Road to ruin

THE husband of Bearsden reader Anna Johnston is devoted to the long-running BBC TV programme, the Antiques Roadshow. Anna is not a fan and would much rather be settling back of an evening to enjoy a jaunty sitcom, romantic movie or gritty crime drama.

In an exasperated mood, she once asked hubby what revved him up about the Roadshow.

“I get a tremendous sense of satisfaction,” he replied, “knowing that I’m still young enough to be watching the experts on the programme, and not being evaluated by them.”

Dram grammar drama

AN eagle-eyed Diary reader points out that the website for the prestigious Gleneagles Hotel invites guests to enjoy a ‘we dram’ after dinner.

“Perhaps,” muses our intrigued reader, “it's the conjugated form of a newly minted verb: I dram, you dram, he she or it drams, we dram, and they dram.”

Lost in translation

SPOTTING the spiffy yellow and blue police cars of Glasgow, Robin Johnston from Newton Mearns thought it was cheering that they happen to share the national colours of beleaguered Ukraine.

Robin initially assumed the words emblazoned on the cars had been written, for the sake of solidarity, in the Ukrainian language, and was therefore unintelligible to Glasgow readers.

Upon closer examination he realised it was another exotic language, equally alien to most Glaswegians… Gaelic.

Animal magic

MOGGIE loving reader Rose Hutton tells us: “When you own a cat, you get really good at identifying objects by what they sound like crashing off a shelf.”

Sing-a-long sign

ANOTHER Diary yarn about classical music. Gordon Casely recalls the sign on a music shop door which read: Gone Chopin. Bach in a minuet.

Scuppered by skip

THE DIARY usually tries to be cheerful and upbeat, though we occasionally prefer to discombobulate our readers with a dramatic change in tone and mood, as we do today, with this sad tale involving a tragic loss, followed by a despairing quest which – alas! - proves to be in vain.

Handkerchiefs at the ready, folks…

Ian Noble from Carstairs Village informs us that he used to have one of those baseball caps with the skip at the back. Unfortunately he somehow managed to lose it.

“For years now I’ve been trying to find another one just like it,” adds Ian. “But all the baseball caps these days seem to have the skip at the front. Can anyone help?”

Winner… and sinner

“I ENTERED the Kleptomaniac World Championships,” boasts sporting reader Andrew Johnson, “and managed to bag gold… silver and bronze.”