Sum mistake, surely?

THE football world is trying to absorb the impending (and freakishly large) £198 million deal that the Qatari-owned French club PSG is seeking to arrange with Barcelona for the services of Neymar. Actor and writer David Schneider helpfully explains: “Neymar is good but surely he’s not worth £198m. To put it into context, for that money PSG could have bought two DUP MPs”.

Presents tense

INTERESTING variation on the ‘you know you’re getting old ...’ theme, spotted in the letters pages of The Times. Lesley Thompson writes about her fondness for doing her Christmas shopping early, often in the January sales.

“The only drawback as I get older”, she adds, “is that I often can’t remember where I’ve hidden the presents, and then have to shop all over again at the last minute”. Last week she found some of last year’s Christmas presents for her daughter, but she knows that at least they’ll be perfect for this Christmas.

“As long as I can remember where I put them”, she concedes.

School daze

SCHOOL slang has changed out of all recognition since the Diary’s own, long-ago schooldays. A glossary in a new, anonymously-written book, The Secret Teacher, published by Guardian Faber, contains some riveting examples: “Mandem” means people, or one’s tribe; “shubz” is a party, and “bare”means a lot of, or very; all of which can be handily summed up in the following sentence: “Dere was bare mandems at shubz on Friday. Two mandem came on tandem”.

Light fantastic

THE BBC reports that police in the Netherlands have arrested a man who had two lamp-posts strapped to his car roof. Officers are said to be unsure where the posts came from, but the assumption is that they were stolen. Finally, it seems we may have a textbook definition of the phrase ‘light-fingered thief’.

bin Laden’s flying carpet

IAN M Forrest says his daughter, her husband and their 17-year-old son Gregor were having a discussion about Osama bin Laden, as one does, when their 15-year-old daughter, Eve, strolled in and tried to monopolise the conversation.” You don’t even know who he is”, observed Gregor. “I do so”, retorted Eve. “He’s the guy who flies around on a magic carpet.” May she never grow old, adds Ian.

The Oor Willie look

ANDY Cameron emails to thank Jim Harris for the information on Esquire, the men’s fashion store in Cambridge Street, in Wednesday’s Diary.

“His mention of Fusco’s barber’s shop had me chuckling”, says Andy. “I spent a week’s wages - £1:17:6d - on a ‘Tony Curtis’ in Fusco’s but on the way to catch the train back to Ru’glen I got caught in a summer shower and by the time I got off the train at the Royal Burgh Tony Curtis had disappeared and out stepped Oor Wullie.

“I should have kept the ‘Perry Como’ cut I’d got from my usual tonsorial artist, Johnny Ionta in the Gallowgate, for 1/6d. I wonder how many remember Johnny and his two brothers. Tommy and Dan, in that wee shop near Soho Street. It was less a barber’s shop and more A Palace of Varieties”.

Dotty request

WEDNESDAY’S item about sauerkraut and sausage reminds John Mulholland of the joke about a man ordering a meal in a fancy German restaurant.

The waiter brings him a plate and places it in front of him. On the plate there are only two black dots. “Excuse me, waiter”, says the man, “but I ordered an omelette”.