Monkeying around

KNOWING the huge influence the Diary has on the hearts and minds of the nation, for the sake of balance and fairmindedness, we have until now resisted revealing who our political preference was to win this week’s election.

But now the voting is over we are happy to proclaim that, as far as we’re concerned, none of the candidates cut the mustard. In truth, they failed to slice through any condiment whatsoever.

Everyone was just so – yeuch! – sincere. Where were the wacky candidates like Tuxedo Stan, the cat who once stood for office in Nova Scotia?

Or Tiao, the grumpy chimpanzee who bravely attempted to get elected in Rio de Janeiro?

If our politicians resolutely refuse to be daffy, ditzy or dunderheidish, then clearly it’s up to the Diary to proudly hold aloft the fluttering flag of flippancy and foolishness, as we do today, by publishing the following exercises in eccentricity, plucked from our archives…

Egg-cellent point

WE often remark on the strange conversations folk hear on buses. A Shawlands reader was once going to work when a teenage girl told her pal: “We had scrambled eggs for breakfast, but it was like a pancake.”

Her pal mulled over this revelation for a contemplative moment, then replied: “You mean an omelette?”

Spoiler alert

FLYING back from Australia, a reader watched the chap in front of her complain when the seat-back televisions were switched off just before landing.

“My movie wasn’t finished,” he huffed.

“I’m sorry, sir,” said the attendant, “but we need to switch it off during our descent.”

“But I don’t know how it ends,” the passenger continued querulously.

“They all lived happily ever after,” announced the attendant as she carried on up the aisle.

Sleep of reason

A WOMAN who was having her nails manicured was asked by the beautician what she did for a living.

“I’m an anaesthetist,” she replied.

“What’s that?” said the beautician.

“I put people to sleep,” she explained in simple terms.

“Oh, is that not very sad?” said the girl.

Flagging flesh

A CHAP was in his work canteen in Livingston. He overheard the woman serving complain to her fellow worker that the flesh on her upper arm had lost its muscle tone.

Despite the queue of folk waiting, she jiggled her arm and announced: “I’m thinking of getting a Saltire tattooed on it – then it’ll look like it’s flapping in the wind.”

Tree-mendous point

A WEST-END reader divined a certain logic when he overheard a student-type on his mobile phone on Glasgow’s Byre’s Road explaining: “I know money doesn’t grow on trees, mum. That’s why I’m asking you for some.”

Questionable question

JOB application forms: A North Kelvinside reader told us he was very tempted, when he reached the box which asked ‘Salary expected’, to write in it: ‘Friday’.

Sign language

A CHAP was stopped by cops in Govan while he was walking away from the Southern General hospital with a large sign under his arm which read: ‘Emergency’. When they asked where he got it, he told them he found it by accident.