Dog day afternoon
THE Christmas period is traditionally when the Post Office employs casual workers. Reader Ross Cooper once spent a few weeks in December as a postie and was given helpful advice by a senior staff member, who memorably said: “If you’re walking up a garden path and see a rottweiler racing towards you, don’t think twice. Run for your life.”
“What if it’s a wee poodle?” asked Ross.
“Not the same level of emergency,” said the senior staff member. “So just stroll for your life.”
Party politics
AS the furore continues over last year’s Downing Street Christmas party, Edinburgh comedy legend Rory Bremner contributes his theory regarding what happened: “If there was a p***-up at No 10 last Christmas it’s very unlikely Boris organised it,” he says. “Because, well, you know.”
Ring of truth?
A DIARY mention of the stirring operatic tune Ride of the Valkyries, reminds John Mulholland of the time he tried to persuade his wife that Wagner’s Ring Cycle was a new type of spin programme on the couple’s fancy German washing machine.
(We guess that’s what you call being taken for a ride… with a bunch of Valkyries.)
Busting out
THE vaccine rollout is running fairly smoothly, though we discover there has been the occasional "bumpy" moment.
Edinburgh radio broadcaster Lynsey Gibson was getting her booster and had to take an arm out of her jumper, which wouldn’t roll up.
After the injection was administered she started putting her arm back in the jumper. Which was when she realised her bra strap had fallen down, meaning a whole lot of Lynsey was on the loose.
“Fined for indecent exposure at the vaccination centre is the tamest thing on my record, to be fair,” chuckles the red-faced radio rascal.
Braced for death
WRITER Deedee Cuddihy recalls attending a funeral at Falkirk Crematorium. Following the service for a colleague she exited the building and was startled to see the chief mourner for the next funeral being helped from his car in handcuffs, a prison guard on either side of him.
"Only in Falkirk," sighed one of Deedee’s fellow mourners.
Posh pastry
THE thrilling news that Glasgow is to have its first drive-in Greggs has the heart of reader Mary Clifford all of a flutter.
“What a swanky addition to the city!” she marvels. “What ever next? Chippies selling deep-fried caviar?”
Question time
LINGUISTICALLY limber reader Mike Peake explains to us the definition of "jousting".
“It’s what a Brummie asks a bee,” says Mike.
Read more: So are the songsmiths dreaming of a green Christmas?
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