Future imperfect DREAMS of the orient...
The wife of reader Ken Walton is Japanese. When the couple had their first child, Ken’s mother-in-law whispered a few words in her native tongue over the baby’s cot. Ken doesn’t speak the language, so asked his wife what she’d said.
It transpired that the elderly lady was praying that her grandson would have a bright future and fulfilling career. “Did she specify what job she’d like him to have?” enquired Ken, who assumed his mother-in-law was praying that the wee chap would grow up to be an astronaut or brain surgeon. Perhaps even a humble billionaire-philanthropist with his own fleet of helicopters.
“My mum has great hopes,” said Ken’s wife, “that he’ll become a respected civil servant.” With a sigh of resignation, Ken tells the Diary: “So much for those helicopters. At least my son will have nice stationary on his desk.
” The numbers racket IN the pub the other evening, reader Bruce Johnson was served by a chap with the number 999 tattooed on his hand. Or perhaps, mused Bruce, it was a tattoo of the number 666. Bruce tells the Diary: “I was too embarrassed to ask which it was, though I concluded he was either looking for help.
.. or beyond all help.
” Pursuit of hirsute PROFOUND thought of the day from reader Jason Sheldon, who says: “People with beards are just people without beards, with beards.” Science for beginners ON social media Shetland-based author and anthropologist Catherine Munro mulls .