Clockwatching 
CULTURALLY-INCLINED Roy Henderson from Perth recently visited, along with his grandson, a museum in North Berwick which is mostly staffed by volunteers, many of them retired, and all steeped in local lore.

One of them pointed out of the window at the impressive grassy bump in the landscape that is Berwick Law, then gravely said to Roy’s grandson: “See that hill? It used to be a volcano, and it’s 300 million and 34 years old.” 

Suitably impressed, Roy’s grandson wandered off, leaving Roy to ask the volunteer how he was able to be so precise in his ageing of the local landmark. 


“Ah well,” he twinkled. “When I arrived in North Berwick, 34 years ago, I was told the Law was 300 million years old.” 

Boozy footy?

A DIARY correspondent from East Dunbartonshire has an acquaintance who is perhaps not the most knowledgeable of sporting experts.

Says our correspondent: “He asked me whether the Buckie part of Buckie Thistle referred to the team's place of origin, or the team's favourite drink.”

 

Rab ruined

LATER this week the proud folk of Scotia celebrate a booze-addled, promiscuous, flop of a farmer, who happened to be a dab hand at scribbling words on paper.

Burns Night is almost upon us.

Surely there is no better excuse for reciting poetry and getting wrecked on whisky.

Unfortunately, reader David Baird isn’t entirely looking forward to the experience.

“My sister always invites me to celebrate at her house,” he says, “where she invariably turns the haggis into a blackened cinder. That’s why I refer to it as Burnt Night.”

 

Withered by weather

SHOPPING in Muirend Sainsbury’s, reader Donna McPhee overheard two elderly ladies chatting to each other.

One of them sighed, then held out her knobbly and twisted hands, before confiding: “My fingers don’t work in this weather.”

Her chum replied: “Lots of my bits don’t work in this weather.”

 

Pizza the action

WE mentioned that American pop princess, Taylor Swift, was spotted on a night out in Brooklyn wearing a £58 dress from a Scottish fashion house. 

Reader Mary Norman says: “I read that on the evening in question she visited an Italian restaurant. Hopefully she continued her Alba-themed adventure by ordering pizza, and demanding that it arrive at her table deep-fried, just like any sophisticated Scot would enjoy it…”

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Earthy comment

GARDENING expert Donald Sanderson says: “Anybody who has ever flipped over a roll of sod knows the grass is definitely not greener on the other side.”