To boldly go and all that. According to Captain Kirk, space was the final frontier. He had clearly never been on the No 6 bus to East Kilbride after kicking out time at the boozers. Not so much a space odyssey, more a galaxy of spaced out oddities.
“Did you know that the first man on the moon was extremely short?” the diarist said to the sports editor. “What, the ‘giant leap’ fella?,” he replied with growing curiosity. “Aye, he was only 4’ 11” … that’s why he complained about the size of the step.”
All of this inter-galactic gobbledygook was stoked up by the news that a San Francisco-based space data analytics company has announced the launch of its 100th Glasgow-built satellite known as a Low Earth Multi-Use Receiver.
“That should be handy for gathering information on the subterranean mouth-breathers that go to Celtic and Rangers games then?” said the diarist. “It can’t pick up things that low,” responded a colleague.
The Low Earth thingamabob may be more adept at registering the attendance at a Livingston versus Hamilton match.
Back on planet earth, meanwhile, all eyes today will be on the UK’s biggest National Hunt. “What’s Jacob Rees Mogg been up to now?” asked the head of sport. “I said Hunt,” the diarist replied.
Yes, it’s the Grand National at Aintree this afternoon as equine endeavour takes centre stage and gambling slips get torn up like Lester Piggott’s tax returns.
Back in 1996, Mark Fitzgerald took the Aintree honours and expressed his unbridled delight to the debonair Des Lynam.
“I’ve never enjoyed nine minutes more – even sex is an anti-climax after this,” gasped Fitzgerald. And he was talking about the race, not a chance to converse with dishy Des.
Fitzgerald enjoyed his moment on the thoroughbred, Rough Quest, which sounds a bit like the haphazard process the SFA beaks go through when deciding what disciplinary charges to dish out.
*By all accounts, the Barkley Marathon is as mean-spirited as bottle of cheap vodka.
For the second year in a row, no runners completed the gruelling, 100-mile mountain race which is characterised by daunting ascents the equivalent of climbing Everest twice.
Just 15 runners have completed the trek in its 33-year history. The Barkley Marathon is known grimly as “the race that eats its young”. It’s uncannily like the unforgiving rush for the breakfast butties in The Herald canteen.
*On this April date in 1896, the first modern Olympic Games got underway in Athens.
One of the star attractions of that occasion was the Scottish weightlifter, Launceston Elliot, who would become Britain’s first Olympic champion in the one-armed lift.
Elliot charmed the Greek crowds with his “uncommon type of beauty”. He also wooed them with his, ahem, clean and jerk.
*Artificial Intelligence is everywhere. Here on the sports desk, meanwhile, Authentic Incompetence reigns supreme.
In these high-tech times of ours, the diarist was intrigued to read that robots in Sweden are producing content at a furious rate and pushing out around 2000 stories every day to various media outlets.
It sounds just like the Rangers PR machine during those succulent lamb years with the Scottish press.
*All golfing roads lead to Augusta next week as the scrap for the Royal & Ancient game’s most cherished jaicket gets going at the Masters.
It’s 20 years since the great Gene Sarazen passed away at the age of 97. Sarazen, of course, was part of the Masters furniture. The seven-time Major champion won the green
jacket in 1935 but, as the years progressed, Sarazen explained to the then Augusta chairman, Hord Hardin, that he felt he was getting too old to be a ceremonial starter at the event.
He didn’t want to be “an exhibit in a museum”. Hardin nodded gently and said: “Gene, the people don’t want to see you play, they just want to see if you’re still alive.”
Strangely enough, that’s what Celtic fans would often say about Marvin Compper.
*Staying with the Masters and the 2016 champion Danny Willett has been recalling his green jacket-winning episode at Augusta.
The Yorkshireman was enjoying an impressive campaign in the upper reaches of the leaderboard on the closing Sunday but, out of the blue, was thrust into the lead when he marched off the 15th green.
The reason, of course, was that Jordan Spieth, who led by five after nine holes of his final round, racked up a calamitous seven on the 12th hole and saw his title defence drown in a watery grave.
All of a sudden, Willett had the Masters glory in his grasp. So what did he do prior to teeing-off on the 16th? “I nipped off for a pee,” recalled Willett.
As Hot Chocolate may have sang: “It started with a p***”.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here