Loopy letters
THE Internet is the source of a proliferation of increasingly complex and indecipherable acronyms. This has led America’s fabled security service, the FBI, to commission a comprehensive study of the jargon being used online.
The Feds noted such obvious examples as LOL (laugh out loud). But also more bizarre ones, such as PWP (plot? what plot?) and NTTAWWT (not that there’s anything wrong with that).
Diary correspondent David Donaldson believes we could do with a Scottish study of our own impenetrable acronyms, which would surely include the following examples:
SROIBTENY: second referendum on independence by the end of next year. (Sometimes with the addition of OMN: or maybe not.)
And, of course, TNCFWBLS: the new CalMac ferries will be launched soon. (OMN.)
Paradise postponed
BROADCASTER Julia Hartley-Brewer asks the question that has been on many people’s cloth-obscured lips this week.
“Mask rules will stay in force in Scotland until April,” notes Julia. “Just checking, but did Nicola Sturgeon specify which April?”
Musical message
WE continue to celebrate the signs that appear in music shop windows. Reader Iain MacInnes suggests…
"LUNCH
Back at 2pm
Offenbach sooner."
Cherubs, ya bam
ICELANDIC novelist and screenwriter Lilja Sigurdardottir has revealed that she loves strolling round Glasgow as there is always something interesting to see. She was particularly impressed by a cheeky-looking stone cherub she spotted on the side of a city centre building. “Cherubs always make me happy,” she trills. “I always wonder whether they are mammals or birds.”
The Diary believes they are a mixture of both, and are therefore bammals, which sounds especially appropriate for the rascally version that lurks on the stone edifices of Glasgow.
Liquid loafing
WE recently mentioned the strange discrepancy in the length of time between a walk to the pub and the walk back home. Hugh Lamont from Seaton Sluice in Northumberland gets in touch to say he also lives within walking distance of his local. “It’s only two minutes’ walk there, but 15 back,” he says, adding: “The difference is staggering.”
Digging the threads
WE’VE been discussing the curious incident of Rod Stewart filling in potholes in the road near his mansion. Rod, who has always been a snazzy dresser, was wearing a yellow high-visibility jacket for the job.
Reader Helen Morton approves of raffish Rod’s sartorial statement, and says: “He wears it well.”
Industrial music
RECALLING her career in industry, reader Sharon Canning says: “In the factory where I worked I was labelled the Bonnie Tyler of quality control. Every now and then I’d fail a part.”
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