Written off

WORRYING news. We learn that Shetland author Ann Cleeves lost her laptop after visiting the local library.

She’s offering a reward for its safe return, and rightly so, for half of a novel she was writing is lurking within the innards of the machine.

The Diary fervently hopes Ann is reunited with her work, for we recall the sad tale of the promising young author who permanently lost, on a train, all his writing, which he was planning to have published.

We’re not sure what happened to this chap, though his dreadful misfortune probably ensured that he never succeeded in the literary game.

Ernest Hemingway was his name.

Red alert

SO Scotland has made it to the World Cup final… sort of.

An Argentinian fellow named Mac Allister is playing alongside Messi, at any rate, and his hair, on cursory inspection, appears to be of a gingerish hue.

That’s enough scientific proof of his Caledonian ‘roots’, if any was needed.

Reader Kevin Beattie goes further than the Diary, and makes a bold claim that another fleet-footed son of Alba has displayed the greatest individual talent of the competition.

“The player who’s impressed me most,” he admits, “is MacBappe.”

Wacky wisdom

CONTEMPLATIVE reader Samantha Elwood gets in touch to point out: “Knowing that something is unhelpful is actually rather helpful.”

Sub-letters

THE Diary enjoys a good conspiracy theory, and has started a few in its time. But who needs the contribution of the Tinfoil Hat Brigade when the Woolly Hat Platoon are on the loose?

For we learn that, for the third winter in a row, festively decorated woollen bunnets are mysteriously appearing atop Scotland’s postboxes.

Who knits them? How do the knitters know they’re the correct size? Why has nobody spotted the hats being fitted?

Those are the questions we unfortunately don’t have time to answer.

Though we will say this. With everyone cutting down on heat usage at home this winter, the interiors of those wool-topped red pillars are bound to be cosier than most people’s living rooms.

Perhaps it’s time the Post Office sublet them…

Read more from the Diary: Is there is any point in picking up a penguin style?

Cockamamie car caper

RIVER CITY and Still Game star Sanjeev Kohli has been busy. “Bought a pile of bread, pasta and potatoes for £5 from the back of a Volvo in a field near Glasgow,” he says. “It was a carb oot sale.”

Face facts

“I WENT to my regular meeting of the Plastic Surgery Addicts group on Monday,” confesses reader Rose Knight. “There were a lot of new faces there….”