Come the revolution

STROLLING down Glasgow’s Buchanan Street, reader Simon Coulson spotted one of those doom-mongering street preachers who like to lecture passing shoppers about the world going to hell in a handcart. (Which is clearly inaccurate information. The world would never fit in a handcart. Also, the wheels on your average handcart are too shoogly to get anywhere near the flaming gates of Hades.)

Anyway, this street preacher was complaining about the cruel tyrants who rule large swathes of the planet. Which led him to screech at the top of his voice: “Down with dictation!”

Our reader says: “I’m guessing the bloke meant ‘down with dictatorship’. Though any office secretary who happened to be passing would probably have agreed with his chosen phrasing.”

Bum deal

A DIARY yarn about an elderly lady’s linguistic confusion reminds Richard Davis from Vienna of his career as a social worker in the old Southern General Hospital, where an old woman informed him that she had a hysterical rectum.

Understandably confused, Richard checked her medical records and discovered that she actually had been given… a hysterectomy.

Jingle bell jab

WE’RE wondering what are the most appropriate yuletide songs to enjoy this year. Stevie Campbell from Hamilton suggests: "Away In A Vaccination Centre."

Spitting distance

STEVEN Spielberg’s version of West Side Story is showing in cinemas. A similar tale of star-cross'd lovers has also been playing out in Shawlands, in what we are labelling South Side Story.

Reader Jan Bracey was walking behind two girls in school uniforms when she heard one say to the other: “So obviously am no gonnie let a boy spit oan me. So I pit a pencil in his hair, then he goes an tells the teacher…”

Our reader was ever so impressed. “Ain’t young love grand?” she sighs.

Pretentious? Moi?

“MY wife recently called me pretentious,” says reader Oliver Thompson. “I was so surprised my monocle fell out.”

Slapdash spy

THE final hectic shopping weekend before Christmas is almost upon us, and the perfect gift for a loved one is a hand-wrapped Ferrari.

If that’s not in your price range, there’s always the new Herald Diary Book, Twisted Tails & Nutjobs, which includes comments such as the following…

“James Bond always does amazing feats in restrictive tailored suits,” notes reader Tony Miller. “Imagine what he could accomplish in tracky bottoms and a string vest.”

Looking hot

FASHION conscious Chris Ide from Waterfoot says: “I used to have a smoking jacket until it went on fire. Now it's a blazer.”