Pyjama drama

FOR many people Alastair Campbell is that bellicose chap who performed referee duties in the New Labour government, just about managing to dissuade Tony Blair and Gordon Brown from tearing lumps out each other. (Pity really. It would have been an entertaining scrap. The Diary’s prediction being that Brown would have won, by chokehold.)

When he isn’t yelling at politicians, Alastair does something equally noisy and irritating. He plays the bagpipes, which he’s been doing on a social media video, with a squeaking, squawking, squelching rendition of The Fields of Athenry, a favourite ditty of Celtic FC supporters.

Alastair’s now offering to accompany Hoops fans with his version of the tune.

Meanwhile, one viewer of Campbell’s video wonders why he appears to be playing the pipes in his jim-jams.

Alastair – feisty as ever – retorts: “Trunks. Don’t wear pyjamas. Hate pyjamas. Terrible things.”

The bum deal

WE’RE discussing IZAL, the torturous toilet paper that tingled long after being used.

A former boss of reader Carol Foote once recalled attending school in the south of England, where any child needing to visit the loo had to raise their hand and, when summoned forward, approach the teacher’s desk.

The teacher then demanded to know the precise reason for the toilet trip. If the child needed a poo, the teacher would take out a packet of IZAL and count out the sheets as follows: one for up, one for down and one for polishing.

Cheeky Auld Reekie

JOE Hullait, the creator of TV comedy Scot Squad, is visiting Scotland’s majestic capital city. And he’s not amused: “Asked for a roll-and-sausage and potato scone in an Edinburgh café, and the woman shook her head and said, ‘No. Absolutely not. I don’t fry things.’”

Adds a despondent Joe: “This wasn’t even a posh place. My worst Edinburgh experience so far.”

Doubly dead Dodo

A WHILE ago the Diary reported that scientists are attempting to bring back to life extinct woolly mammoths. We now learn they are hoping to do likewise with the equally extinct Tasmanian tiger.

“Hopefully boffins will reintroduce the dodo next,” says reader Fred Reeves. “Then we can kill them all over again, and have dodo burgers at McDonald’s.”

Money matters

WE continue discussing the nation’s precarious economic situation. “A guy broke into my house last night and was looking for money,” says reader David Richardson. “So I got up and looked with him.”

Fat chance

MYTHOLOGICALLY-MINDED reader Jennifer Russell says: “Rhinos are just unicorns that have let themselves go.”

Read more: Waving goodbye to sanity at the Edinburgh Festival