Reality bites

PHILLIP SCHOFIELD was back on the box this week, after being banished from TV a while ago, and forced to live in that hideous land where there are no autocues, cameras or Holly Willoughbies hovering near your right shoulder.

In other words, he was given a stiff dose of the real world. And anyone who has ever spent any amount of time in the Zone of Reality will agree it’s a hideous place to hang out.

So it was perhaps with relief that Phil was plunked on a desert island somewhere warm and palm-tree-studded, and forced to grow stubble on his chin, which is probably a metaphor for hardship in TV-land.

The show was Cast Away, and it was broadcast on Channel 5, a sort of desert island of a television channel, located in an ocean far from the notice of discerning viewers.

Will Phil’s impersonation of Robinson Crusoe lead to more telly opportunities, and perhaps a rapprochement with Holly?

We’re not sure, though he is always welcome to send his CV to the Diary, where we’re on the hunt for a quick and agile mind to look after the stationery cupboard.

After a few decades in that coveted position, he’d surely be rewarded with a stint as a junior reporter, where he could work on stories, such as the following classic tales from our archives…

 

Cruellest cut

A GLASGOW woman entered the bedroom and spied one of those cardboard tubes of Pringles crisps.

Giving it a shake, she realised only a few crumbs were left.

Being peckish, she pulled off the lid and poured them into her mouth.

It was at this precise moment that she discovered exactly what her husband does with his toenail clippings after cutting them in the bedroom.

 

Mystery meal

AYRSHIRE. They do things differently there.

An Irvine reader stopped at a café in Mauchline and read the menu board where under "Soup of the Day" the waitress had written: "Same as yesterday".

And as our reader told us: “The funny thing was, no one in the café thought there was anything strange about that.”

 

Wheely bad idea

SPORTS presenter Tam Cowan was once reminiscing about Airdrie, and said: “The last time I was there, this local guy said to me: “Do you want to share a taxi?”

I said: “Fair enough.”

So he said: “Right, I’ll have the engine, and you can take the wheels.”

 

Hard to swallow

FINE dining, Glesga-style.

A would-be bon viveur was informed by the waitress in a posh restaurant that the evening’s special was: “A fillet of coley on a bed of…”

She didn’t get any further before the customer said incredulously: “You’ve filleted a dug?”

 

Melody malady

“I used to play piano by ear,” a reader once informed us. “But I kept getting headaches.”