Talk needs trimming THE world would be a better place if only everybody obeyed the Diary.

We can’t understand why our readers don’t study this column, take copious notes, then afterwards recite our pearls of wisdom until each one is committed to memory.

Which brings us to Sir Keir Starmer. When he recently produced a long-winded report we suggested he should rein it in a bit. Did Keir take our heavy hint? Heck, no.

Now he’s delivered a speech at the Labour Party conference that made his previous report seem like a line of Morse code. There have been international chess tournaments that took up less time.

So, for the sake of Keir’s future career, we once more set out to prove that brevity is best with the following pithy, pitch-perfect tales from our archives…

Crossing the line

A HAMILTON reader told us that the minister was talking to her daughter’s primary class and asked the seven-year-olds why Jesus died on the cross.

Expecting an answer along the lines of, “So we’d all be saved,” he was left speechless when one of the sweet-faced tots replied: “He bled to death.”

Shut it

A GLASGOW reader was impressed by her pal, arguing with her boyfriend on her mobile, who suddenly snapped the phone shut.

As she sipped her wine, her phone rang, and everyone at the table could hear the now angry boyfriend shouting: “Did you just hang up on me?

“I’m not sure,” his girlfriend replied. “Did it sound like this?” and promptly shut her phone again.

Waist of time

A READER told us he was moaning to his wife about his forthcoming birthday, and asked her what was great about becoming 39. She told him that at least it would be the first time in his life that his age was greater than his waist size.

Taunting teacher

WE recall the young chap who was hard at work stacking shelves in B&Q in Motherwell when his carefully arranged display collapsed.

A voice from behind said: “Bet you wish you’d paid more attention at school, eh?”

The shelf-stacker turned round to be confronted by one of his old teachers standing there with a smug grin on his face.

He was too gobsmacked to inform the teacher that he only worked there on Saturdays as he was at university from Monday to Friday.

Little and large

A READER watched a frail, bird-like woman get on a bus from Glasgow to Newton Mearns, only to be squashed against the window by her bulky husband, who sat beside her and cheerily announced: “I bet you wish you married someone thinner!”

“I did,” the woman tartly replied.

Knockout knockback

AT a boozy office party a reader saw a gently swaying chap approach a colleague and ask her out.

“No, sorry. I would be cheating,” she replied.

“What? Have you got a boyfriend?” persisted the chap, before she delivered the killer line: “No. I would be cheating myself.”

Micro or macro?

“DOES anyone else think,” enquired the pub philosopher, “that microwave minutes last an awful lot longer than normal minutes?”