Kid’s stuff

EDINBURGH comedian Iain Stirling is best known for providing the humorous voiceover for reality show Love Island, though he used to make his living as a cheery, cheesy, charming and disarming children’s TV presenter. And, oh, how the young ’uns loved him.

Though was the adoration reciprocated? The answer may be provided by Buffering, a new sitcom airing on ITV2 in August. Written and starring Iain, it’s about a children’s TV presenter who can’t stand kids.

The Diary is left to ponder, is this a sitcom or a sitconfession?

Creepy cab

BEING driven in a taxi to Govan’s Queen Elizabeth University Hospital to receive treatment for a relatively minor malady, Mavis Harrington became more than a tad nervous when the cabbie’s radio started playing the pop tune I Just Died In Your Arms Tonight, just as the car parked in the hospital grounds.

“The next time I take a taxi to hospital I’ll be wearing earplugs,” says our superstitious reader.

The name game

SUMMER is traditionally the "silly season" in journalism, a tranquil period in the news cycle when reporters turn their attention to less momentous events.

The Diary, however, is a serious operation. Unlike our competitors we refuse to focus on the trivial, the tepid or the trite, no matter the season. Which is why we have of late been publishing hard-hitting anecdotes about doggy names.

Our latest comes from Derek McCann from Aberdeen, who tells us that when he first got a family Fido, his children were tasked with coming up with potential names for the pup.

Our reader, in a moment of inspiration, suggested "Dug".

Alas, this pithy, pitch-perfect suggestion was ignored, with the disappointingly grandiloquent "Theo" being chosen instead.

Queue ballyhoo

A DIARY tale about the agonies of having to wait for stuff, instead of immediately getting everything you want, inspires reader Brian Chrystal to admit that he recently complained at the supermarket about the length of the queue. The manager said it was a long-standing problem.

Stretchy solicitor

WE’VE been arguing that people should choose their careers not according to aptitude, but solely depending on alliterative qualities. With this in mind, Russell Smith from Largs wonders if there exists a Larry the lanky lawyer from lovely Largs.

Bread heads

“TWO people were at my front door lecturing me on the benefits of brown bread,” says Andrew Robertson. “They were Hovis Witnesses.”

Water waistline

THOUGHT for the day from reader Beryl Young: “If swimming is such good exercise, why are whales always so darned chubby?”

Read more: Why Scots are always under the weather