Cinematic silliness

YOUR average film fan tends to while away the idle hours watching the latest movie from the endlessly meandering Marvel franchise. (We hear rumours that an upcoming offering is titled Doctor Strange Battles Rebekah Vardy and Coleen Rooney In the Multiverse of Wittering WAGs.)

Meanwhile, sophisticated cinephile David Donaldson has been feasting his eyes on the Claude Chabrol version of Madame Bovary, which includes hardly any flying superhumans with laser-beams blasting from their eyeballs.

Alas, David was a tad disappointed with this understated French flick, and says: “As my attention began to wander, I realised I could improve things by simply removing one letter from the title.”

Thus he suggests a more up-to-date story about a bored wife in a provincial French town who funds her frivolous lifestyle by selling her eggs on the internet to infertile couples.

The movie would, of course, be titled Madame Ovary.

Intangible instrument

UPON learning that someone paid £7.1m for a manky old shirt worn by Diego Maradona in a kickabout with England back in 1986, the Diary is now trying to figure out if there’s any Scottish football memorabilia that could be offloaded for a similar amount of dosh.

Graham Richmond suggests that the fans of one of Glasgow’s famous footy clubs (we won’t reveal which team, so let’s just call them the Blue Hue Crew) would pay a handsome amount to get their hands on the invisible flute that Paul Gascoigne once tootled during a rather uproarious Old Firm match.

The Diary remembers that flute well, and wonders if it might have been slightly less controversial if Gazza had played an invisible glockenspiel, instead.

Argy-bargy angst

NHS bosses are warning of the dangers of microaggressions, those mild statements that are sometimes construed as being offensive.

Scottish comedian Leo Kearse isn’t convinced, saying: “If you’re worried about a microaggression go to Glasgow and see a full-size aggression.”

Lachrymose in liquid

ANOTHER philosophical thought from reader Jim Hamilton, who asks: “Can you cry underwater?”

The tender trap

HAPPY families, ain’t they the best? Russell Smith from Largs recalls a friend who surprisingly announced he had a soft spot for his mother-in-law.

Slightly less surprisingly, he explained that he was talking about the local bog.

Polly patter

WE continue listing the prodigious activities of parrots. Katherine Hutchison suggests: Polydipsia – the parrot has gone swimming.

Reticent reward

“I RECENTLY won a prize for most secretive person in my office,” says reader Leonard Carpenter, who adds: “I can’t tell you how much that means to me.”

Read more: Isa's flights of fancy at the darts