THE DIARY
Another fine mess
THINGS that only happen in Glasgow. Lorraine Fleming tells us: “Visiting Dippy the dinosaur at Kelvingrove Museum at the weekend with the grandchildren, our son was approached by another young – and harassed – local who asked, ‘Scuze me, pal, d’ye by any chance have a spare nappy? Me and Courtney have forgotten the nappy bag.’ When nappy and wipes were produced he was understandably grateful, adding, ‘Makes a change from bumming a ciggie, eh?’”
Stepping up
GROWING old, continued. A reader gets in touch to tell us: “As you get older, you begin to miss the little things. Like the next stair.”
In the soup
OUR mentions of the Badachro Inn in Ross-shire remind Simon Peterson in Glasgow’s west end: “The Badachro was owned and run for many years by a dry and droll man called Fred. One lunchtime an earnest lady asked him if the soup was homemade. Fred replied deadpan that ‘Granny made it.’ The soup was enthusiastically ordered. If one looked in the kitchen window at the front of the inn, ranks of cateringsized tins of Granny’s Soup could be seen on the shelves.”
Learned a lesson
AND Bob Byiers tells us, after the stories about ringing a bell to order drinks: “They reminded me of a story of many years ago when a member of Her Majesty’s Inspectorate called in unexpectedly at a small village school during an in-service day. There was no one about in the entrance hall but the large school bell sat on a table. He gave it a few loud clangs and a few minutes later a barman appeared from the pub next door with a trayful of drinks.”
To chew over
AN Edinburgh reader heard a young mother tell her pals in a coffee shop: “Before I had children I didn’t even know you could cut a sandwich ‘wrong’.”
Clocked it
MUCH comment about the efficacy of Scottish referees these days.
Davie Adams in Knightswood recalls: “I was refereeing a Boys’ Guild cup tie years ago in Possil. With the home team winning 3-2, I checked my stop watch and was horrified to see it was stuck, the result of being belted by the ball. I calculated another 10 minutes would do it and during that time I gave a penalty to the away team and sent off a home defender.
“A wee man from the not inconsiderable crowd approached me. ‘Haw, Ref,’ he said, ‘Whit did ye yaise tae time the second half? A calendar?’.
“I said imperiously that I was the ‘sole arbiter of time-keeping.’ ‘That explains it, ye’re a sole arbiter’ he said. ‘And here wis me thinkin’ ye were just an eedgit that couldnae tell the time’.”
Light bulb moment
AS we try to make sense of all the resignations from the political parties at Westminster, writer Adam Kay explains: “Enjoying how Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn are losing total control of their parties. It’s like when the lights come on in a club at 2am and everyone’s suddenly all ‘Oh, it’s horrible in here!’”
Play time
OUR final suggestions for the Brexit break-up album include:
▪ Three Degrees – When Will I See EU Again (Janie Miller)
▪ Gilbert O’sullivan –Alone Again Naturally (Irene Elliott)
▪ Long John Baldry – Let the Heartaches Begin (Bobby Erskine)
▪ Cher –If I Could Turn Back Time (John Mulholland)
And just to be even-handed, William Hogg suggests: The Animals, We Gotta Get Out Of This Place.