Brought to book

THE Diary enjoys a delicious scandal, even when it’s over 100 years old. So we’re thrilled by the publication of A Friendship in Letters: Robert Louis Stevenson & JM Barrie edited by Michael Shaw.

The book contains many entertaining missives between the two giants of Scottish literature.

At one point Barrie claims lady novelists can be “divided into those who shriek because some one has seduced them and those who shriek because no one will seduce them.”

Stevenson and Barrie have been dead a while. Though we wonder if the #MeToo movement might just try burying them all over again.

Madcap medical advice

A MOTHER once arrived at teacher Maxine Dingwall’s primary four classroom to explain that her son wasn’t at school as he was having a hernia operation.

The flustered parent explained the urgency of the situation using highly technical medical language: “Aye, the doactor said if he didnae huv the oaperation it was goanae come up an choak him.”

Upon hearing this detail, it was the teacher who almost choked.

Bedtime for Bonzo

ANOTHER tale of a Trumpish type. Reader John Dunlop’s adult son in America is delighted Joe Biden won because it was increasingly difficult explaining Presidential behaviour to his six-year-old boy.

The Diary believes explaining Trump to youngsters is actually childishly simple.

All you need say is: “You know how you kick and scream on being told it’s bedtime? Well, now you understand Trump’s thoughts on leaving the White House.”

Liquid launch

GROWING old continued. Reader Ted Wharton says: “I can recall when a new streaming service meant only one thing. You were getting fitted for a catheter.”

Chick not chunky

VISITING a fast food outlet specialising in deep-fried chicken, reader Graham Winston overheard an irate

fellow complain to management about an exceedingly petite portion of poultry he had received. “Call this a drumstick?” he said. “Even Ringo wouldnae use this oan his tom-toms.”

Latin lingo

COMIC actor David Jason revealed that upon being knighted he wanted the phrase “lovely jubbly” as the motto on his coat of arms. He eventually settled for something sensible. Reader Debbie Jenkins wonders what motto Boris Johnson would choose in a similar situation. She suggests: “Um… Ah…Err… Oops.”

(Debbie says this is what Boris often mutters, especially when explaining government policy. It isn’t English, so we must assume it’s Latin for being bold and resolute.)

Fear factor

SCAREDY-CAT reader Steven Burns is terrified of spiders: “I was hoping to find an arachnophobia support group,” he says. “But they don’t appear to have a website.”