Just the ticket

THE holiday stories are beginning to find their way to The Diary, including the reader from Bearsden, on holiday with his family in San Francisco, who was buying tickets to catch the ferry across to the former prison island of Alcatraz. The American just ahead in the queue, who had a brood of children jumping up around him, asked the woman in the office for "Two round trips, and three one way."

Bottled it

RECALLING the Moon Landing, continued. Says Sir Brian Donohoe in Ayrshire: "We were on holiday staying with my uncle - a canon in the Church of England - who didn't have a TV so we listened on the radio, which was not so exciting. He had set up four glasses and a bottle of Drambuie for when the landing took place, and as we sat waiting for the momentous event which eventually happened at approx. 3am I kept thinking I had never waited as long for a drink in my life."

Miaow

AND talking of the Moon Landing, we liked the comment of economics professor William Easterly who commented: "Our smartphones are 120m times more powerful than the computers that guided Apollo 11. That has enabled us to progress from moon landings to cat videos."

Watch it

INTERESTING how married life develops. A reader tells us a chap at his Ayrshire golf club was explaining to fellow members: "The first time my wife left me for a few days to visit the grandchildren down south, she left me meals she had prepared in the freezer with dates on them explaining when I should eat them. This week when she went all I got was a list of recorded TV programmes that I was instructed not to watch until she got home."

Fare enough

THINGS you can just imagine - we spot a random comment on social media which simply said: "Just seen a bloke in Glasgow trying to hail a driving instructor."

Use your loaf

OUR story of dog poo being called 'caca' in France reminded Arthur Maxwell: "In Portugal, dog poo is 'coco'. A friend in Portugal has three granddaughters who are bilingual. He was reading them a bedtime story which finished with a girl having a biscuit and cocoa before going to bed. For a while, he wondered why the girls looked so shocked."

And talking of France, Andy Bryson tells us: "Years ago my chum and I took our wives on a camping holiday on the south coast of France. I went to the camp's little market and bought a long stick loaf which was labelled Pain Bagnat. So that was how we referred to it all holiday long. Many years later we were looking through old photos, one of which was the shop bakery display, and realised it was 'Bagette' not well written."

Old bag

THE Diary picture of the passive/aggressive sign at the pub asking folk to use the ashtrays if the pavement was full reminded a Jordanhill reader: "I was a trainee with British Rail years ago and was sent to Shields Electric Traction Depot on the south side of the city. In the messroom, used by drivers and maintenance staff, the depot manager has placed a sign above the sink stating, 'When the sink is full of teabags, please use the bin'. It was, and they had."

Had a stroke

AFTER our mention of high scores at The Open, Russell Smith declared: "Not so long ago I had a 12 at my local par-three eighth. When I was asked how I managed that, I replied, 'I sunk a 12-foot putt."