by Peter Quinn
Steak football
27 July 2009
Barber: Is it just an Irish thing? Why are we so hesitant to complain in restaurants when food is not right? People think if you send a steak back to the kitchen the chefs will throw it on the floor, kick it around a bit—if you’re lucky—toss it back in the pan for a few minutes and then send it back out to you! Apart from being the only one at the table to return your plate, and everyone else in your company having a cringe moment: ‘Oh, for God’s sake, don’t be so fussy. My food is fine,’ and so on . . . Have you ever heard of anything like that going on?
Customer (a chef): Yeah, I’ve seen it being done! There are restaurants where you can be sure that this type of attitude is not tolerated, but there are places where it can happen.
Barber: Are you serious?
Customer: Well, say you’re the chef and you’re very busy. You have cooked a steak and sent it out of the kitchen, and it arrives back in at the behest of some gobshite whose staple recession diet is cornflakes and petrol-station sandwiches. The customer is telling an experienced, fully qualified chef that what he has prepared is not to their liking. And, hey, the kitchen staff have a quick game of steak football before it goes back in the pan. It depends on what sort of place you’re in.
Barber: So what would you do if your food wasn’t up to standard?
Customer: I’d get up and walk out of the restaurant.
Galway Races
28 July 2009
Customer: A friend of mine is at the Galway Races. It’s not as crazy as it has been in the Celtic Tiger years.
Barber: It’s still a big draw, though—just not as many helicopters!
Customer: Yeah, he told me it was like Vietnam up there with all the choppers a while ago. There were so many people flying in they had to build a control tower!
The Irish crown jewels
1 August 2009
A customer was having his hair cut, and I noticed that he had a small paperback book with him that he’d placed on the shelf.
Barber: What’s that you’re reading?
Customer: It’s a book about the Irish crown jewels!
Barber: But there are no Irish crown jewels!
Customer: We had crown jewels in Ireland, but they were stolen in 1907. One of the guards who looked after the jewels in Dublin Castle disappeared after the robbery but was seen with two men the night before in the Shelbourne Hotel in Dublin. There was one jewel in particular, a large emerald, said to be the largest in the world. They were a serious collection of jewels!
Barber: Well, every day is a school day, and you learn something new!
The dog knows
2 August 2009
Customer: When the doorbell rings at home the dog always runs to it, and the wife says the other day, ‘Why does he always think it’s for him!?’
Brendan Behan
3 August 2009
A customer told me this one today. It’s a quotation from Brendan Behan. The customer said he drank with Brendan, although I seem to be meeting a huge number of people who were in the GPO in 1916 or who drank with Behan or Patrick Kavanagh—or, as one lad told me recently, who were seeing one of Kavanagh’s girlfriends behind his back! So here’s what Behan said: ‘I was court-martialled in my absence and sentenced to death in my absence, so I said they could shoot me in my absence.’
Pensioners
4 August 2009
Sometimes a barber will mistakenly charge a pensioner full price if the customer happens to look younger than their actual age. This can cause a tense moment, but it is in fact a reverse compliment. It happened the other day.
Customer: Oh, I’m a pensioner. I can show you my card.
Barber: Sorry, I didn’t realise you were on the OAP price. You look too young.
Customer: Low mileage and one careful owner. The oul’ fellas are so witty . . .
Lunsters
5 August 2009
Customer: You know the Leinster fans who follow Munster are called Lunsters?
Barber: I do.
Customer: Well, hazard a guess at what they call the Connaught fans who support Munster: Cunsters!
Bono’s table
6 August 2009
A customer told me that his aunt was in a restaurant in Temple Bar, and during the course of her meal a waiter asked her if she’d mind moving tables, as Bono was coming in, and he always sat at the table she had chosen. She was a big fan, and so she didn’t mind. Soon after she moved tables, Bono arrived with some friends. Later she spotted a tall, well-built man getting up from Bono’s table and heading out for a cigarette, so she followed him and went out for a cigarette too. She struck up a conversation with him, thinking he was part of the security, and asked him if it would be okay to ask Bono for an autograph or a photo, and he said he didn’t see why not. He told her to wait for him to bring her over and introduce her.
They went back to their tables, and, not long after, the guy came over and said it would be okay to go over to meet Bono. She got her photos and an autograph and chatted for a while. She thanked them and went back to her table. A while later, Bono and Co. left, and she asked for the bill.
‘Oh,’ the waiter said, ‘the gentleman at that table paid your bill,’ pointing to Bono’s table.
‘Bono?’ said the aunt in shock.
‘No,’ said the waiter, ‘Bruce Springsteen, the guy who took you over to meet Bono.’ And then it dawned on her that the man she thought was a bodyguard and who spoke to her while she was outside smoking was Bruce Springsteen!
The customer told me that his aunt had won a prize on a radio station for that story.
Strange shower
7 August 2009
Customer: I was doing a delivery in Ranelagh a while ago, and it was a lovely morning. The sun was shining, but as I looked down the street it was raining. But it was dry where I was! It was only about twenty feet away, and I was standing there in the sun. I never saw anything like it since.
Down and out—of the country!
10 August 2009
Wow, I’ve never heard so many stories of people’s lives being turned upside down and inside out and then in the aftermath trying to make some sense of it all.
Well, I had a regular customer in, and he was stressed, but I must say he was in good humour— anxious, maybe, but he was feeling positive. He told me he had bought an apartment ten years ago, when things were beginning to move in the property market. He was on an average wage, but he had no dependants and was single. He let this city-centre property, and all was well. Later that year he was in the bank where he knew the staff and had his account and mortgage. The manager spoke to him and said, ‘You’re getting on well. Would you like to buy another apartment?’
My customer couldn’t believe it. He thought about it and decided he could do it, and so apartment number two was purchased and let. About a year later the rates came down, and he found that he was now in profit every week. The rent was greater than the mortgage payments, and the bank offered him another mortgage. This went on for the next few years, until he had ten properties. To minimise the risk, he took the last half-dozen mortgages as interest only; being the sensible type he realised that what goes up must come down. He was doing well. What would these ten apartments be worth by the time he was ready to retire? They were worth more than three million now. All he had to do was keep them rented and pay the mortgages . . .
I looked at his expression in the mirror at this stage, and his face changed from that of a proud, self-driven speculator to that of a man whose luck had jack-knifed on the highway of life. He told me that this haircut was the last one he’d get in Ireland for a long time. He’d posted the keys of the ten apartments to the bank—the jingle post. The tenants were leaving, as he’d rented to immigrant workers who’d lost jobs and were going home. He had only a modest wage and couldn’t supplement the mortgage payments. He was paying interest only, so even if he could sell a property he’d still owe the banks a huge chunk of change, as the p
roperties were now worth little: two-thirds of the original price. He was leaving for America later that day. He told me how he’d be able to start from scratch there and that the bank couldn’t pursue him for the money. He couldn’t come back, of course.
I heard from a member of the staff of a local bank, while he was having his regular trim, that a lot of personal loans and car loans taken out around Christmas by immigrant workers would remain unpaid, as they had left the country and left their cars at the airport. This isn’t just happening in Ireland, though. Irish and English construction workers leaving Dubai abandoned three thousand cars at the airport car park, some taking out a loan before leaving for home and maxing out their credit cards buying presents for family and friends.
So, now you know you have an option: when you get your next credit card bill, you can pay it—or leave the country!
Michael Collins
12 August 2009
I was talking to a customer one Saturday when the shop was very busy. It was back in 1996. I know that’s a long time ago, but it came back to me today when I was telling a customer:
Barber: Did you hear Michael Collins is being released next week?
Customer: Michael Collins? I thought he was dead! The entire shop erupted in laughter.
Credit card minimum-payment bill
13 August 2009
Barber: A lot of people are staying in a bit more to pay off loans and credit cards. They’re not going out for lunch at work, so they’re bringing in a packed lunch from home instead.
Customer (who works in a bank): I bet you didn’t know it can take twenty-five years to pay back a card with a €2,000 balance if you pay the minimum amount only! In the States they’re at present trying to pass a law so that the card-issuer must forewarn the card-holder of the true cost of credit.
Barber: That’s really clever. It’s like magic numbers: your card purchases turn into a mortgage!
U2 360 Croke Park
14 August 2009
Customer: I was at the U2 concert in Croke Park the other night. It was fantastic! I got shivers down my spine about six or seven times during the middle section of the show when U2 played one hit after another. All the classics back to back. They never let the crowd up for air!
Barber: Everyone I spoke to seemed to think it was spectacular. The stage alone was like one of the tripods from The War of the Worlds!
Customer: I wonder how the residents are getting on. They had blocked the U2 trucks, leaving in protest [over noise and disruption], and the trucks carrying the stage missed the ferry! The Hannover concert was pulled. It’s in the paper today.
Barber: I saw that earlier. The promoters are suing the residents over the losses!
Customer: They only just got the grass back down in time for the all-Ireland!
Swine flu
15 August 2009
Customer: That swine flu is spreading. I hear there are a hundred people in hospital now.
Barber: Yeah, it was on the news earlier.
Customer: Well, I’ll only start worrying if it gets worse than that Colombian flu they had in Tallaght a few years ago!
Phil Lynott
16 August 2009
I was talking about Phil Lynott to a customer one day. He told me this old story about his aunt at a big party—and, of course, Phil Lynott was there.
His aunt was a good-looking young woman. Phil singled her out soon after coming into the room and struck up a conversation. He began flirting with her, but she wasn’t interested. He came closer to her and whispered something in her ear that would have shocked even the liberal-minded. The customer told me his aunt was horrified by this but remained composed and walked away as if she was bored. Phil was stunned: it probably didn’t happen to him very often. Then the customer tells me that his aunt was in fact—although dressed in fashionable clothes—a nun! She just got time off from the convent for the party!
The words Phillo whispered in her ear must have haunted her for years!
The Aviva Stadium
17 August 2009
Customer: I see the Aviva is coming on well. The boxes aren’t selling, though, probably because of the recession.
Barber: They’re expensive too. Eamon Dunphy said they’ll have to book the Rolling Stones to fill it!
The banks again . . .
18 August 2009
Customer: A friend of mine who works at one of the big banks told me that they all got golf and gym memberships, after us bailing them out!
Barber: Wow, if people hear about this there’ll be trouble!
Customer: And they still have their corporate boxes at Croke Park!
You won’t believe me if I tell you
20 August 2009
I heard this story a few times. My brother, who worked near the pub in question, knew the barman. It was a good few years ago . . .
In a pub in Naas it was just another ordinary day. There were a few locals drinking at the bar and four noisy lads in the back room playing pool and drinking. The barman would pull the pints and bring them in to the lads playing pool, and he had told them repeatedly to keep the noise down. Later they started singing, and after a while the barman shouted into the back room that if they kept it up he’d kick them all out. It went quiet for a few seconds, and then the lads in the back room burst out laughing! They were in hysterics.
The local people were dying to know who was in the back room, and one of them decided to go in and put money on the table to book the next game. He came back out laughing himself. ‘So who’s in there?’ they asked. ‘You won’t believe me if I tell you,’ he says. ‘It’s Mick Jagger, Bill Wyman, Keith Richards and Rod Stewart!’
Irish traffic lights
23 August 2009
A barman who works in a top hotel got to know an American couple who were on holiday. They told him they’d rented a car to see a bit of the countryside, and he didn’t see them for a couple of days. When they got back after their trip they told the barman what a great time they had. The weather had been good for them, which made it all the better.
Later on, the woman asked the barman what was up with the traffic lights in Ireland.
‘Why, what about them?’ enquired the puzzled barman.
‘They beep. Your traffic lights make a beeping noise,’ the woman tells him.
‘Oh, that. That’s for the blind people. You know, so they know when the lights change.’
‘Oh. You know, back home we don’t let the blind people drive.’
Her husband was mortified!
The demon barber!
26 August 2009
Things are only getting back to normal here in the barber shop. For quite some time when I’d go to use a cut-throat razor on a customer’s neck they’d jump and say, ‘No, don’t use that!’ So I’d ask why, and they’d say they had seen Sweeney Todd (the film about the mythical murderous barber). I’d have to leave the razor down and trim the hair with a clippers or scissors. But, as I said, it’s been a few weeks now since a customer cringed in my chair, and it seems that the fear has subsided. So, sharpen the cut-throats—it’s back to the close shaves.
The Malahide railway bridge collapse
27 August 2009
Customer: Did you hear about the railway bridge that collapsed in Malahide the other day?
Barber: I did. I saw the picture in the paper. They were lucky the train had just gone over the bridge and it fell in afterwards!
Customer: Well, CIE had to put buses on to transport people to work now that the bridge had collapsed, and this morning I heard the buses got into to town twenty-five minutes earlier than the train normally does!
Barber: So, no need to fix the bridge, then!
Directions in Ireland . . .
28 August 2009
Customer: I was travelling down to Carlow the other day, and I was trying to find the Dolmen Hotel. There were no signs anywhere that I could see, so I stopped and asked someone in the street.
Barber: I always feel sorry for to
urists travelling in Ireland. I often wonder how they ever find their way round.
Customer: Well, this guy gives me the directions, and I say to him, ‘How come there are no signs for the hotel?’ And he says, ‘Sure everybody knows where the Dolmen is!’
Witty Dublin place-names
29 August 2009
A customer was giving me directions to a place on the north side. (I ask customers sometimes, and I get great routes from sales reps.)
Customer: Take a right at the Donaghmede Opera House.
Barber: The what?
Customer: That’s what it’s known as locally. It’s Tesco at Clare Hall!
Strange fashion . . .
31 August 2009
While we were talking about modern fashion and the ‘youth of today’, the subject of the wearing of jeans down low arose. You’ll no doubt have seen lads wearing their jeans so low that their underwear shows. It’s usually three to four inches below the normal waistline.
Barber: A young lad who comes into the shop wears his jeans really low, and he told me he has to walk funny to keep them from falling down.
Customer: Do you know where that whole fashion came from?
Barber: No, I’ve no idea.
Customer: In the States, when a gang are arrested and the police lock them up they take their belts so they can’t hang themselves or beat each other up swinging the belts in the cells and hitting each other with the buckles. When they’re released they all walk out with no belts and their jeans hanging down low, and, because gangster culture is ‘cool’, the kids copy the look.