Family affairs

THE Diary is a sucker for a sentimental story, which is why we always weep a contented tear or two when we watch the classic Hitchcock movie Psycho.

It’s not often a grown man adores his mother that much.

We now present our lucky readers with an equally heart-warming tale of family life. Unfortunately, this one doesn’t include a motel or a refreshing shower scene, though it does have a charming old fella and his granddaughter.

Reader John Munro happened to be in Glasgow’s East End when he spied the elderly chap in question, doddering along while clasping his young granddaughter’s tiny hand.

At one point the chap stopped and pointed to a pub across the street.

“See that?” he said.

“Aye, granda.”

“That there is ma favourite boozer.”

“Zat right, granda?”

“See, wee yin? You come oot wi' me for an afternoon, an’ ye get yersel an education.”

 

Skirting: the issue

THERE are many fashionistas in glam Glesga, and reader Barbara Davison was hoping to join their illustrious membership when she popped into a city centre boutique with a friend.

At one point she held up a very short skirt and asked the friend what she thought of it.

“Ah,” nodded the friend, knowledgeably, “that’s one of those mibbe-mini skirts.”

Barbara admitted she hadn’t heard of this particular brand in haute couture, so her friend generously illuminated her on the matter.

“It means,” she said, “mibbe you’ll fit it, mibbe you won’t.”

 

Boxing (not) clever

BEFORE retiring, reader David Osborne worked for a Dundee legal firm, and recalls enduring a particularly dull speech that was delivered to a room of unlucky lawyers by an arrogant senior partner.

At one point this bumptious bloke smugly announced: “I’m the sort of lawyer who knows how to think outside the box.”

A colleague of David’s leaned over and whispered: “If he really knows how to think outside the box he shouldn’t be using a phrase like think outside the box.”

 

Affable Arthur

THE ever-creative Diary is devising prequels for famous literary works.

John Mulholland suggests a much more optimistic play that could have been written by the American scribe Arthur Miller: Birth of a Salesman.

 

Punning with pasta

SHOPPING with his wife in Sainsbury’s, reader Matt Lawson pointed to a packet in the foreign food aisle.

“That pasta is excellent value,” he said. “Worth every penne.”

 

Cutting comment

HUMBLE reader Ralph Cameron admits: “My artistic abilities are so bad I can’t even draw blood with a knife.”