The Herald Diary

by Ken Smith

  But the most searing reply was the chap who told Lesley: “I held the door open for you in Starbucks, The Gyle. You were walking with a stick and holding a coffee. Not much of a thanks was forthcoming.”

  OUR bus stories brought back memories for entertainer Andy Cameron, who was a bus conductor in the early sixties. Says Andy: “When passengers had no money for their fare they could ask for a Pink Slip on which they wrote their names and addresses so that they could go to the Bath Street office and pay it later. What always surprised me was the number of famous people who lived in Castlemilk and were skint – Rock Hudson, Perry Como, Willie Henderson, Paddy Crerand, Harold Wilson, Marilyn Monroe – they were all on my bus and signed a Pink Slip.”

  OK, just to get it over with. We mentioned the classic tramcar story about the two dogs and now numerous readers demand we mention the other classic tram tale. We will use Ian Cooper of Bearsden’s version: “A Glasgow wifie purchased an old metal cabin trunk at The Barras and, as was the custom then, she put it up front with the driver of a tram on the Gallowgate then went to board herself, only to be told by the clippie that the car was fu’.

  “‘But I’m the woman wi’ the tin chest,’ she cried.

  “‘Ah don’t care if ye’ve goat a wally erse, you’re still no’ gettin’ on!’ she was told.”

  A CUMBERNAULD reader emails to tell us: “With the possibility growing of self-driving vehicles, it’s only a matter of time before we get a country and western song where a guy’s truck leaves him too.”

  LATE night in Glasgow and we jump into a taxi and recognise the driver.

  “Is your brother still driving your taxi during the day?” we ask.

  “No, I had to sack him,” says our driver.

  “Why was that?” we ask. “Well, despite what experts say, his passengers didn’t like it when he tried to go the extra mile.”

  THE Herald story about Scots spending a large portion of their salary on train fares has a Glasgow reader getting in touch to say: “I got an early morning train from Glasgow to Edinburgh which was so full many folk were standing. The chap who managed to get a seat beside me remarked, ‘It’s kind of sad that getting a seat on the train will probably be the highlight of my day, and I’ll be talking about it when I get home.’ ”

  WE mentioned the 30th anniversary this week of the opening of the Glasgow Garden Festival, and Margaret Thomson recalls: “A friend of mature years visited the festival and decided she had to go on the Coca-Cola ride. When she landed, we asked how she had enjoyed it. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘it was OK, but I had one hand clapped over my eyes to keep my specs on, and the other over my mouth to keep my teeth in, so I didn't see much.’ ”

  CONGRATULATIONS to my old chum, and the journalist who took The Diary to giddy heights, Tom Shields, for his lifetime achievement award at the Scottish Press Awards. Tom is remembered by readers for his Diary stories poking gentle fun at the Ayrshire town of Kilwinning. He once wrote about the Kilwinning chap who announced he was getting married and his pal warning him: “No her! Hauf the men in Stevenston huv been wi’ her!” After a moment’s thought he replied philosophically: “Ach, it’s no that big a place, Stevenston.”

  COMEDIAN Brian “Limmy” Limond, who will be in Inverness this month with his video clip tour, Limmy’s Vines, explained to followers on social media what happened when he encountered the £2 drop-off fee at Glasgow Airport.

  Said Limmy: “Glasgow Airport charges two quid just to drop somebody off. Got an Uber there and saw the sign, so I tipped the driver two quid to make up for it. Checked my receipt, and saw he’d added the two quid charge anyway. It’s dog-eat-dog. You know where you are? You’re in the jungle, baby.”

  12

  The Funny Side of the Law

  Even finding yourself in front of a police officer or in a court can have its lighter moments.

  BIG problem in Scottish prisons just now is the number of hidden mobile phones. A reader was speaking to a prison officer who told him that the prison received a phone call from a mother asking if they could pass on a message to her son. Says our reader: “The officer asked what the message was and she replied, ‘Tell him I’ve put £20 credit on his phone.’ The officer then asked, ‘What number did you add the credit to?’ and the innocent woman rattled off the mobile-phone number. The officer then walked to the prisoner’s closed cell door, took out his own phone and dialled the number. At a ‘hullo’, he opened the door and met the gaze of the bemused felon, then duly confiscated the illicit device.”

  A READER hears a chap in his Ayrshire golf club at the weekend tell fellow players: “I got stopped by the police and the officer asked me if I knew why he had pulled me over.

  “I just replied, ‘Well, I have a few ideas, but I’d like to hear your suggestion first.’”

  A GLASGOW reader hears a young chap in his pub announce: “Glasgow City Council sent me a photograph of my car in a bus lane, and they wanted 60 quid for it. I sent it back though – it was way too expensive and the quality was really bad.”

  WE commiserate with a former colleague who has had his car nicked. One of his pals tells him: “My dad once had his car stolen with hundreds of pounds worth of fishing equipment in the back.

  “The car turned up a few miles away with the fishing equipment untouched and a note to say, ‘Sorry, I just couldn’t walk any further.’”

  A GLASGOW lawyer tells us of a colleague representing a client in a divorce case and how he had asked her to write down her income and outgoings.

  At the end, where she wrote what she had left over every month, she had simply put “F.A.”

  When he stood up and told the sheriff that she had absolutely no income left when the bills were paid his client looked confused and whispered to him: “Family allowance.”

  A READER in Hyndland emails us with some safety advice: “You should never text while you are driving. All it takes is one moment of distraction and suddenly everyone in the group chat thinks you can’t spell.”

  GOOD to see Police Scotland launching a campaign against bogus callers arriving at your doorstep. It, of course, reminds us of the classic tale of the Glasgow officer arriving at the door of an old lady in a Maryhill tenement who refused to open her door, shouting: “How do I know you’re the polis?” The officer bent down so that he could show her his warrant card through the letter box. The flap opened and a pair of eyes stared out. It then rapidly closed, and the old woman yelled: “Away, ya bugger . . . ye don’t get polis that wee.”

  REMEMBER your nervousness when you had to sit your driving test? A young West of Scotland chap remarked on social media the other day: “My driving instructor said to me, ‘Are you just back fae Tenerife?’ and I went, ‘Naw, just the sun beds.’

  “And then he said, ‘No, it’s because you’re on the wrong side of the road.’”

  OUR tale about Led Zeppelin reminds David Russell: “As a rookie cop I attended Edinburgh’s Carlton Hotel in the seventies with an older cop following a report of excessive noise from a suite.

  “We found an after-gig party by mega rockers Deep Purple in full flow. ‘Turn the noise down, son!’ said the older officer.

  “‘But we’re Deep Purple!’

  “‘I don’t care whit colour you are, son. Turn it down or somebody’s getting lifted,’ he replied.”

  THE wit of our sheriffs in Scotland is often overlooked.

  Lawyer Brian Chrystal was reading a case report and tells us: “Just to show that the spirit of PG Wodehouse and Rumpole has not completely died in our legal system, the Sheriff, required to assess the reliability of an expert witness, wrote that ‘the witness treated cross-examination in the manner a man might hold a crocodile’.” Snappy.

  TALKING of false teeth – as we do sometimes in The Diary – an East Kilbride reader tells us that when he worked in a Coatbridge bar years ago a regular came in and said he had been kept in the police station overnight after a misdemeanour.

  When he was allowed to go, and hande
d his belongings, he noticed he had lost his false teeth and asked where they were. Says our reader: “The desk sergeant rummaged below the desk and came up with a box containing a large number of sets of false teeth and told him, ‘Take your pick.’ My customer had a look but decided just to leave it.”

  A GLASGOW lawyer swears to us that a potential juror at a Sheriff Court trial said he could not be off his work for the week that the trial was expected to take. The Sheriff asked: “Can’t they do without you?” and the juror replied: “Yes, but I don’t want them to know that.”

  YES, the barbecues are being well used in Scotland just now. Hugh Walsh in Dalry tells us: “Enjoying a walk down Ayr High Street, I overheard the following conversation from two ladies. ‘Did you enjoy the barbecue, Jeanie?’

  “‘Aye, but some b****** stole my bottle of gin.’

  “‘Was that the gin you bought from the shoplifter?’”

  Says Hugh: “Just shows, you can’t trust anyone these days.”

  AFTER the news story about police officers being taken to the island of Lismore after the first housebreaking in living memory, reader John Marshall in Auchtermuchty recalls: “In the early sixties we spent a long day on Lismore, and my father went into the phone box to contact the Appin ferryman to get an earlier crossing. He came out to say there was a full bottle of whisky on the shelf. When he quizzed the ferryman, he was told that when a local ran dry he would phone the mainland, the ferryman left the bottle and he would collect and pay later. ‘We are all honest here,’ he said. ‘There is no thieving on Lismore.’”

  13

  Retail Therapy

  Shops are having a difficult time keeping their customers as the internet takes its toll, but our readers can still raise a smile when they venture out on the high streets with their bags for life.

  AN EDINBURGH reader tells us: “I went into a cafe the other day and there was a sign on the counter which said, ‘We have no Wi-Fi. Pretend it’s like the old days’. So I gave them 40p for my coffee and lit up a fag. Apparently that’s not what they meant.”

  RESTAURANT chain Wimpy has plans to expand after years of cutbacks, and we wonder if they will reopen in Glasgow, as Wimpy was the first place many older Glaswegians first had a coffee outside their home. A reader once told us that he went into a Wimpy which had a sign stating “Free fried egg with every order”, as it was hoping this would enhance folks’ dining experience. He thought nothing of it, as he was only in for a takeaway coffee, but as he was leaving he was handed a brown paper bag – and, yes, the fried egg was inside it.

  NOT everyone is getting into the swing of the new trendy coffee shops. A reader in one such establishment in Glasgow’s Finnieston heard the bearded barista ask the old chap in front who had asked for a coffee if he wanted regular coffee or decaffeinated. The old chap sighed and replied: “What do you think? Do you want me to pay in real money or Monopoly money?”

  A WEST END reader tells us that one of her girlfriends has admitted that her new boyfriend is not that bright after she told him she liked her steaks rare and he replied: “What? Like kangaroo or bison?”

  A READER in a Glasgow restaurant the other night heard a woman at the next table order a complicated dessert, and the waiter explained: “Just to let you know, it will take 20 minutes to prepare.”

  “So why are you still standing here?” she replied.

  “IT was so cold the other day,” a Hamilton reader phones to tell us: “A woman buying fags in a corner shop was wearing two pairs of pyjamas.”

  A NEWTON MEARNS reader tells us he heard a shopper in the supermarket ask for a specific brand of vinaigrette dressing and was told it was out of stock. The chap then asked the assistant: “Any chance you could give me a note for the wife stating that I had looked everywhere for it and couldn’t find it?”

  WHAT larks when cheap and cheerful supermarket Lidl announced it was taking over the premises of the former upmarket Whole Foods Market in aspirational Giffnock, and folk were making fun of the supposed alarm in the minds of Giffnockians fearing their enclave on Glasgow’s Southside was going downhill. Our favourite reaction on social media was Jploughownes, who declared: “Giffnock punters going tonto about a Lidl being built. Wait until the first time they go down the fourth aisle and come out with a four-man tent, a cutlery set, a Swiss army axe and a pair of long johns wae trainers built into them, aw for about six quid.”

  SHOP assistant banter, continued. Says John Mathieson: “Last year an English friend was accompanying me to a Burns Supper, and in a show of solidarity decided to wear an item of Scottish clothing. He drew the line at wearing a kilt.

  “He went into a gents’ outfitters in north Northumberland and asked the assistant, ‘Do you have any Scottish ties?’ and the assistant replied, ‘Yes, I’ve got an auntie in Auchtermuchty.’”

  Matt Vallance in Ayrshire passes on the drama of a fellow Ayrshireman who revealed on social media: “Some guy in Greggs in Cumnock moaning about his sausage roll being ‘stane caul’. Handed it back to the woman to feel it through the paper bag, and she’s like, ‘Aye it will be stane caul – that’s yer eclair.’”

  A PARTICK reader swears to us that he was at his local supermarket, and when the bill for his messages came to £20 exactly he told the checkout operator, as he fished in his pocket: “That’s a nice round figure.” She replied: “You’re not so thin yourself.”

  IT’S great that Glasgow is such a multicultural city these days but sometimes acceptable social behaviour can vary. A Strathbungo reader tells us: “I was in a big department store having my make-up checked by one of the staff at the beauty counter.

  “She was from Hong Kong and was perhaps a bit more outspoken than we are used to, as she looked at my face and declared: “You fat face! You need blusher! Blusher for fat face.”

  IT was reported yesterday that chocolate manufacturer Nestlé had failed in its bid at the European Court of Justice to have the four-finger shape of a Kit Kat registered as a trademark. We are indebted to Tom White, who tells us that the noise of a Kit Kat being snapped in their television advert was actually created by snapping a stalk of frozen celery. And a reader phones with a Kit Kat joke: “Guy goes to the window of a late-night garage on his way home from the pub and asks the girl behind the Perspex, ‘Can I have a Kit Kat Chunky?’

  “‘Not if you’re going to call me names,’ she replied.”

  DOING your bit for the environment can be tricky. A reader in a Glasgow cafe heard an auld fella question a sign on the counter saying that plastic straws were now banned. “We have to keep them out of the ocean,” the young girl behind the counter earnestly explained when he asked.

  “Why’s that?’ replied the old chap. “Are they worried about a shark wi’ a moothful o’ straws sucking the blood out of some swimmer?”

  WHO doesn’t want an ice cream in this sunny weather? But, as Gerry McBride confesses: “Me: ‘I’ll have a 99 please.’ Ice-cream man: ‘Syrup?’ Me: ‘What have you got?’ Ice-cream man: ‘Chocolate or strawberry.’ Me: ‘Eh, how about the green one?’ Ice-cream man: ‘That’s antibacterial handwash.’”

  THE barbecues are wafting their rich aromas over the suburbs just now. A Bishopbriggs reader was at a neighbour’s the other night when a fellow invited neighbour came down the path and said: “I’ve brought some vegetarian kebabs. Where will I put them?” The chap flipping the burgers merely replied: “I think the bin’s over to your left.”

  A GLASGOW reader was in a Maryhill supermarket when he heard the customer being asked: “How many bags would you like?” The old fella replied: “No idea. Why don’t we put the messages in bags until we have no messages left and that’s the number of bags.”

  NO idea why, but someone has decreed that it is British Sandwich Week. We wonder if there is a better-named sandwich shop than the one a reader spotted in Bondi, Sydney, entitled “How the Focaccia?” Anyway, Duncan Cameron once told us of being on a trade mission in New York where a Glaswegian in the party went into a d
eli for a sandwich and the New Yorker behind the counter went into overdrive listing all the available breads. When he finally finished his litany of rye, wholemeal, bagel, ciabatta and so on, she replied: “Jist whatever you’ve got open, son.”

  SUSAN Irvine in Penicuik tells us: “A friend once lived with her family in Mexico where, at a ladies’ gathering hosted by her mother, the dainty edging of the little puff pastries was much admired. Curious to know the secret of such a fine finish, the party visited the kitchen down in the basement where the cook Maria, flattered by the attention, was pleased to demonstrate.

  She closed the dough around the fillings, then whipped out the top set of her dentures to seal the pastry’s edges. Simple!” And with that we really must put our false-teeth stories away on the bathroom shelf.

  YES, many of us welcomed the sugar tax that led to the makers of Irn-Bru reducing the sugar content of their drink. But as Amna, whose dad runs a local store in Glasgow, was telling friends yesterday: “My favourite thing is being told that folk are going into my dad’s shop asking if he’s got any of the ‘good stuff in the back’ because they heard he still has some old-recipe Irn-Bru kicking about.”