Inconvenienced

KILMARNOCK novelist and architect David F Ross took part in a heated office competition to decide which of his colleagues had stayed in the "most challenging" accommodation for work purposes.

David received top marks by revealing that he once took his rest in a bijou abode in a place in India called Rae Bareli.

His room was windowless, though it did boast one romantic delight to recommend it… open access to a squatting toilet.

(Apparently the door to the cludgie had been forcibly removed, though its hinges remained.)

Ashes to Ashes

PERUSING his beloved Herald newspaper the other day, reader David Donaldson stumbled upon a headline which gave him pause for thought.

It read: "Glasgow School of Art rebuild: £62million project goes out to tender".

“Shouldn't that read 'out to tinder'?” inquires David.

Mac attack

COMIC actor and Glasgow panto favourite Johnny Mac is feeling all niggly and nagged by those linguistic louts who make fast and loose use of the English language: “People that say ‘that gives me the ick’… give me the ick,” he harrumphs.

Time challenge

CHANCELLOR Rishi Sunak recently impressed speed freaks the world over by delivering a speech to the Scottish Tory conference that lasted just over two minutes. This inspired our contributors to reflect on other great achievements that can be undertaken in such a brief period.

Christina Moss from Edinburgh says: “Two minutes is the exact amount of time my teenage son takes to get out of bed on a school morning.

“At least he always assures me he’ll be ‘two minutes’ when I attempt to wake him. Though for some unfathomable reason I always seem to spot a boy-shaped bump snoring in the bed 30 minutes after he has told me ‘two minutes’.”

Word absurd

STATISTICALLY-ASTUTE reader Ken West tells us: “Accordion to a recent study, 7 out of 10 people don’t notice when a word in a sentence is replaced by a musical instrument.”

Close shave

SOCIAL media is the place to go when you’re looking for a serious and mature political conversation. Which explains how the Diary stumbled upon a Twitter debate titled "If Michael Gove released his own aftershave, what would he name it?"

One contributor, recalling the occasion when the Aberdeen-born MP sneakily ran for Tory leader instead of supporting Boris Johnson’s bid, suggests… Et Tu Brut.

Cheesy gag

IN an interrogative frame of mind, reader Pam Watson gets in touch to ask: “What cheese can never belong to you?”

The answer is, of course… nacho cheese.

Read more: Meme of the Day