The big question
A DIARY tale about Glasgow University’s school of philosophy reminds Bill Ford of the days when he was an undergraduate in the department, and there were rumours of a final exam paper that notoriously had only one word printed at the top, which was: Why?
Says Bill: “It was alleged that one bright student wrote in response, ‘Why not?’ and received full marks for his splendid effort.”
Brought to book
THE notoriously nosey Diary has been trying to understand the majestic mind of our glorious leader by taking a sneaky peak at the weighty tomes stacked on Nicola Sturgeon’s night stand. One of the books she read this year was The Trick is to Keep Breathing, which turns out to be a novel by respected Scottish author Janice Galloway.
Philistines that we are, the Diary initially assumed it was an instruction manual dealing with the difficulties of wearing a claggy cotton face mask on a crowded train.
Joke hits target
BRAVING the streets of Edinburgh to do some Christmas shopping, Mary Dawson found herself standing behind a chap in a toy shop queue.
As he placed an archery kit on the counter the sales girl said to him: “If you want, you can have it gift-wrapped.”
The chap immediately replied: “It’s an archery kit. I assumed it already came with a bow.”
The shipping news
OBSERVANT Iain Mills from Largs notes that the new head of the Port Glasgow shipyard, Ferguson Marine, is the appropriately monikered David Tydeman.
Going global
ENJOYING the Christmas festivities in a bustling hostelry in Glasgow’s East End, reader Rab Cameron heard a chap at the bar say to the exceedingly grumpy girl he was standing next to: “C’moan, doll. You know I’d go tae the end o’ the Earth fir ye.”
To which the lady in question sweetly responded: “Great idea. An’ once ye get there, wid ye mind stayin’ put?”
Underpass underworld
THE wonderful thing about social media is that it inspires so many profound and penetrating conversations. For example, the Diary stumbled upon a discussion about the splendours of town planning in Scotland, with one chap saying: “God, I love a good underpass. Grew up with them as a kid and still use them over crossing the road. The smell, the fear, the graffiti and the endorphin rush of coming out the other side unscathed.”
Getting his cards
“TODAY is my last day after 30 years' service working at the Christmas card decoration factory,” sighs reader Matt Turner. “The end of a glittering career.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here