Crying time
WE need a break from politics, so we will take Ruth Davidson's decision to resign as Scottish Tory leader in order to spend more time with her baby son as an excuse to look back on previous Diary stories about babies instead, including the wise observation of a Lenzie mother who told us: "Do you know who doesn't sleep like a baby? Babies."
Baby talk
SUPPORTERS can get a bit rowdy but a reader once passed on that she was travelling by bus from East Kilbride to Glasgow with the passengers being "entertained" by Celtic fans, en route to a game working their way through the Celtic song book. A woman got on with a baby sleeping in her pushchair. She looked down the bus, pointed at the fans, and told them to be quiet as "the wean's sleeping". To underline the point she added: "And if you wake the wean, you'll be taking her to the match." Silence thus ensued.
A bit saucy
MOTHERS of first babies can often be overly-careful with their young charges. A young mum once confessed on social media: "I'll forever wish I'd double checked the worrisome red mark on my baby son's head before rushing him into the doctor. The doctor rubbed it off. It was ketchup."
Theatrical
WE once made fun of the Pavilion Theatre in Glasgow threatening to eject mothers of crying babies from the audience. But as Pavilion boss Ian Gordon phoned to tell us, they once had one mother who fed her baby in the theatre, put it over her shoulder and patted it, whereupon it barfed over the patrons in the three rows behind. No amount of cleaning could get the smell out of their clothing – about nine were hit – and they decided to leave. As they came in a bus party, all 50 customers on the bus had to go at the same time. Out of the mouths of babes, right enough.
Bear necessities
A GUEST once arrived at a Burns Supper on Glasgow's south side with her baby wearing a kilt. As the gathered women oohed and aahed at the child someone asked where on earth you could possibly buy such a small kilt. "The Build-A-Bear Workshop" she confided.
It's a tie
A YOUNG woman who proudly brought her baby into the Glasgow office where she worked, a few weeks after its birth, was telling her colleagues that the baby's birthday was nine months to the day after her husband's. "Next year I'd just get him a tie if I was you," said one of her older colleagues..
A match
A BIG bear of a chap seen at Ninewells Hospital in Dundee delighted with the birth of his son, held the little one up and noticed that the baby had an identification bracelet firmly attached to its ankle. "Just like daddy!" beamed the big fella as he raised his trouser leg to show off his own electronic anklet, put there by the courts to limit his time away from home.
Sick humour
GLASGOW International Comedy Festival held a "Watch With Baby" comedy show when parents could go to see adult comedians without the expense of getting babysitters. Jojo Sutherland, compering the gig, declared: "It won't be the first Glasgow audience I've played to that's made up of people crying, shouting and vomiting."
Up in the air
TODAY'S piece of whimsy comes from a Dennistoun reader who phones to tell us: "At this time of year you always get folk complaining about crying babies on airplanes. But I always tell them, 'Better than a crying pilot'."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here