Fighting talk
THE history books will remember this summer as the Season of Savage Scrapping, for there are many bloodthirsty battles being waged.
On the football pitch Scotland and England are both eager to be evicted first from the Euro 2024 competition in Germany.
The players want the ball-blootering done and dusted so they can flee the chilly winds of Deutschland to enjoy some quality beach bumming and cocktail quaffing on the golden sands of Spain or Florida.
In politics, the scrap involves Rishi Sunak, who is desperate to lose the election so he can swan off to America and bag a cushy job in Silicon Valley.
Sir Keir Starmer is terrified he might actually win, which would put him in the uncomfortable position of having to come up with some ideas.
Meanwhile, Nigel Farage stands out from his Westminster-based rivals, for he is the only leader whose name rhymes with garage, massage, barrage and suffering succotash.
Will this be enough to get him elected? In the current climate, who knows…
Luckily the Diary has no competitors to fear. In the world of journalism we are the traffic cone balanced on top of the statue of Wellington’s head.
In other words, we have reached giddy heights few can imagine.
How did we gain our lofty peak?
By rewarding our readers with the most entertaining tales ever published, such as the following classic yarns from our archives…
Billy’s blistering badinage
ADVICE from the Diary. Never try and crush a comedy king.
Once performing a Glasgow show, Billy Connolly was confronted by an annoying heckler.
Billy looked over at the chap and said: “I don’t like getting interrupted at work. How would you like it if I came into your workplace and told you how to sweep up?”
Sounding off
THE late Scottish rock bass player Jack Bruce once slipped radio DJ John Peel and his producer John Walters four little pink pills when they told him they were going to see him play.
Walters threw them away, and years later told Bruce that he and Peel were not big drug enthusiasts.
“Drugs?” said Bruce. “They were earplugs.”
Roll with it
THE comedian Tommy Cooper once had a sly dig at the proud Scottish nation. In his joke file was written: “I saw a sign on a Scottish golf course once. It said, ‘Members will please refrain from picking up lost balls until after they have stopped rolling.’”
Dancing cheek-to-cheek
A READER heard a teenager on his bus into Glasgow complain to his pal that he couldn’t dance.
He was impressed by the advice the pal gave him.
“Can’t dance?” he said. “Just write your name in the air with your bum. Sorted. Next problem?”
A fishy tale
“SHARKS never go completely bald,” a reader told us.
“Just a little fin on top.”
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