Shuggie pain

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.”

Nifty nickname

YET again social media gets to the crux of the matter, with a student at Edinburgh Napier University explaining on Twitter: “I don’t support the monarchy whatsoever, but today I witnessed someone calling the Platinum Jubilee the ‘platty joobs’, and I think it has to be the best thing that’s come out of it.”

* THIS is fast becoming a trend in these lands, though not everybody is delighted about this unexpected development in the Scots language.

Inverness-based playwright Jack MacGregor grumbles: “Platty jubes sounds like a 19th century euphemism for dysentery.”

Initially interesting

CONGRATULATIONS to crime scribe Ian Rankin, who has been made a knight in the Queen’s Birthday Honours. There’s a proud tradition of Scottish writers of detection fiction bagging the Big K, with Sir Arthur Conan Doyle being a notable example.

But surely Ian is the first who can boast that the award means his title now matches his initials.

For being Sir Ian Rankin makes him both Sir and SIR.

(Ian’s middle initial is J for James, but it’s probably best to keep shtum about that, as it ruins the point of this story.)

King-size cackle

MORE blue blood badinage. Though on this occasion the person with the unusually tinted haemoglobin isn’t our own Queen. (Gor bless y’, ma’am.) It’s some chap from up Scandinavia way…

“When I was at primary school,” recalls Glasgow actress Janette Foggo, “King Olav of Norway came to visit Weir's works, round the corner, and we were turned out onto the pavement to wave as he drove past. I laughed because my mum's name was Olive and I thought the King of Norway had a girl's name.”

Food for thought

OUR readers are sophisticated gourmets who delight in exotic cuisine, which is why many of them will be jealous of the pupils at Welsh primary schools who are to be fed insects such as crickets, grasshoppers, silkworms and locusts as part of a project to gauge children’s appetite for ‘alternative protein’.

Diary correspondent Ralph Walton shows more concern than jealousy when he says: “If this sort of experiment is ever attempted in Scotland, I hope they’ll have the decency to deep-fry the insects first.”

* THE news that Glasgow’s Little Curry House is serving Mars Bar pakora, a fresh iteration on the deep fried Mars Bar genre, impresses reader Bruce Reeves.

“Is there anything our nation won’t deep-fry?” he marvels. “I’m now looking forward to deep-fried soup.”

More amour

OUR correspondents continue lopping letters from movie titles, thereby suggesting better films that could be made instead.

Gordon Casely wants to see a blockbuster about the romantic inclinations of a certain Number 10 resident, known for his wandering eye.

The movie would be titled… Love Tory.

Weighty matters

BORIS also likes to romance the past, for he is now promising a return to pounds and ounces. Upon hearing this, Diary correspondent David Donaldson realised that some valuable materials have continued to be weighed in ounces, even during the metric era.

He explains: “You never hear someone saying ‘He hasn't a gram of common sense', do you?”

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".

Road to nowhere

FRUSTRATED reader Mary Green grumbles: “I was stuck in traffic for so long the other day even my sat nav said ‘Are we there yet?’”

Constructive advice

AMBITIOUS reader Scott Hall went for a job interview at IKEA. The manager said: “Come in, make a seat.”

Qatar too far

IT transpires that our nation’s moral standing towers above all others, for Scottish travel writer Stuart Kenny swaggeringly states: “A bold and admirable decision from Scotland to boycott the Qatar World Cup.”

Pick me up

WE hear of a Scotland footy fan who found himself visiting Scottsdale, Arizona. On asking for a liquid refreshment he was promptly handed an amber ale called Kilt Lifter.

“Must have known I was arriving,” he concluded.

Up in smoke

WE mentioned that King Olav of Norway visited Glasgow in the 1960s. Kenny Maclean from Giffnock attended Shawlands Primary School at the time, and recalls several classes being marched to Auldhouse Road to loiter for ages in order to cheer His Majesty as he was driven past.

“What an anti-climax,” sighs Kenny. “He went by so quickly we didn’t see him… and we had to buy our own fags.”

Pain spreading

A TRAGIC tale. Reader Margaret Connolly dropped a tub of margarine on her foot six months ago and is still limping.

“I can’t believe it’s not better,” she says.

Creepy coat

“MY friend has a bizarre fear of spiders in raincoats,” says reader Lynn Spence. “Anorakaphobia.”

* Read Lorne Jackson's Diary in The Herald every day