by Peter Quinn
31 January 2010
A customer in the second-hand car trade told me today that they had a busy week—the busiest Saturday in ten years, to quote him exactly. He said the banks were beginning to give out car loans again!
Still no bank help for small businesses
1 February 2010
Customer: I tried to get a bank loan of €100,000 to expand my business. The company is doing well through the recession, and I need to grow the business. But my application was turned down by the bank! A few weeks later I applied for a loan for a car—an expensive car. I asked for €120,000, and the bank approved the loan!
A lift home from the pub, Aran Island-style!
2 February 2010
Customer: I was in the Aran Islands recently on a break, and one night in a pub we asked the barman if we could get a taxi home. He called out to a man sitting at the back of the pub: ‘These people are looking for a lift.’ ‘No problem,’ the man said. ‘I’ll be ready in a few minutes.’ He went back to talking to some friends. Anyway, we finished our drinks and went outside, but there was no car in the street. Puzzled, I asked the driver, who was just coming out the door, where the car was. He had a big grin on his face as he walked round by the side of the pub! ‘Here she is,’ he said loudly as he reappeared with a horse and cart. We got into the cart, and he told us there was a blanket in the back that we could throw over our legs if we were cold!
An unexpected reply . . .
3 February 2010
Barber: I haven’t seen you for a while. Your hair has gotten very long.
Customer: Ah, I had a rough few weeks there. My brother committed suicide.
Barber: God, I’m really sorry to hear that.
Customer: No need: it was the best thing he ever did.
The head on that!
4 February 2010
A customer came into the shop with the longest matted curly hair I’ve ever seen, when another customer, who was waiting, shouted out, ‘Are you getting that mop cut or are you just getting an estimate?’
Cheap hotels
10 February 2010
Barber: The prices that hotels are offering are great: it’s cheaper to stay in town now than to get a taxi home if you live outside Dublin.
Customer: I’ve seen them. Sure at those prices we should rent our houses out and move into a hotel!
George Lee
12 February 2010
Customer: Ah, I think George was naïve to think that his ideas would be listened to.
Barber: Did you hear the rumours that he left because the expenses cut was coming? And some think he bailed to get Charlie Bird’s job in Washington!
Customer: Well, whatever the reason, I imagine he thought he was welcomed into the Fine Gael party because he had a rare perspective. He had ideas, and they were relevant.
Barber: So why didn’t they fast-track his top-ten list to the boardroom meetings? Why else would they bring him on board?
Customer: Unfortunately, Fine Gael didn’t see it like that. A celebrity like George brings a lot of kudos to the party. I think that’s all they wanted from him. So I’m hoping George Lee will publish some of his ideas so we can see what went into Enda’s wastepaper basket—if they even got that far. That would be a real embarrassment for Fine Gael if there were good ideas in there.
Barber: And I thought we were moving forward for a moment . . .
Cowlicks
16 February 2010
Barber: Wow, this is a challenge!
Customer: Tell me about it! I’ve got so many cowlicks my mother says I was born in a cow shed!
Willie O’Dea (on his resignation)
19 February 2010
Customer: Did you see O’Dea on the news last night?
Barber: No, I missed that. What was he saying?
Customer: It was very funny. The reporters met him outside on the street, and he started off saying he wasn’t pushed, that he had resigned of his own free will. So the reporters were taunting him a little to get a reaction out of him, and one asked him again if Cowen had asked him to leave, and he responded by saying, ‘No, as I said, I decided for the good of the country that I would step down, otherwise it could have brought the Government down, and we can’t have that right now, so I did it in the best interests of the country!’ Hilarious. But the best bit was at the end when a reporter asked him if he thought he had been unfairly treated by the party, and he said, off the top of his head, ‘Of course I do. I stood by other party members when they were in trouble, and they did much worse things than I did.’
Barber: I can’t believe he said that. So he’s telling us he was loyal even to the point of protecting the guilty. Good job he’s gone, then.
Customer: He was gas, though. I remember a friend of mine went to a fancy-dress party with a pair of the Marx Brothers’ glasses, with the fake nose and moustache. Do you remember them?
Barber: I do. They sell them in joke shops. I haven’t seen them for a while, though.
Customer: They’re the ones. Well, he wore them, and he had a toy shotgun, and he went as Willie O’Dea. He looked just like him! It was just after the picture of him in the front page of the paper looking down the barrel of a rifle!
Porsche tests new models in Mayo and Sligo
2 March 2010
Customer: I saw a blacked-out, taped-up Porsche 997 and a Boxster outside a pub in Mayo. They were disguised, so you couldn’t see the new shape. It was a few years ago now, but it’s something I won’t forget. It was months before the cars went on sale. The drivers were obviously having some lunch in the pub—it was in the middle of nowhere!
Barber: I heard Toyota does that too to set up the suspension. Funny the things you happen upon in this country!
Home bleaching
3 March 2010
Customer: I bleached my hair at home and left it on too long, and I hate it. It’s so white and curly—it’s like Super Noodles.
Barber: It really is!
The natives are restless
4 March 2010
Customer: It’s incitement to revolution, it is! Bertie should be keeping his head down. Unheard and unseen, I tell you! He’s got no shame. Do you remember what he said to the economists who warned about the bubble bursting? ‘I don’t know how people who engage in that don’t commit suicide,’ he said. Haughey was right when he said Bertie was the most cunning of all.
Barber: He did say that. And, of all people, Charlie would have known.
Customer: Did you see his daughter in the weekend supplement full-page spread, lying across a chaise longue in a ball gown or something? Looks like it was taken in window of the Shelbourne Hotel. Had noone in the paper the sense to stop that story in a recession? We need to get the French over and bring a guillotine or two over with them so we can revolt. They’ll show us what to do! We’ll take Enda Kenny out too; no-one will vote for Fine Gael until they get him out. They need to put Richard Bruton in there instead. Kenny is a clown.
Barber: A lot of people have said that they’d vote for Fianna Fáil again rather than have Enda Kenny as Taoiseach. Maybe they’ll leave Kenny in so they won’t win and won’t have to clean up the mess.
Watered-down petrol!
6 March 2010
Customer: I can’t believe the price of petrol lately. Last year, when it started going up, everyone was talking about it, but this year I haven’t heard anyone mention it on the radio or on TV.
Barber: I know, it’s €1.32 in some places now.
Customer: It’s like they’re watering it down. A full tank doesn’t last at all.
Barber: A customer told me the filling stations that advertise that they use an additive that cleans your engine are actually diluting the fuel with the additive, as it’s cheaper and means they get more profit!
Customer: Well, I can believe it.
Getting mortgages . . .
7 March 2010
I’ve been hearing from customers how difficult it’s been to get a mortgage. It’s nigh on
impossible, it seems, since the global downturn, and then I heard this . . .
Customer: I work in construction, and the only clients we’ve had in the last few months for extensions or new house builds that are getting mortgages all had one thing in common: they all work in the bank!
Barber: That would suggest that their bank jobs are secure?
Customer: God only knows, but one client, who had a well-paid, secure job for twenty-six years, couldn’t get the loan he needed to extend his house.
Wheelie bins
13 March 2009
Customer: Why does the same truck pick up the brown and black bins?
Cloning around
14 May 2009
Customer: You must end up with lots of hair clippings at the end of the day. Is there anything you can do with them?
Barber: Well, not really. The cuttings are too short to be used for wigs.
Customer: You could use the hair to clone customers.
Barber: That’s something that never crossed my mind, strangely enough.
Customer: You could, you know. Not all of them, mind you—just the good ones.
How to get the guards in a hurry!
16 March 2010
Customer: I was at home the other night. It was late, and I saw two people outside walking or sneaking across the garden. I said nothing to my wife. I didn’t want to frighten her. I went out of the room where we were watching TV and rang the guards. I told them that there were two lads outside in the garden, that we were alone in the house and that we live in a detached house in the country. The guard on the phone told me they were too busy to call out. They told me that I should bolt the door and that they’d come out when they had time. I took their advice and bolted the door.
I looked out a window and saw that the two strangers were still snooping around, so I decided to ring the guards again, and, pretending I was out of breath and frightened, I told them that I had been on earlier—I had given my name and address before—that I had shot at the two trespassers and that I thought I’d hit one of them! Within minutes there were two garda cars and an ambulance, and there was a helicopter hovering above with a searchlight. They got the two lads, who got some shock, I’ll tell you. They must have thought they were casing a celebrity’s home. So the guards came up to me, and one of them said, ‘I thought you said you’d shot one of them.’ And I said, ‘I thought you said you were busy!’
Lock-hards
18 March 2010
Victims of the Celtic Tiger, the lock-hards are a part of Dublin culture that has become extinct in recent years. I was reminded of them the other day by a customer who told me this story:
Customer: I was parking my car at St Stephen’s Green when a lock-hard came over and started shouting his catchphrase, ‘Lock hard!’ He was shouting through the window. Anyway, I ignored him, parked and got out. I had my dog and, as I was only stopping for ten minutes or so, left it in the car. ‘I’ll keep an eye on the car for you,’ the lock-hard said, holding out his hand for a tip. Well, I never tipped those guys—it only encouraged them. So I said, ‘No, thanks, the car will be okay.’ ‘Are you sure?’ he says, with a sarcastic smile. ‘Of course it will be. I have my dog in the back,’ I replied. I begin to walk off, and the lock-hard shouts, ‘Can he put out a fire?’ He earned his tip!
Seánie Fitzpatrick
19 March 2010
Customer 1: It’s a great day today: the weather is good, and Seánie spent the night in a cell.
Barber: Everyone’s talking about it. I can’t imagine he got much sleep.
Customer 2 (in the next chair): I don’t think there are many bank managers in the country who slept last night!
Colder than you think!
24 March 2010
After being surprised by reports of terrible weather in Wellington, Australia, for the Irish rugby match, I was told by a customer, ‘Sure there’s penguins on the beaches in Wellington. That’s how cold it gets over there.’
You’re not in the colonies now!
25 March 2010
An American tourist staying at the Sheen Falls in Co. Kerry rings the reception desk late one night complaining that he can’t sleep and could they turn off the waterfall!
Shop talk
25 March 2010
Barber 1: Did you put the kettle on? I asked you ages ago.
Barber 2: I tried, but it didn’t fit.
Pubs open on Good Friday in Limerick
26 March 2010
The news announcing that the pubs in Limerick would be open on Good Friday came on the radio in the shop.
Customer (from Limerick): Did you hear that? He’s done it: the pubs will be open on Good Friday!
Barber: How did he manage that? Even the Government was against it.
Customer: I don’t know, but Kiely [the Mayor of Limerick] will be voted in for the rest of his life!
Spring forward, fall back
27 March 2010
Barber: You know, the clocks change tonight, but I can never remember if they go forward or back an hour.
American customer: Well, in the States we have a saying: ‘Spring forward, fall back.’ That way you won’t forget. Good, eh?
Barber: Hey, that’s really clever. And we always thought yous Yanks were thick!
Irish road signs—it’s a genetic thing . . .
28 March 2010
Customer: Don’t talk to me about the road signs in this country! My God, how tourists get around this country is beyond me!
Barber: Especially when you leave the airport: if you can find the M50, every exit on it is signposted as an exit to the city centre. I don’t get that.
Customer: And why are the signs after the slip roads rather than before? I’ve seen people reverse on the M50 to get back to the off ramp, which is madness, anyway!
Barber: One of the older customers who comes in told me there’s a theory that the signage thing goes back a long way in our genes. He said that, for years, people were turning sign posts around to point in the wrong direction so that British soldiers would get lost going out across the country! He said that in some places you can still see evidence of this. I remember seeing signposts where I live turned to face the wrong direction, so it could well be a genetic hand-down from our forefathers.
Customer: He could have something there, all right. So now when we have to do the job properly we are unable to! We’re experts in misdirection.
McPorridge
29 March 2010
Customer: Great the way everyone is so health-conscious these days: they serve porridge in McDonald’s now.
Barber: Porridge? Are you serious? I can’t imagine that.
Customer: Oh, yeah, McPorridge, I think it’s called. I suppose they have to move with the times.
Barber: That’s very funny. It just sounds all wrong. Do they do a McPorridge meal?
A blonde moment!
2 April 2010
This story has been round the block. I even met the woman involved—or at least she claimed to be—but she never told me this had all ended up in court! A customer who was involved in the case brought it all back to me today . . .
Customer: I was involved in a case years ago in which a judge had gone to a hairdresser to get his hair cut. Afterwards he was sitting in the chair with a gown on, and he was waiting for someone to come over and blow-dry his hair. A pretty young woman came over to him and, after introducing herself, began drying his hair. The judge was fiddling round under the gown for a moment. Then, to the hairdresser’s surprise, the old man began to jerk the gown up and down around his lap. She looked on in horror, watching as this old guy was for all the world jerking off under the gown! As she watched in disbelief, the gown kept moving up and down in a rhythm. Suddenly she whacked him across the back of the head really hard with her hairdrier! ‘You dirty bastard!’ she screamed. Everyone in the shop turned to see what all the commotion was about. Then the manager came over. ‘What the hell are you doing?’ he asks. The hairdresser rips the gown
off the customer and turns his chair round for all to see. But it wasn’t what she expected: underneath the gown, the dazed and confused judge had been innocently polishing his glasses on his lap!
He won his case.
Noisy kid in the barber shop
4 April 2010
There was a three-year-old boy in the shop, and his mother was telling him that he was a big boy and that he had to have his hair cut. He was having none of it, so he started screaming crying—and I mean screaming. The lad whose hair I was doing turned round to the mother with a grin and said, ‘How much does he charge to haunt a house?’
We all burst out laughing.
The Dáil bar
5 April 2010
Customer: I was in the Dáil bar recently, and it’s like a snapshot of the past. The men and women sit separately: the men at the bar, mostly, and the women around in groups, like a country dance-hall in the sixties. The men at the bar were throwing back the pints before their lunch, and they were telling sexist and racist jokes. Then the food was served like a carvery lunch—real old style, lots of gravy and mash. Then, when they finished knocking back the pints, they went in to vote!
Barber: I have to say I’m not at all surprised.
Vending machine in Somerset