Biting back
PAISLEY born TV writer Steven Moffat’s adaptation of Dracula (devised with buddy Mark Gattis) has received both plaudits and prickly protestations from viewers. Similar to his work on Doctor Who and Sherlock, Moffat has updated a classic work by adding a few modern twists, hence the controversy. In Dracula, one of the eyebrow-raising revisions is that the Count now nibbles the necks of women and men with equal relish, and therefore seems to be a bisexual baddy. Several Twitter users have defended this upgrade, including one fan who says, not unreasonably: “Dracula is a fictional, parasitic, paranormal being who drinks human blood. If him being bisexual is the thing that most weirds you out, your concept of reality is a little off.”
Hunger most horrid
FORMER Head of Programmes at STV, Paul Hughes, admits he’s struggling with the post-Hogmanay blues. On the first of January he found himself feeling the same sort of exquisite pain usually only experienced by a certain Transylvanian Count (see above) bereft of a bottle of Barr’s Irn Blud to belt back: “What kind of place is Scotland,” wails Paul, adding: “On the one day of the year when you really need it, you can’t buy a Morton’s crispy morning roll for love nor money. Millions of citizens, deprived of a runny yolk inside a Glasgow Ciabatta. Disgraceful.”
Sturgeon’s high dudgeon
ONE of the Diary’s many New Year resolutions is to discover even more ingenious meanings for the acronym SAGA, which, you may recall, originally denoted a holiday firm for voyagers of a certain vintage. Once our rascally readers grabbed hold of those four letters things turned a tad political. Jim White, for instance, argues that SAGA is surely an apt phrase used by Boris Johnson to describe his charming and effervescent political counterpart, Nicola Sturgeon. In other words, SAGA means: Scowlin’ And Greetin-faced… Always.
Better late…
IT seems The Diary has rivals when it comes to making big promises for 2020. Reader David Donaldson tells us his New Year resolution is to stop leaving things until the very last minute. “I decided on this at 23:59 on the 31st of December,” he adds.
Bog awful
WE recently printed a picture of a continental toilet devoid of the usual trappings of comfort. Really only a hole in the ground, there wasn’t even a place to sit down, relax and luxuriate whilst going about your business. Robin Irvine informs us the nickname for this spartan commode is the Highwayman Toilet. It’s labelled so because the favourite phrase of those roving reprobates of yore was, of course: “Stand and Deliver.”
Read more: Leslie Caron in Glasgow, 1956
Bird brained thought
PHILOSOPHICAL thought for the day comes from reader Catherine Morrison. “They say you are what you eat,” points out Catherine, who then adds: “Well, today I bought some ready to eat chicken and, sure enough, when I got home I was ready to eat chicken.”
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