In a scrape

YOU think the weather is bad here? Remember, it’s winter over in Australia, and climate change is producing some strange weather patterns.

Expat Maggie Wood tells us: “First time ever I’ve had to scrape ice off the windscreen in the morning here in suburban Adelaide. Don’t worry, the old Scottish skills kicked in. Good job I still have CDs in the glove compartment.”

Curtains for drinker

SAD news that The Buteman newspaper is closing after 165 years. We in The Diary will especially miss it as we always had room for its stories from the local police. It once reported: ‘’A female was tracked down by CCTV cameras after a

local publican reported the theft

of a door curtain from his premises.

“When police found the female, who gave her name as Superwoman, she was wearing the curtain as a cape. Police discretion was used in this instance and the curtain was restored to its rightful owner.’’

Sometimes though, it is a very quiet island. As the paper once told readers: “Police were called to the Galatea Bar on April 26 at 11.45 after a drunk 53-year-old customer refused to leave the premises. When police arrived, the man was found to have left.”

Had your tea

WE asked for your restaurant disasters and BBC Scotland reporter Reevel Alderson tells us: “My wife and I were in Jerez, the sherry capital of the world, and in a bar I ordered what I hoped would be a glass of local brew. Asking, in Spanish, for a Manzanilla, the waiter inquired whether it was the wine I wanted.

“Thinking there was a local – and probably execrable – plonk with that name and wanting the fortified stuff, I said no, with the consequence I was brought a steaming cup of camomile tea with the Manzanilla brand name. Not the same.”

Jaw dropping

TALKING of restaurants, Amy Kinnaird in Ayrshire recalled when she was a teacher, Grace was said before lunch in the school dinner hall. Added Amy: “In the afternoon in class some of the children asked why we did that. One boy said that his dad had told him a Grace, and he repeated for the class:

Doon wi the heid

Up wi the paws

Thank the guid Lord

for the use o’ yer jaws’.”

Stiff greeting

GROWING old, continued. Says a Newton Mearns reader: “Now when I run into an old friend I haven’t seen for a while I have to stop myself from saying the first thing that comes into my head, which is usually, ‘I thought you were deid’.”

Keeping mum

TIME to say Amen to our nun stories, but before we do, Barrie Crawford tells us: “I was on the Literary Pub Crawl in Dublin where a very funny but risqué piece involving nuns was read out and we all had a good laugh. After he had finished, our guide said that a group of American nuns had been on the tour and had reacted with stony silence.

“The group, though, repeated the tour the following night and when the guide asked them why they had returned when they appeared not to have enjoyed themselves, he was told, ‘We wanted to laugh this time, so we’ve left the Mother Superior behind.’”

No change

TODAY’S piece of whimsy comes from comedy writer Sanjeev Kohli who says: “I was once told, ‘Put your money where your mouth is.’ Wish I hadn’t. Tenners taste disgusting.”

Read more: 1966: A Grand old place with a colourful history