Ya dancer, ye
ENGLISH ballet dancer Darcey Bussell has been recalling her Scottish roots. “My grandfather used to take me to ceilidhs, and learning Scottish and Irish dancing was an important part of my education as a professional dancer,” she says.
Perhaps Darcey could combine her love of Celtic jigging with the performance style that made her famous. The Diary would happily purchase front-row tickets to watch her stage version of Swan Loch.
Or instead of The Nutcracker, Dame Darcey could cut a dash in The Heedbanger.
Breakfast of champions
THE son of Irvine reader Willie Ferguson is not a fan of works of towering literary genius, which is why he has been known to berate his poor father for enjoying his Herald newspaper during breakfast.
On the other hand, Willie’s son does love the famous prog rock group Supertramp. He could hardly believe it when Willie pointed out that the sleeve of their 1979 album, Breakfast in America, features a picture of one of his musical heroes reading Scotland’s very own Herald newspaper during breakfast in a cafe in the States.
“There’s fewer catty comments during breakfast in Irvine nowadays,” chuckles Willie.
Antisocial sing-song
ATTEMPTING to amuse himself in these unusual times, Malcolm Boyd from Milngavie has been compiling a social distancing playlist. His current favourite tunes include Nanci Griffith’s From a Distance and Dionne Warwick’s Walk On By.
Jenneration game
OUR recent tale about Jenners department store in Edinburgh, which is soon to close, reminds reader David Donaldson that it was a very complicated place to navigate.
One of his old acquaintances never got over the shock of losing his kids during a visit. “Maybe they’ll find them during the clear out,” he recently mused to David.
Dodgy definitions
WE continue to provide alternative meanings for well known locations. Reader Gordon McRae has two suggestions:
Brodick = Fraternal eejit.
Oban = Attempt to reduce the alphabet by one letter.
Spleling eror
A RECENT Diary piece about the difficulties of spelling words correctly inspires David Miller from Milngavie to get in touch. “It deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are wirtten, so lnog as the fisrt and lsat ltteers are in the rghit pclae,” he explains.
As we understood every word of David’s message, we suspect he might be rihgt.
Office politics
DISGRUNTLED security guard Ted Bruce tells us he wasn’t pleased when his boss asked him to watch the office.
“To be honest, I’ve never been a huge fan of Ricky Gervais,” he told his boss.
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