THE DIARY
Hardman melts
ACTOR Steven Cree appears in TV series Outlander. He specialises in playing the sort of rugged Scottish warrior of ancient times who spends his mornings and afternoons roaring into battle and his evenings plucking squelchy nuggets of Englishman from the blade of his claymore.
Steven isn’t nearly so thunderous in real life, and recently spent quality time with his three-year-old daughter, showing her The Snowman cartoon for the first time.
“I was crying as soon as it started,” admits Steven. He then cried throughout. His daughter, meanwhile, stayed calm and sensible, merely enquiring why the little boy didn’t just build another snowman after his first one melted away.
Drunk on life
ALTHOUGH reader Ken Murray is retired, he still enjoys life on the edge. Accompanying his wife to the shops, he found himself masked and struggling to see through steamed-up spectacles.
Looking on the bright side, he turned to his other half and said: “Just like old times. We’re out on the tiles, and I’m pure steamin’ again.”
Singled out
POP music is an unforgiving business, as Duglas T Stewart knows only too well. The singer with Bellshill band BMX Bandits recalls an old music-press review written about a single his group released in 1986. It read: “Those BMX Bandits present the absolute personification of everything that could possibly go wrong with the traditionally sturdy Scottish youth. These boys are not eating their porridge.”
Continuing with the sympathetic tone, the review added: “Weak-kneed and contrived, quite blatantly, affectedly twee (beyond the bounds of all human decency), this is without doubt the worst single of all time.”
Duglas was so impressed with the review he kept a copy in his pocket for years.
Slice of life
YOUNGSTERS can achieve anything once they put their minds to it. Reader June Beaumont’s 16-year-old son decided to make himself a slice of toast for the first time. After 20 minutes in the kitchen, he came back to June. “Where d’you keep the bread?” he enquired.
Mean about lean
ANOTHER memorable phrase to describe thinner fellows. Reader Gerry Mackenzie heard a work colleague describe a mutual friend as: “So skinny he only needs the wan eye.”
What’s the angle?
SPOTTING a Fishing By Permit Only sign, reader Alasdair Mackenzie was rather surprised. “Here’s me thinking I would need a rod,” he says.
It’s physics
SCIENTIFICALLY minded reader Matt Brown has updated a Newtonian law. “For each action there is an equal and opposite reaction,” he says. “Then a social media overreaction.”