IT was recently revealed Boris Johnson – our nation’s supremely focused leader, who always has a keen eye for detail – has been ambling around, not realising his mobile phone number was freely available online for years.

The PM has at last changed the digits for something more private.

Sadly, this means the 68 million-plus residents of the UK can no longer give Boris a bell at 3am to discuss wallpaper, or any other subject of global importance that comes to mind.

Martin Morrison, from Lochinver, believes there might have been a more satisfying solution to Mr Johnson’s difficulties.

“A lot of problems could be solved if, instead of changing his phone number, he changed his address,” suggests our reader.

Lost in translation

A DIARY tale about a Scottish chap being mistaken for Irish reminds Orcadian Willie Towers of attending a conference in Mexico, where he got into a conversation with a chap from New Zealand, who turned out to be an expat Shetlander.

Willie noticed an American delegate nearby, and asked him to join the chat.

The American politely declined, explaining: “I’m really sorry, but I don’t speak French.”

Week point

AN IMPORTANT political intervention from former Glasgow Labour MP Tom Harris: “For the last time,” he says, “we’re not American, so polling day this week is not called ‘Super Thursday’. We’re British, so we call it ‘Thursday’.”

Computer says ‘No’

SCIENTISTS have not managed to rocket humans to Mars yet. Though they have come up with PawSense, a computer program that detects when your cat is walking on your keyboard. It then blocks typing and plays a sound to scare it away.

Fife comedian Richard Pulsford is most impressed by this blocking ability.

“It puts everything on paws?” he marvels.

Dopey about dangers

WHO needs logic, rational thought and concerns about health when you can swap such fripperies for a pinch of baccy tightly wrapped in a sliver of paper?

Or, to put it another way, reader Alan McKinney says: “Just witnessed a smoker pulling down his Covid mask to puff his cigarette.”

Brought to book

WE continue suggesting books for fiction fan Nicola Sturgeon to read. David Donaldson thinks she should peruse Salmond Fishing In The Yemen. And once she’s finished that, she should try La Peste.

“It’s an account by Albert Camus of the plague,” he explains, “not about a particularly annoying rival.”

Time flies

THOUGHT for the day from reader Arnold Robertson, who muses: “House flies have existed far longer than houses.”