Money matters
THE Diary charged its Economics Department with analysing what Rishi Sunak’s Spring Statement will mean for our own august organisation.
The financial wizards at our disposal proceeded to blow the dust from their wooden abacuses, then whipped off their shoes and socks in order to evaluate complex numbers using both fingers and toes.
After hours of intricate calculation and heated debate amongst themselves, they presented the rest of the Diary team with a financial assessment for the year ahead, which we quote now in its entirety: "Yikes!" is what they scribbled.
Clearly stringent cost-cutting measures had to be taken. So we sacked the office butler and cut down on our daily intake of caviar.
But one thing we will never sell, no matter how precarious the economic situation, is our collection of classic Diary tales.
They’re just too darned entertaining, as the following nuggets from our archives prove…
Dead beautiful
THE sun is in the sky (every now and then) and optimistic Scots are starting to dress accordingly. A Glasgow reader once heard a girl in the changing rooms struggling into skin-tight jeans while moaning to her pal: “I think they’re too tight.”
She added: “If I was being chased I widnae be able to run. I could wind up deid.”
“Aye, but at least you’d look good,” consoled her friend.
Lidl lowdown
INCREASING numbers of bargain-seeking shoppers are venturing into the more cheap and cheerful type of supermarket, though such places take some getting used to.
A reader told us he was strolling round the Perth branch of Lidl and he couldn’t help hearing a posh middle-aged woman say to her elderly parent: “I don’t think this is a Dubonnet sort of place, Daddy.”
Tea tattle
AH, the generation gap! A Milngavie reader realised her grandson had never seen loose tea leaves because the family always used tea bags.
“Fortune tellers used to read tea leaves,” she told him in a bout of reminiscing.
“I didn’t even know you could write on them,” he told her.
Questionable answer
JOB interviews can sometimes tease information out of a prospective candidate that wouldn’t become apparent by merely looking at a CV.
We recall the Glasgow fellow who was being quizzed for a glorious new career, when he was asked by the interrogator on the other side of the desk if he drank.
“Thanks,” he replied, “but I’d rather wait until the interview’s over.”
Hot… or not?
A GLASGOW chap arrived at his local, took out his phone, and showed his pals a photo of his new girlfriend while observing: “She’s beautiful, isn’t she?”
“If you think she’s gorgeous, you should see my girlfriend,” replied one of the chaps.
“Why? Is she a stunner?” asked the first bloke.
“No, she’s an optician,” came the droll reply.
Kettle cop-out
WE recall the Glasgow chap on the train home who phoned his wife and told her: “I’ll be home in five minutes. Put the kettle on.”
She merely replied: “I don’t think the kettle wants to talk to you right now.”
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