Frozen festivities
CHRISTMAS is the ideal time for watching Christmas movies. (It would feel a little weird to be watching Bing Crosby in Holiday Inn on your mobile phone in the middle of July, while wearing flipflops and enjoying a BBQ in the back garden.)
However, as we mentioned yesterday, this year is the festive season of freezing toes and frostbitten fingers, for the government is encouraging us to avoid heating our homes.
So we’re thinking of alternative films to watch this December, which may have little in common with Christmas, but plenty to do with the c-c-c-cold.
Reader Tom McDonald reveals he’ll be watching that 1958 classic British war film… Ice Cold in Alex.
Woolly thinking
WE mentioned that festively-decorated woollen hats are mysteriously appearing on postboxes in Scotland.
Alas, we’ve no idea who’s making the bunnets, though reader Olivia Bell has a theory…
“It’s probably striking postal workers,” she says. “Since they don’t feel inclined to deliver the mail, they’ve become bored and listless, so have taken up knitting as a relaxing hobby.”
Colour-coded crack-up
ANOTHER strange occurrence. We reported that a chap dressed as Santa – very possibly the genuine article – was dragged off in a police wagon at the weekend after trying to clamber to the summit of Glasgow’s famous statue of a traffic cone (with Duke of Wellington attachment).
St Nicholas is rumoured to be a jovial old soul, so the Diary was dismayed to learn of his thuggish behaviour.
Though not reader Malcolm Andrews
“It’s well-known that Santa has anger issues,” says Malcolm. “Every time he looks in a mirror he sees red.”
Toilet humour
WITH Argentina frazzling France in Qatar, an East Dunbartonshire reader is intrigued by a newspaper headline which stated: "Argentina wins the WC Final"‘.
Not sure what to make of this, he muses: “Is this another way of saying Argentina are flushed with success while France's hopes went straight down the pan?”
Bird-brained gifts
A PERTINENT public announcement from reader Sam Gillespie: “It’s reckless and illegal for your true love to give to you any amount of wild birds for Christmas.”
Spiritual or spirits?
MYSTICALLY-MINDED Alison Boycott visited a psychic, who informed her of a strong aura about her person.
Alison excitedly repeated this news to her husband.
“The only aura I believe in,” he retorted, “Is an ‘aura best!’ after a few Hogmanay whiskies.”
Read more from the Diary: Why watching 1980s movies is cold comfort
Nastiness with Nic
MORE Santa shenanigans. “My biggest fear is being trapped in a small room with Santa,” says Gordon Matthews. “I have Claustrophobia.”
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