Perfectly petite
NOTHING is cheap in London, where parched pub patrons have been known to take out 30-year mortgages on a pint of beer. Taxis are so pricey that many would-be revellers skip the night out and make do with the cab ride… once round the block, then back home.
Property is even worse. This week a tiny Notting Hill house, which in some places is narrower than a bus, went on sale for £600,000.
It transpires it’s not such a bad deal. The house is like Doc Who’s TARDIS. Ingenious construction means it has plenty of rooms; and roomy rooms at that.
The Diary is like that London house. As the following classic tales from our archives prove, our tales may be bijou, but don’t be deceived. There’s room enough for big laughs…
Snooty sneering
A COLORADO reader was having tea with her cousin in a posh Glasgow tearoom and they were looking at the items in an auction catalogue.
Our reader added: “We were sharing the table with an elegant elderly lady who looked at the catalogue and said, ‘Antiques, my dear? Why we threw better things out of the maid’s room years ago.’”
The name game
A LANARKSHIRE correspondent told us of a Glaswegian with a peculiar moniker. He was known as Jimmy the Coupon. Our reader explained. “He went out every Saturday and somebody filled him in.”
Hot money
THERE was a time when back-court singers in Govan would serenade windows in the hope of some pennies being thrown out to them.
A reader informed us that there was the occasional tenant who, if they didn’t like the quality of the singing, would heat up a couple of pennies first before throwing them out, in the hope of watching poor performers reacting badly to their fingers being scorched.
Food for thought
A WOMAN on a train from Glasgow was explaining by mobile phone to her husband how he could make spaghetti for tea. She made her travelling companions smile as she had to go back to basics by explaining: “You boil the water in the kettle then put the pasta in the water.”
The next night her friends on the train asked if the meal went well.
“No,” she replied. “I got home to find the spaghetti sticking out of the kettle.”
Hard-hitting humour
WE recall British heavyweight Audley Harrison once being knocked out after just 70 seconds. Naturally jokes circulated about poor Audley, but as one reader warned us: “You shouldn’t tell Audley Harrison jokes – I’m pretty sure even a punchline would knock him out.”
Schoolboy error
A GLASGOW primary teacher discussing clocks with her class asked one lad: “If you go to your gran’s at 1.15, and go home at 2.45, how long have you been there?”
She was impressed when he thought about this for a while, then answered: “Not long, miss.”
Boozy badinage
“THE wife accused me of ruining her birthday yesterday,” said a chap in the pub. “I told her that couldn’t be right. I hadn’t even remembered it was her birthday.”
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