Tall tale
MOTORSPORT fans believe that it’s impossible to find anything speedier than Lewis Hamilton behind a steering wheel.
Cartoon aficionados disagree, and explain that nothing is nippier than Roadrunner meep-meeping round the bend, Wile E Cayote hot on his trail.
The truth is that the genuine fastest thing on Planet Earth is fake news, as reader Andy Bollen discovered.
When asked by a colleague about the origin of the much-used idiom "rarer than hen’s teeth", Andy randomly suggested it surely must derive from Hen, the lanky fellow in the long-running cartoon strip The Broons.
Our creative reader added that poor old Hen is forever losing his false teeth, hence the veracity of the phrase.
A few hours later Andy was shocked when another somewhat amazed colleague told him the same Hen Broon tale.
Keyed up
BEMUSED reader Gordon McRae switched on his laptop only to be greeted by a mysterious message which read: "To skip disk checking press any key within 7 seconds."
Gordon tells the Diary: “I checked my keyboard numerous times, but failed to find the 'any key' on it.
Sticky situation
THE other day reader Morag Travers was reading a magazine when she came across a feature about a vet who was advising what sort of animals do not make good pets.
“I decided to make my own list,” says Morag. “First, I’d recommend never buying a vampire bat because you might have mistakenly picked up Dracula from the pet shop, and he’s rubbish at playing fetch with a stick.”
Fear of flying
THE Diary is celebrating the delightful aeroplane jaunts that have been enjoyed by our readers.
This reminds Bob Byiers of a flight his brother and his wife took some years ago from Guernsey to Alderney in the Channel Islands.
The weather wasn’t particularly good and Bob’s sister-in-law, a nervous flyer at the best of times, was less than encouraged when the pilot turned in his seat and started his pre-flight briefing by saying: "So, we're all feeling lucky today, are we?"
What doctor ordered
CONCERNED reader Ron Tierney says: “We keep hearing that the UK’s fighting forces are worryingly short on manpower, meaning the nation is in a very vulnerable situation regarding defence. The MoD should hire all the GP receptionists, because they’re not letting anyone through…”
Get the legendary Herald Diary straight to your inbox.
The shipping news
ONCE again the adventurous Diary voyages out to sea.
Frustrated reader Michelle Weaver tells us: “I really appreciate puns about ships, but funnelly enough I can’t think of one.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here