Fabulously flawed

THE titanic struggle to become the next President of the United States of America continues, like a remake of that classic movie from the 1990s, Dumb and Dumber.

Donald and Kamala debated each other on telly earlier in the week, and it was like watching Laurel and Hardy argue over the best way to drag a piano down a flight of stairs.

Only instead of a piano, it’s Planet Earth the politicians are manhandling, and you just know that when they’re done with it, the poor old thing is going to need hauling into the Planet Earth repair shop for a timely service.

Luckily in Britain our ruling class exercises much more competence than those numpties in the States.

Our government is competently nabbing winter cash from pensioners and competently allowing jail birds back on the streets of the UK.

It’s probably a good idea for every citizen of Great Britain to cower under the bedclothes, clench those teeth,  jam fingers in ears… as we brace ourselves for Keir Starmer’s next dazzling exhibition of competence.

Meanwhile, the Diary doesn’t really care for competence.

We prefer to celebrate humanity in all its flawed majesty, as you’ll discover when you read the following classic tales from our archives…

 

Belly up

A WOMAN in Edinburgh had the happy glow of pregnancy about her, and an obvious bump.

A woman she was introduced to, who was wearing a tight dress with, it has to be said, a bit of a tummy herself, told the pregnant woman: “People often think I’m pregnant. But it was lager that did this to me.”

The pregnant woman replied: “Do you know, in a funny way, lager did this to me as well.”

 

Boozy badinage

Nifty nickname time.

A reader from Glenlivet told us that in the distillery community there was a chap called Mothie.

Apparently when he was out on the batter he never wanted to call it a night, so would turn up at any house where he saw a light on.

 

Fruity faux pas

AN Ayrshire chap was describing the circumstances in which he had failed his driving test.

The examiner had asked him if he could remember the first sign he had seen on leaving the test centre.

“Yes,” replied our eager candidate. “It was ‘Strawberries £2 a punnet’.”

 

The communication industry

WE watched two women have what seemed like a very serious conversation in a Glasgow West End coffee shop until one stopped talking, presumably to draw breath, then told her pal: “I hate to spread gossip, but what else can you do with it?”

 

Hard to swallow

A DISGUSTED reader once got in touch to tell us: “There was a slug in my garden and my girlfriend said to go and get the salt. I thought, blimey, is there anything that she won’t eat?”