Taking the pith
ONE thing you can say about our national football team’s appearances in major competitions. We never outstay our welcome.
We’re not like one of those boorish bores who turn up at a dinner party, drink too much wine, then end up staying the night in a guest bedroom, too tipsy to toddle off home in the car.
Nope. Scotland arrive on time, and leave before the cheese and crackers.
Though perhaps, just this once, we should hire expert groveller and former Speaker of the House of Commons, John Bercow, to plead our case to be reinstated in the Euros. A task he’ll hopefully undertake with the same amount of ardour he exercised whilst toadying after a seat in the House of Lords.
The Diary is very much like Scotland’s footy stars. We don’t stick around for long either, as the following stories from our archives underline.
Each taut tale is pithy to the point of perfection...
Mind your language
AN AMERICAN website gives details of which airports are good to sleep in if you have to wait overnight for a flight. Scottish airports are generally well reviewed except by a chap called John, who wrote about Glasgow Airport: “It wouldn’t have been that bad, except they decided to test the fire alarm and every single smoke alarm in the entire building.
“The last straw was when I asked the worker how much longer they were going to be testing, and he mumbled something in an unintelligible dialect which I swear didn’t really exist – he was probably just messing with me.”
Au (no) natural
A READER spotted a father shopping in Morrisons with two young children. His hesitant behaviour suggested he wasn’t a frequent shopper.
The chap picked up a packet and read from the back: “All natural ingredients.”
Putting it back, he told the kids: “You’d just have told me it didn’t taste right.”
Top secret
A MIDDLE-AGED reader, visiting her GP with a sore throat, was asked by the receptionist for her date of birth. In a barely audible whisper she told the receptionist.
The receptionist whispered back: “It’s OK. I won’t tell anyone.”
Face facts
A NEWTON MEARNS reader was applying face cream when her little son asked why she was doing so.
“To make myself look beautiful,” she replied.
When she removed the cream minutes later, her little one, who hadn’t stopped staring at her, asked: “Giving up?”
Hot gossip
AN EDINBURGH reader overheard a woman having coffee with her friends at the table next to him in George Street. She declared that a mutual friend was so dense: “She would think a radiator was a house-warming present.”
Sounding off
AMERICAN singer Steve Earle once gave a Glasgow audience a brief language lesson.
“Mandolin,” he explained whilst tuning one up for a song, “that’s Italian for out of tune.”
Money matters
A TALE of high finance. “I didn’t appreciate how much inflation has affected me,” explained a reader, “until I saw a penny lying in the street and realised I don’t pick up anything less than a 10p now.”
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