Food for thought
SOME gritty journalists become war correspondents and have to brace themselves as they bear witness to man’s inhumanity to man.
The Diary has an equally onerous task, for during the past few days we have been reporting on man’s inhumanity to turkey… and sprouts… and pigs in blankets.
In other words, we’ve been studying Scotland’s attitude to Christmas dinner leftovers.
Kilmarnock novelist David F Ross has been daring himself to deal with dessert. “Contemplating eating all the leftover cheese with no thought for the depravity of the dreams it’ll prompt,” he reveals.
With an insouciant courageousness to be admired, he adds: “This is closest I’m ever likely to get to LSD. Bring on the dancing horses…”
Dirty dealings
DURING her student years reader Joanna Holden worked a range of part-time jobs, including waitressing in a grubby restaurant in Glasgow’s south side. She recalls her first day serving tables, when a colleague said to her: “Dinnae hold out on makin’ oany extra cash on top of yer wages. The only tip you’ll get in here is the kitchen.”
Bum deal
RELAXING in a cafe, reader Beryl Hanson heard two teenage girls discussing Christmas presents they had received.
One disclosed that her parents had bought her a jacket, though she had decided to take it back to the shop and replace it with a longer garment.
She explained her reasoning thus: “I want something to cover my backside. In this weather I’d rather have a warm bum than a hot date.”
Freedom of forgetting
MORE female wisdom. Reader Clive Dawson was on a train when he overheard one middle-aged lady say to another: “So how you feeling nowadays?”
“Much better,” replied her chum, “now I’m in denial.”
Hogmanay hog-tied
GLASGOW theatrical impresario Robert C Kelly has been contemplating the divergent fates of the UK’s devolved nations this Hogmanay, which inspires him to tell us the following gag: “New Year 2021. An Englishman, an Englishman and an Englishman walk into a bar…”
The name game
SOME people seem destined to choose certain careers, notes reader Lachlan Bradley, who spotted a Met Office employee quoted in the media, who answers to the fitting name of… Craig Snell.
(If the word Snell doesn’t ring a bell, have a perusal of the Burns poem about the field mouse, where the poet uses it to describe the homeless wee beastie’s woeful, windy fate.)
Future fumigant
“MY New Year resolution is to stop using spray deodorants,” says reader Philip Hartwell. “Roll on 2022.”
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