Mystery message
THE Diary’s What The Heckety-Heck Is Going On Around Here? Department (one of the busiest and most overworked divisions in our bureau) has received a message from Alastair Sillars from Dumfries, who informs us that he spotted a sign which read: "SECRET BUNKER".
“How can it be secret if it’s signposted?” inquires our baffled correspondent.
A job lot
WE would normally conclude that the following tale from reader Robin Gilmour was a rather unlikely one, though in the current climate it has more than a hint of truth about it. Robin tells us that he spotted a wee old wumman staggering out of the supermarket carrying eight bags of messages and a 24-pack of water.
“Can you manage?” inquired our gallant correspondent.
“Aye, son,” replied the elderly lady. “But I’m no wantin’ the Celtic job.”
The wheel deal
YET again the Diary is all at sea, with another tale of a boat and the floaty, flighty foolish folk who sailed on it. Reader Freddy Gillies recalls that before the days of the CalMac roll-on/roll-off ferry, vehicles had to be craned aboard. One vessel’s cargo manifest included the shipment to the Hebrides of a small Bedford bus. The mate calculated that its weight would exceed the derrick’s safe working limit.
To solve the problem, a bright deckie suggested removing the wheels of the bus to make the vehicle light enough to lift. This was accomplished, and when the ferry was under way the mate inquired as to the whereabouts of the wheels.
“Och, it was just as handy to put them inside the bus,” he was told.
Birdbrained
IN the hushed tones of David Attenborough creeping through the African veldt, reader Ted Fisher gets in touch to educate us in the ways of the wild.
“If pelicans weren’t optimistic,” he points out, “they’d be called pelicants.”
X now ex
“I SWAPPED my Xbox for a quarter pound of venison,” reveals Stevie Campbell from Hamilton: “My wife's not too pleased, but I told her it's a definite game changer.”
White-out
ANOTHER tale of undergraduates and their unique take on life. Bryce Drummond from Kilmarnock tells us that when his son was studying architecture at Strathclyde University, he claimed that he could always tell when an engineering student had been using a computer.
The giveaway? The screen always had Tipp-Ex patches on it.
Bright sparks
“I’VE an electrician friend who used to be a police detective,” says reader Maurice Owen. “We call him Sherlock Ohms.”
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