Garden grooming

WITH the cost of living crisis ramping up, the Diary is figuring out ways to keep fuel bills as low as possible, thus ensuring that our readers aren’t driven into poverty. (They’ll be gently herded into poverty, instead. Which is almost as bad. Though at least it’s a slightly more dignified way of becoming destitute.)

Paul Stevenson says: “With the autumnal rainy season about to commence, take your loofah and bar of Imperial Leather into the front garden and enjoy a refreshing outdoor scrub, thus lowering electricity usage by never entering the bathroom shower.”

Our sensible reader adds: “Remember not to sing while you’re soaping, as this will only draw unwanted attention to your cleansing activities.”

Web on wheels

ABOUT to drive her daughter to school yesterday morning, reader Mairi MacLaverty spotted that, overnight, a spider had constructed an impressively ostentatious web on the car’s steering wheel.

“Ugh!” muttered Mairi. (Well, wouldn’t you?)

She then turned to her daughter and said: “It seems that a spider has decided to make a mess of my car.”

“That’s one way of looking at it,” replied her daughter. “Though according to the spider, you’re driving around in his dining room.”

Hard to swallow

MORE about the legendary lacerating loo roll that was once popular in Scottish toilets. One of our correspondents recently mentioned that IZAL used to publish poetry on their sheets of paper, thus turning the cludgie into a cultural retreat.

Donald Ritchie from Gourock remembers one of the versus being:

"Please to remember in foggy November

To gargle with IZAL a lot.

In every season there's many a reason

Why IZAL should not be forgot."

(The Diary imagines that the gargling was to be done with a liquid version of IZAL’s sanitary products, for gargling with toilet paper can only lead to indigestion.)

Immaterial material

THE husband of Debbie Meehan is clearing out his old motorbike clothing. One jacket has a camouflage design.

The chap who’s bought the garment clearly has a sense of humour as he sent a message with his successful eBay bid saying: “Not sure what I’ve bought. I can only see a coat hanger.”

Casualness curtailed

HAVING a cuppa in a café in Glasgow’s West End, reader Jennifer Butler overheard a lady at another table say to her friend: “I go to the gym so rarely I’ve started calling it the James.”

The brush-off

THOUGHT for the day from reader Kevin Bell: “The best way to stop sandwiches on a plate from curling is to hide their brushes.”

Read more: A school trip and the gripes of wrath