The big break

“The past is a foreign country,” claimed the novelist L.P. Hartley. “They do things differently there.”

But do you know what is even more of a foreign country? An actual foreign country. Where they do things differently… with knobs on.

Take Italy, for example, where a worker has been sacked for being just a tiny bit lazy.

Philosophy and literature teacher Cinzio Paolina De Lio got the old heave-ho after being employed for 24 years, though only turning up in class for four of them.

When journalists quizzed her about her relaxed attitude she declined to comment, pointing out that the reporters really shouldn’t have interrupted her while she was at the beach.

In Caledonia such behaviour would never be tolerated.

Doughty Scots are so intent on doing their duty that they often wake up an hour before even going to bed.

They decline lunch breaks, weekends off and holidays.

And toilet breaks are for wimps. Who needs to scamper off to the loo when you can cross your legs or clench your buttocks instead? Diary staff are especially driven. This is partially due to our irrepressible work ethic. Though the cattle prods and whips used by Diary enforcers – sorry, managerial executives – are also useful methods of encouragement.

Our diligence towards duty ensures that each tale we publish is perfect in every way, as you’ll discover while reading the following classic tales from our archives…

Hairbrained

CHANGING your hair colour can throw up the occasional problem. A reader heard a young woman tell her pals in a Glasgow bar, while discussing said lady’s new boyfriend: “He told me he liked blondes. And I thought, ‘Wait a minute, I’m not a blonde.’ And then I remembered I was.”

The hideous truth

A READER sent us a cutting from the London edition of listings magazine Time Out in which someone claimed: “Being fancied by someone ugly is like winning Scottish Footballer of the Year.”

In for a penny

A HERALD colleague once told the Diary: “We had to toss a coin to decide on the name for our son. Welcome to the world, Tails.”

Citric-sassy lassies ANOTHER pal from the office revealed he watched an Orange parade.

“In Glasgow?” we asked.

“No,” he replied. “It was an Essex nightclub.”

Crown down

“DID you hear that the King of Spain had abdicated?” said a chap in a Glasgow pub a while back.

“Ah well,” replied a fellow tippler. “Another Juan bites the dust.”

Talking bull

SPAIN again. A Dunblane reader heard that a Spanish fellow was gored in the encierro during the Pamplona bull run.

He sincerely hoped that the encierro was not situated in the area below the waist and above the knees…