The final frontier

IT was a disorientating week for our planet. For the first time in nearly 71 years the Earth was deprived of Richard Branson.

His beard was gone. His smug grin was gone. The bits of him attached to the beard and smug grin were gone. The billionaire entrepreneur was fired into outer space on a rocket, returning to earth after a truly epic journey.

Sorry, that’s not quite right. He plunged back to earth an hour after leaving. So it was more of a jolly jaunt than an epic journey.

Perhaps he can be encouraged to blast into space again. Staying a little longer this time. Maybe a decade or two.

The rest of us lesser mortals can keep our feet planted on solid ground whilst helping Branson out by looking after his bank account and making sure all that lovely lolly doesn’t get lonely.

Regrettably Branson never asks the Diary for advice. Though as the following classic tales from our archives prove, we do deal with an awful lot of space cases…

On yer bike

NEW YORK. It’s a sassy sorta town. One of our readers, based in the Big Apple, recalls when the city introduced its bicycle-for-hire scheme and he was at 64th and Lexington, near his office, ambling along in the 30 degree heat when he heard a voice behind him growl: “Move over a******!”

He complied and turned to see a little old lady angrily peddling one of the new bikes.

Flight of fancy

A READER was in a Glasgow travel shop where a couple of young ladies were trying to book a flight to Spain that their pals were already booked on. Looking up from his terminal, the travel agent told them: “I’m sorry, there’s no seats left on that flight.”

“Do we have to stand?” asked one of the ladies.

Crafty kid

A TEACHER told us he was holding mock parliamentary elections in his Modern Studies class when the class clown insisted on standing for the Pyjama Party, arguing: “Who wouldn’t want to vote for a pyjama party?”

Sub (par) titles

TELEVISION subtitles throw up the occasional oddity. One reader recalled watching the BBC’s Reporting Scotland. They had an item on a campaign against proposed court closures. The subtitles got the story a bit wrong. Instead of the campaign being vociferous, it was “for syphilis”.

Ker-ching goes bling

A LENZIE reader was in the Marks and Spencer store in Sauchiehall Street when he read a sign on the wall stating, ‘Cash machine available in womenswear.’

He thought to himself: “That’s very chic,” and wondered how often they changed its outfit.

Table talk

“HAVE you ever done any after-dinner speaking?” a senior member of an Ayrshire golf club was asked. “Yes,” he replied. “Occasionally I ask my wife if she’d like me to do the dishes.”

Alarming behaviour

TWO women were discussing a mutual friend in a Glasgow coffee shop when one of them came up with the description: “She’s so lazy she’s even got a snooze button on her smoke alarm.”