That Inking Feeling
SINCE you were about to ask, yes, we do have another crop of film titles for you, all of them minus one letter.
l Point Beak: a crow gives directions
l The Lion Kin: Relatives of the king of the jungle
l Forrest Gum: Life in a rubber plantation (all Tom Fleming)
l Pretty Oman – Arabian state tarts itself up (John Mulholland)
l The Norse Whisperer: a Swede with tonsillitis
l The Lady Varnishes: unavailability of male painters and decorators (both Blair Miller)
l That Inking Feeling: the emotions of someone who works in a tattoo parlour (John Ewing)
l Dead Pets Society: canine zombies conspire against humans (David Hamilton)
l Chariots of Fir: an epic road movie about the rugged truckers who bring Christmas trees to the cities.
l The Pawbroker: an expose of the illicit trade in moustachioed Dundee fathers (both Alison Campbell).
The prize, as you’ll be aware, is a champagne dinner for two at the Urban Bar & Brasserie, St Vincent Place, Glasgow. More entries, in all probability, tomorrow.
Raintown
YESTERDAY, 7.59am: HeraldScotland posts story about giant “umbrella” planned for rain-plagued Fort William. Thirty-one minutes later: Reader Keith McAllister posts the following: “It’s 08.30 and I’m dismayed that there isn’t one comment yet blaming the SNP for the rainfall in Fort William. Standards are slipping as we near Christmas.”
Name, dropping
OLD jokes’ home: bloke named Sajid says he has had his ID stolen. He’s now just known as Saj.
Singing the Blues
A CURIOUS spat has broken out on social media between fans of Rangers and fans of, um, Little Mix, the girlband best known for [insert name of random song here].
Long story short: the former want to see The Dave Clark Five’s Glad All Over top the Christmas charts, in honour of striker Joe Garner. The latter, outraged by such effrontery, would really prefer it if the band’s new song, Touch, got the number one spot.
There’s been some amusing back-and-forth between the two camps, prompting a caustic observation from a Morton fan on Twitter: “Rangers used to have Gascoigne, Laudrup & De Boer playing for them. Now they’re arguing with 12-year-old lassies about Little Mix being #1.”
Diminished returns
AMONG the ingenious excuses offered to HMRC by self-assessment customers for failing to complete their tax return on time: “My tax return was on my yacht… which caught fire”and “The postman doesn’t deliver to my house”.
Some went even further. “I couldn’t complete my tax return”, wrote one woman, “because my husband left me and took our accountant with him. I am currently trying to find a new accountant”.
The taxman cautioned yesterday that none of these excuses led to successful appeals against HMRC penalties for late returns. But it got us thinking: what’s the best excuse you’ve ever heard – or given?
Dead certainty
SIGNS that you are getting old, more of: David Donaldson overhears a “woman of a certain age” addressing her silver-haired friend with elbow crutches in Epicure’s, Hyndland : “We’ve all reached that age where every year’s four funerals and a wedding”.
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 hereComments are closed on this article