Mind your language

BOOKER Prize-winning Glasgow author Douglas Stuart complained to a Norwegian chum about how something trivial had hurt his feelings. Being an empathetic soul, the chum turned to Douglas and said: “That makes sense. You’re only hummus.”

Art attack

WHEN Deedee Cuddihy spotted a strapless bra displayed outside Glasgow’s Gallery of Modern Art last week, she wondered if it was, perhaps, a feminist work along the lines of Tracey Emin’s famous unmade bed.

Regrettably not.

Gallery staff explained that the bra had been flung through the railings outside the building the previous weekend and, having landed on an area of glass roof, had remained there for almost a week until a qualified health and safety professional became available to retrieve it.

As no one came forward to claim the bra, it has now been disposed of, thus emphasising the philistine leanings of the local art establishment. For surely this is the greatest loss to Western culture since Michelangelo’s painting, Leda and the Swan, went walkies back in the 1530s.

All that jazz

ADVENTUROUS reader David Donaldson was enjoying a cruise from the Canaries and got chatting to a Swiss jazz guitarist who said to him: “What do you call a jazz musician who isn't married?”

The answer, it transpires, is… homeless.

Lash bash

THE most prestigious night in the Diary’s calendar is the Scottish NBL Awards, which recently took place at Glasgow’s Marriott Hotel.

As any civilised person will know, NBL stands for Nails, Brows and Lashes, and the glamorous ceremony celebrates the creative geniuses working in the beauty industry.

Categories include Lash Lift Specialist of the Year. (How do you lift a lash, we wonder. Does it involve a miniature winch attached to the side of the face?)

There’s also a prize for the Russian Lash Technician of the Year, which sounds like something a KGB interrogator might win…

Material facts

WE recently mentioned that Sally Evans runs a bookshop and bindery with her husband in Callander, and that visitors to the shop often try to scrounge leather from the bindery.

Here’s some more reasons they’ve wanted the material…

1) I'm a violin bowmaker, got any spare black bits?

2) I've burned a fag-hole in the pub upholstery and I dinnae want banned oot o there.

3) I'm trying tae fix the strap oan ma sporran…

Backbeat

TALENTED reader Bob Garfield recently formed a band called The Palindromes. “We've just released our first song,” he says. “It's called: ‘If I Had a HiFi’.”

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