Remote learning
LIFE. It’s not always a bowl of cherries.
To be painfully frank, life is mostly a bowl of pips, which happens to be all that’s left of the cherries you were so eager to munch.
And when you cry out in tearful despair, “Oi! Who ate all my cherries?” the Fates heartlessly reply, “Ah, sharrap. Y’ gorra pile o’ pips, dontcha?”
But enough of classical allusion.
Back to the modern world we hurtle, to encounter Diary correspondent Roger Bell, who was in the boozer with a chum the other day, and the chum looked most forlorn.
Roger, being a stalwart companion, asked the pained pal what ailed him so.
It transpired that the poor fellow was in the clutches of ennui. He explained that his existence was a dull trudge, or as he memorably described the situation: “If my life was a Netflix show, I’d be cancelling my subscription right now, and flicking the remote control, to see if there’s anything better on Amazon Plus.”
After a bitter pause, the chagrined chum added: “That’s the problem with life. It doesn’t come with a remote control.”
Theory of knowledge
PHILOSOPHICAL observations abound in the deeply introspective city of Glasgow, notes reader Ian Peterson, who was walking his dog when he overheard a woman talking on her mobile phone, apparently to an acquaintance named Sharon.
Like a modern-day Ludwig Wittgenstein, she appeared to be calculating the parameters of human understanding when she uttered the following profound dictum to her pal: “See, the hing is, Sharon, you don’t know what you don’t know.”
Woe for Whirlies
ON social media a video has been uploaded of two Stranraer FC supporters commentating during their team’s glorious victory over East Kilbride.
One fan delivers a rousing diatribe which echoes a certain Norwegian footy broadcaster’s spiel from a few decades back.
Revelling in East Kilbride’s despair, he triumphantly roars: “Can I say, John Hannah, Muriel Gray, Ally McCoist, Lorraine Kelly, Whirlies Roundabout, Kirsty Young… your boys took a hell of a beating.”
Witch way’s best?
A MAGIC tale. The daughter of reader Helen Turner asked why witches always fly on broomsticks.
“They don’t,” corrected Helen. “Modern witches whizz around on Dysons.”
Get the legendary Herald Diary straight to your inbox.
Failsafe situation
A CYNICAL colleague of Andy Pardell revealed that he prefers failure to success.
Andy wondered why.
Explained the colleague: “When you’re experiencing failure, you’re not waiting for failure to arrive.”
Boozy badinage
A SPOOKY utterance from reader Nick Elliott, who says: “In pubs, belches are often messages from departing spirits.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here