Beastly names
ONE summer reader Barry Deane went travelling in Central America, and came across a Scottish expat in the outskirts of Mexico City who owned a small private zoo.
His stock of animals included a couple of capybaras. (If you’ve never seen a capybara, imagine a rat, though much larger and congenial. The sort of rat you’d happily invite over for tea and scones. And it would probably help wash the dishes afterwards.) Anyway, this Scottish zoo owner gave his capybaras names that reflected their personalities.
The jollier of the two he called Happybara.
The slightly grumpier fella answered to Scrappybara.
Belt up, bud
TO make extra money, back in the 1990s, reader Mike Kelley worked as a bouncer at weekends in various disreputable watering holes around Glasgow.
In one dodgy drinking den in Partick the patrons were being encouraged to finish their pints at the end of the evening.
One inebriated fellow refused. In swaggering tones he said to the head bouncer: “I’d watch yersel mate. I’ve a black belt in karate.”
The head bouncer merely shrugged and said: “Big deal. I’ve a snake belt frae Frasers.”
The name game
WE mentioned a popular football computer game the young uns play on their mobile phones, where competitors mask their true identities behind pseudonyms.
The sobriquets are often inventive variations on the names of famous footy players.
Reader Wayne Flemming tells us his son is a fan of the game, and the madcap moniker he uses when playing is… Maradona Kebab.
Sozzle a scoundrel
DICTIONARY corner. Dave Sinclair gets in touch to provide a definition of bamboozle: “It’s when you confuse a ruffian by giving him alcohol.”
Work… or shirk?
THE teenage son of reader Matt Brown recently bagged his first part-time job working as a receptionist in a laid back Edinburgh gym, where he spends his time chatting to the regulars, perusing a novel or catching up on his thumb-twiddling.
He once even managed to sneak in a session on a running machine when the gym was especially quiet.
After three weeks of such hard graft, he proudly announced to Matt: “I’ve done everything at my work, except work.”
Mind your language
EXCELLENT advice from reader Joanna Langford: “Never use a big word when a singularly unloquacious and diminutive linguistic expression will satisfactorily satisfy instead.”
Jaded job jabber
CAREER-MINDED reader Janet Fox says: “I struggled for a long time to get a job as a podiatrist. I just couldn't get a foot in the door.”
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