What shall we do with the losers? Is captivity too harsh?

The Herald Scotland

2 days ago

She duly printed one out for the chap.
Then in a patronising, emollient voice – reminiscent of a nurse in a starched uniform administering an injection to a nervous blood donor – the conductor trilled: 'There we are! All done.'
Says our correspondent: 'For a moment I thought she was going to ask the bloke if he wanted a nice cuppa and a biscuit, while he recovered from his terrible ordeal.'
Champs & chumps
Scottish football is famous for the unbalanced nature of its contests.
The superstars of Rangers and Celtic hog the goals and glory while players from rival teams are content to saunter round the pitch, occasionally accidentally colliding with the ball, then politely kicking it back to the Old Firm chaps.
Other European teams are obviously jealous of this style of football, and are now attempting to emulate it.
Which explains the recent Champions League final.
Reader Tom Bain read a report of the match in one newspaper which described the victory as: Intern Milan 0 PSG 5.
Says Tom: 'I thought that was a bit harsh for a punishment, on top of such a severe loss.'
Mind your language
Our native tongue is a difficult lingo to learn, with its many grammatical contradictions, weird spellings and bizarre sounding words.
However, plucky reader Craig Macauley rushes to its defence, and says: 'English can be understood through tough thorough thought, though.'
Gordon Casely recently returned from Iceland, and heartily approves of this local number plate, which leaves no room for doubt as to the owner's profession… (Image: Contributed)
Hard to swallow
A question for the medical practitioners amongst our readership. (Though our serial-killer readers will surely be able to answer this puzzler in an equally definitive manner.)
Russ Lewis asks: 'If poison expires, is it more poisonous or is it no longer poisonous?'
You bet
British summertime is here, which inevitably means it's raining.
A lot.
Andrew Farren met a pal in Edinburgh city centre on a day when the sky was ominous with grey clouds.
The pal was wearing a T-shirt with no jacket.
This scantily-garbed fellow explained that in years gone by he enjoyed a flutter on the horses.
'Now I gamble on the weather,' he added.
A moment later the rain thundered down, soaking the poor bloke.
'Yup,' he said, with a resigned nod of the head. 'Same as the horses… I was a loser back then, too.'
Booked out
'I just learned that my local library closed two weeks ago,' says reader Steven Firth. 'They kept that quiet…'