Laugh with Ken Smith’s Diary
Hooked
STILL trying to make sense of
Brexit? A few folk will agree with
Ben who says: “I remember working with my dad on a building site during the holidays years ago, and one of the lads sent me to a supplier’s for sky hooks and a tin of tartan paint.
Those MPS sending Theresa May back to Brussels for a better deal is the equivalent of that.”
And reader John Henderson muses: “The Malthouse Compromise, The Grieve Amendment, The Backstop, The Salzburg Summit, The Implementation Period – is it just me, or has anyone else noticed that Brexit is basically morphing into a series of bad airport spy thriller titles?”
Pillow-talk
WE love the sheer poetry of former Communards multi-instrumentalist turned vicar, the Rev Richard Coles, who wrote on social media this week: “Whenever I take the Sleeper to Glasgow I wake up and open my window and discover we’re behind Iceland in Motherwell, and I watch the rats scampering around and think, ‘You don’t see that on a tin of shortie’.”
Taking the Mick
FORMER miners gathered at the Scottish Parliament yesterday to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the death of former miners’ leader in Scotland, Mick Mcgahey. Mick was a well-read, caring and far-sighted trade unionist, but he also liked a dram. A trade union official once told us that an official at the Chinese Embassy told him: “We were with Mr Mcgahey at a reception where he taught us the Scottish custom of one for the road. Then there was another for the road, and then many for the road. Eventually I had to say to him, ‘Even Chairman Mao never walked a road as long as this’.’’
Scheming
GLASGOW City Council is considering relocating some of its office staff from the city centre to premises in the housing schemes. Says reader Ronnie Mclean: “It reminds me of a similar plan some years ago. A proud councillor at the opening of a new area housing office in Castlemilk was upstaged by an elderly resident who was interviewed by a reporter on her views on the initiative. ‘It’s great, son,’ she said. ‘Now I don’t need to take the bus to George Square to get patronised’.”
Cut it out
WE mentioned Winston Churchill being rejected by voters in Dundee. Jim Mcgovern explains to us: “Churchill was suffering appendicitis during the election campaign and at times had to be carried on a sedan chair to public meetings. Apparently his response on being defeated was, ‘I left Dundee without office, without my Westminster seat, and without my appendix!’”
Don’t knock it
GROWING old, continued. Says Andy Ewan in Dunoon: “The other day I was sitting on the sofa watching television when, as is becoming a more regular event, I dropped off to sleep. I was woken by a loud knocking and immediately jumped up and rushed to the front door, only to find no-one there. On returning to the lounge I found a character still banging on the door in whatever was on the TV.
Beggars belief
OUR tales of mendicants remind retired police officer Chris Keegan: “When I was a sergeant in the city centre in 1980 I walked down Buchanan Street where I saw a beggar sitting against a wall. I was going to tell him to keep moving but on approach he said, ‘Excuse me, boss, could you lend me a million quid till Thursday?’ I gave him a few bob for making me laugh out loud.”
Take note
TODAY’S piece of whimsy comes from David Greig who says: “It’s extraordinary to reflect that Johnny Cash, had he lived, would now be called Johnny Contactless.”