Forward thinking

YAY! 2022 has arrived, which means we can finally erase from the nation’s collective consciousness all the mishaps and miseries of the year just ended, while eagerly anticipating fresh mishaps and miseries to come.

Hopefully they will be exotic and previously unexperienced mishaps and miseries, for variety is what life is all about.

Maybe there will even be the occasional circumstance worth celebrating. Perhaps Scotland’s footy team will triumph in the World Cup. A trophy for most graceful losers would be nice.

But enough about 2022. With a nostalgic glint in our eye, the Diary takes the opportunity of a fresh year to peek proudly into the past, by recalling the following classic tales from our archives…

Hail hassle

TODAY being the first of January circuitously reminds us of the occasion when some Chinese fellows attempted to hail a taxi on Woodlands Road at Chinese New Year. A passer-by showed impressive knowledge of chronology for a February night by telling them: “Aye, it’s murder trying to get a taxi in Glasgow at New Year.”

Belt up

OVERHEARD in a Glasgow watering hole. A chap revealed to his chums that he had made the fatal mistake of suggesting to his wife that she had perhaps put on a pound or two over the festive season. He confessed that she tartly responded: “That’s rich coming from someone who needs sat-nav to do up his trouser belt.”

Offensive message

WE recall when Glasgow was named the UK’s most violent city, a title some residents took great pride in celebrating. For in the very same week that the title was awarded, the Glasgow firm of defence lawyers Livingstone Brown posted on its Twitter account the following incredulous message: “Defence witness comes in to court to give evidence today with the slogan Weekend Offender on his jumper.”

Who’s sorry now?

STREET mendicants in Glasgow often attract some level of sympathy from passers-by. However, we recall the tale of one chap who was walking past a city centre beggar when the person in front said to the chap, “Sorry,” and kept on walking.

The chap sitting on the pavement shouted after him: “Aye, I’ll be sorry too when I’ve got money.”

Orange? See red

GLASGOW’S Gallery of Modern Art can be a tad avant-garde. Referring to one exhibit that featured ceramic orange peel scattered across the floor, someone wrote in the gallery’s comments book that they felt rather anxious at witnessing such a depraved scene, and thus, “have to leave before I start tidying up.”

Driven to despair

A LENZIE reader took her car to the garage to be checked over as there was a strange whining noise coming from it when she was driving.

“Has your daughter left her One Direction CD playing?” the mechanic asked her.

Swing shift

THE Moscow State Circus visited Braehead and a reader swore to us that the woman next to him at the show was watching acrobats on the trapeze when she said to her husband: “You’d never catch me doing that.”

“I wouldn’t even try,” he replied.