a Scottish independence referendum. Inevitably folk took to social media to tease Sajid about what he would allow, with SNP MP Mhairi Black asking just before 11 at night: "You sound if I head to bed Sajid Javid? Absolutely shattered." Writer Irvine Welsh asked: "Just nipping out to the shops for some milk and bread. Will only be 10 mins. Cool with you mate, aye?" And Glasgow's Thornwood Bar asked: "Evening Sajid, is it ok if we open the kitchen until 9pm on Saturday for the Champions League final?"
Spanner in works
OUR other political news is that Tory backbencher Jacob Rees-Mogg's book The Victorians, heavily slated by critics, has sold only 734 copies, putting it 379th in the UK book charts. Emmie Price-Goodfellow cheerfully commented: "My publisher father has just gleefully informed me that this book has sold fewer copies than one titled Adjustable Spanners: History, Uses and Developments since 1970."
Good to talk
A READER tells us he heard a woman in Glasgow's west end tell her pal: "I love giving people advice that my therapist has given me – even though I never followed it myself."
Read more: 1969: The Kingston Bridge, seen from the air as it takes shape
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