WE like to keep our 98-year-old copy boy Junior busy. So we asked him to wash his hands, don his radiation suit, and clamber down into the Diary’s dank and gloomy vaults to retrieve, once again, our Journal of the Plague Year, that leather-bound volume containing humour that is normally too dark (and contagious) for human consumption. These are not normal times, of course, meaning a little darkness should not only be expected, but positively embraced.

Flicking through the velum pages of the Journal, we unearth a comment from reader Gordon Casely, who writes with an insouciant shrug: “Bog roll and pasta shortages on the shelves? The latter has been caused by a fusilli people.”

Rifle practice

A Diary story about high jinks on the hard shoulder reminds Robin Gilmour of his friend’s mother -in-law, who was once driving to Lesmahagow, though she wasn’t sure she had taken the correct route. Spotting an army truck parked on the hard shoulder, she decided to stop and ask for directions. With no sign of anyone at the front of the vehicle, she walked to its rear and discovered one of Her Majesty’s proud fighting men relieving himself against the back wheel.

“Er... Um... Excuse me Sergeant,” she spluttered, “is this the right road for Lesmahagow?”

Without taking a pause from his military exercise, the gracious soldier gallantly replied: “Mind yer feet, luv.”

In the soup

OUR story about Ayrshire pupils struggling with exam questions reminds former principle teacher Gordon Fisher of similar travails faced by pupils attending his school in Glasgow’s east end. During a French exam candidates were asked to listen to a recording and write down the type of soup a gentleman ordered in a restaurant. When the gent asked for "soupe a l'oignon" the waiter repeated the order back to the customer. The gent replied, "Oui. Soupe a l'oignon." This was too much for one boy in the exam hall who jumped to his feet, kicked his desk over and shouted, "That's no fu#@£ng fair! We huvnae done soup!"

It was probably just as well he stormed out of the hall because things got even trickier when, for a main course, the customer requested "une hamburger".

Taking the P

“A LIFEGUARD shouted at me for peeing in the pool,” reveals reader Kevin Hill, who adds: “I was so startled, I almost fell in.”

Zombie nation

AN extract from our Journal Of The Plague Year: Celebrity Edition, where actor Martin Compston’s feeling bitter: “The biggest regret of my career is not getting a part in The Walking Dead,” he says, adding: “The experience and skills picked up working on a show like that could become invaluable in the coming months…”

Dead eyed

MORE grim humour from reader Charles Peake. “When you kick the bucket, which body part dies first?” he asks. “The pupils. They dilate.”