by Peter Quinn
‘And then after tea what would you do?’
‘If there’s nothing on the telly I’d ramble down to the pub for one or two and a bit of a chat. You know yourself.’
‘And is that what you would do most days?’
‘Yeah, most days.’
‘Well, I have news for you, Mr Murphy: you’re an alcoholic!’
‘Alcoholic? Ah, no,’ he says, almost laughing. ‘Sure I just ramble down for one or two!’
Exam beards
5 June 2010
There’s a new style this year among the students that’s becoming known as the ‘exam beard’! They’re so focused on their studies that shaving isn’t a priority. Some of the students coming in look like they should be off to Woodstock: long hair and beards! Maybe the tie-dye T-shirts will reappear too!
Cracking weather!
7 June 2010
Barber: The weather is bang on time again—every year when everyone is studying for exams.
Customer: It’s great. You know, I think the Donegal postman is right with his predictions.
Barber: I heard he watches the mountains and the birds and can tell the weather from that—mostly the birds, I’d say. I can tell when the weather is getting better because their skirts get shorter!
Drop-dead gorgeous
8 June 2010
Barber: I remember a barber who was finishing up a cut and had picked up the back mirror to show his customer the back of his hair in the mirror. But the customer was asleep, so he tapped him a couple of times on the shoulder, and didn’t your man slump forward onto the basin! Dead!
Customer: Dead? Jesus, how did that happen?
Barber: Must have been a heart attack, they said. The barber cutting his hair never noticed.
Customer: Did he take the money for the haircut out of the dead lad’s wallet?
Barber: Sure he did, and the dead lad must’ve liked the haircut, because he told me he got a decent tip too!
Criminal makeovers!
9 June 2010
Something came up in the shop today that started a conversation about crime and criminals. I remembered a few lads from a barber shop in town who we’d bump into on nights out and who were well known for doing makeovers on lads who were wanted by the guards. They’d shave their hair off, or their beards, or colour the hair to totally change the appearance of Dublin’s most wanted. But, anyway, it led to the telling of this story:
Barber: Years ago in a shop I worked in in town we were all busy cutting away when a guy burst into the shop a little out of breath and looking a bit nervous, but he sat down quietly, and everyone went back to cutting and talking. So a couple of minutes later one of the other barbers finished the haircut he was doing, and this particular guy was next. He got into the chair and said he wanted his head shaved close. ‘No problem,’ the other barber said and began cutting.
Now, in the meantime, from where I worked I could see up the street, and there was a bit of excitement: some guards had arrived. It all seemed to be happening outside the newsagent’s. Then the guards began walking down towards the barber shop with the owner of the newsagent. The lad having his hair shaved had just realised this, and he tore his gown off, ran out the door of the shop and down the street as fast as he could, with the guards starting after him.
The owner of the newsagent, who we knew well, stopped outside our door and told us the lad had robbed the shop; but someone saw him ducking into our shop, so the guards were walking down to nab him when he bolted. ‘I hope they catch him,’ said the newsagent. ‘Well,’ the other barber said, ‘they won’t have any trouble spotting him: he ran off with half his hair cut!’
Driving lessons
10 June 2010
Customer: I have to tell you this one. I’m a driving instructor, and I took a woman out today to do a lesson. Sitting in the car, she puts on her seatbelt, starts the engine clutch in, puts the car in gear and lets off the handbrake, indicates to move out onto the road, but she never looks! So I say to her, ‘Have a look in the mirror.’ And she looks, shocked. Instead of looking behind in the rear-view mirror she leans forward and starts examining her face and says, ‘Oh, God, is it a spot?’
Barber: You’re scaring me now!
The Blackwater men
11 June 2010
Customer: Have you been down to Blackwater recently?
Barber: No, the weather hasn’t been great for the last few summers, so I haven’t been down.
Customer: Did you ever hear about the Blackwater men when you were down there?
Barber: No, what’s that all about?
Customer: Well, it’s a story seldom told, but around the coast there are hundreds of shipwrecks, because there’s a bank near Blackwater, and the lads down there would put a lantern on a donkey and lead it along the headland at night when there was a ship in the distance. The ship’s captain would see the light and follow it, thinking it was following another ship through a safe course, and they’d find themselves beached on the Blackwater bank. The captain and crew would go ashore to get help to tow the ship off the bank, and most of the time when they returned the ship would be stripped of its cargo. There’s a church in Ballygarrett, near Curracloe, where they say the pews are made from wood stolen from a ship called the Irrawaddy. It ran aground on the bank in 1856.
When time slows down
14 June 2010
Barber: It’s a really slow day today. I can’t believe it’s only half two!
Customer: I know those days—feels like it’ll never end. Do you know what you call that?
Barber: No.
Customer: Groundhog Day!
Stag parties
15 June 2010
Customer: I’m going on a stag weekend, but it’s not abroad—it’s in Galway.
Barber: That’s the recession for you!
Customer: Yeah, not many going abroad for weekends any more. It was a bit mental for a while there. If you had a few friends getting married in the same year it was expensive. You know, I’d rather get a summons in the post than another wedding invitation. Anyway, I was on holiday in Poland last year, and we went to Auschwitz, and a girl there, who was like a tour guide, asked us where we were from. ‘Ireland,’ we said. ‘Oh,’ she says, ‘usually the Irish who come here are on stag parties and smell of alcohol!’
Barber: Not exactly an ideal place for a stag!
Customer: When you ask people who’ve been to Auschwitz what it’s like they say, ‘Oh, it’s amazing. You should go!’ Do people know it was a death camp? I wonder sometimes.
Traffic warden
16 June 2010
The local traffic warden used to get his hair cut in the shop, and one day when he came in the shop was quiet, but it began to get busier as I was cutting his hair. When I finished his hair I took his gown off, and everyone could see his uniform, but it wasn’t until he stood up and put on his hat that almost all the customers evacuated the shop, each one saying, ‘I’ll be back in a minute—just putting some money in the meter!’
A new man
17 June 2010
Barber (putting the finishing touches to a haircut): Now, how’s that?
Customer: That’s some transformation: my own dog won’t know me!
No more speeding tickets!
18 June 2010
Barber: I got caught recently coming off the M50. I couldn’t believe it. I was slowing down, and there they were, hiding behind a bus shelter! They got me. Customer (a guard): Well, there’s a way you can never get a ticket again, you know.
Barber: So tell me what it is!
I could see the lads waiting on the couch behind me sitting up to hear what the guard was going to say next.
Customer: Don’t drive over the speed limit!
Dangerous muesli
19 June 2010
Customer: A friend of mine drowned in his muesli the other day!
Barber: What?
Customer: Yeah, he was dragged under by a strong currant!
Hard of hea
ring
20 June 2010
I was about to begin cutting an elderly customer’s hair, and I asked him what he thought of the present Fine Gael crisis, as Enda Kenny had just fired Richard Bruton. ‘Hold on a minute there. I have to take out the hearing aid.’ He takes it out and puts it away. ‘Now,’ he says, ‘you can talk to yourself!’
Going grey
21 June 2010
Customer: I’m really going grey—just look at that [holding up the trimmings that have fallen onto the gown].
Barber: Well, at least you have a thick head of hair. I wouldn’t mind what colour it is as long as I have hair!
Customer: Can you just cut the grey ones and leave the rest?
Viva Las Vegas
22 June 2010
Barber: Hey, how did you get on in Vegas?
Customer: I won, believe it or not. I won the Poker Classic!
Barber: That’s brilliant. Well done!
Customer: Well, I got out of there with a small fortune, but I got an invitation to go back to Vegas, all expenses paid, flights and a penthouse—the whole lot—so I thought, ‘That’s great. I’m off on a free trip!’ But in a week they cleaned me out. Very clever, though, inviting me back and then fleecing me! So I didn’t feel like a winner for long.
Elvis lives
23 June 2010
There was a character who regularly came into the shop dressed as Elvis—the Vegas Elvis. He was about mid-forties, with black hair in the Vegas style and big sideburns. He spoke like Elvis too. He seemed to be fond of a pint or four. Anyway, he used to sell poems that he said Elvis told him to write: channeled writing from the other side. They were about his daughter, Lisa Marie, and stuff about him not being happy about the way he died. So, one busy Saturday, Elvis came in for a trim. The shop was packed, and he’d been drinking. He was a quiet drunk and just sat down and waited his turn, until an Elvis song came on the radio, and he was up like a man possessed, doing all the Presley poses and pulling the moves and singing along. It was hilarious. He wasn’t at all phased by everyone laughing. Then, when the song ended, he sat back down quietly as if nothing had happened!
The older generation
26 June 2010
Customer: What was that you were just doing to that young lad’s hair?
Barber: He was getting highlights.
Customer: Highlights? Sure that’s for women.
Barber: Well, the latest thing for the men is the GHD.
Customer: The GHD? What’s that?
Barber: It straightens the hair like an iron, but for your hair. Women used to use an iron on a paper bag to straighten their hair in the sixties.
Customer: And, tell me, do they wear their sister’s knickers too?
Vuvuzelas
27 June 2010
Customer: Man, I can’t stand the noise from those vuvuzelas. It’s driving me mad watching the matches.
Barber: I’m getting used to it at this stage.
Customer (in the waiting area): They’re not so bad, lads. I’ll tell you what’s worse: being in Croke Park with a bad hangover and a kid behind you with an air horn!
People aged rapidly in old Ireland
28 June 2010
Customer: I was doing some research on my family, and I found discrepancies in the ages on a census. After looking into it, it turned out that the old-age pension was introduced here on 1 January 1909, and people lied about their age on the census so they’d qualify for the pension earlier!
Barber: So it’s not a new thing, then. I remember, in the eighties, recession people with jobs dressing down to go and collect their dole money—must be something in the genes.
The Vegas look
8 July 2010
Customer: Get rid of the lamb chops there. I look like Elvis in Vegas!
The wordy customer
10 July 2010
Customer: I don’t mean to be permutatious, but could you take a little more off the fringe there?
Barber: Now there’s a word!
Traveller tricks
11 July 2010
Customer (a Traveller, arriving in a very busy barber shop on a Saturday morning): Lads, do you mind if I skip the queue? I have to be at a funeral in Wexford in an hour and a half!
Barber: Does anyone mind if Blackie here skips the queue?
Customer (the Traveller): I just need to get the back cleaned up. It’ll only take a minute!
Barber: Okay. No objections? Take a seat there. You’re lucky they let you skip ahead—there’s been fights over less!
Customer: That’s great. Thanks, lads. Only I have to be at the funeral, you know . . . Just a little off the back there.
Barber: Now then, how’s that?
Customer: Does it look okay now? Maybe you better take a little off the sides to match it up.
Barber: Okay—just a little, though. Now, how’s that?
Customer: The top looks too long now you’ve done the sides, do you think?
Barber: Only this once, and seeing you’re going to a funeral, I’ll do it.
Customer: That’s it now—lovely. How much?
Barber: It’s fourteen euro, please.
Customer: Fourteen euro? Sure I only wanted the back tidied up!
Barber: But I gave you a full haircut!
Customer: Here [handing me a fistful of loose change], that’s all I have. I have to go—have to get to that wedding in an hour and a half!
Spain wins the World Cup
12 July 2010
Customer: That was a terrible match to watch! Fourteen yellow cards and one red. The Dutch play dirty. Did you have a bet on?
Barber: No, my money was on the octopus!
Time for a trim
13 July 2010
Barber: You normally work on a Tuesday. Are you off today?
Customer: No, I’m working, but I slipped out to get my hair cut. It grows on their time, so I get it cut on their time!
Oxegen
17 July 2010
Customer: I’m just back from Oxegen. I’m so tired.
Barber: How was it down there? The weather was terrible—again!
Customer: It rained on the Saturday, so we were soaked through, and then later it started to get cold, so when we got back to the campsite it was miserable. We were all cold, tired and hungry, so we just started forcing the cans down. I remember sitting there feeling miserable and wishing I was at home tucked up in bed. We didn’t even take off our shoes, which were covered in muck, when we got into the sleeping bags. Then we woke up roasted: the sun had come out, and we all felt shit. Mucky, sweaty, and it was early, so we just started knocking back the cans again. The bands made it all worth while, though. They were great. Jay-Z was brilliant, and Eminem.
Barber: That sounds hellish to me. Was there any tent-burning this year?
Customer: No, there was lots of security.
Barber: Last year Kings of Leon were there, and that song ‘Sex on Fire’ was in the charts, and people in the campsite were singing, ‘Your tent is on fire.’
Women
19 July 2010
Customer: Women: can’t live with them, can’t live without them—and sheep can’t do the washing up!
Recession stress
20 July 2010
Customer: There are two types of people in this recession: the ones who buckle under the pressure of their debts or can’t go back to a simpler life, and the ones who just say, ‘Fuck it!’
Barber: If you owe less than lads like Seánie Fitzpatrick then you’ve no need to worry. If they’re not feeling the pressure then no-one should be.
Country crossroads
21 July 2010
We were talking about unusual car crashes.
Customer: Down the country where I live there’s a crossroads in the middle of nowhere. The road has no lighting at night, and there are no traffic lights. A few years ago a car was coming up to the crossroads, and it kept going, never dropping its speed. Then, out of nowhere, another car hit him head on, just
at the edge of the crossroads. Neither driver saw the other coming. The guards turned up, and luckily the two lads who crashed were okay. The crash was a mystery for ages until I heard from one of the drivers that he always turned off his lights coming up to the junction and that he could see if someone else was coming easily, because the oncoming car’s headlights would be obvious in the pitch dark. That night it turned out that both drivers had turned off their lights approaching the crossroads and ploughed straight into each other!
Camping
22 July 2010
Barber: Camping is huge this year. People are not really talking about it, but the campsites are busy!
Customer: I went camping myself. The place was really busy on the bank holiday, but it’s even more basic than I thought. The first morning I woke up and headed off to get coffee and croissants, but there was nothing available. All the campers had everything with them. I thought there would be a shop or a café or something. It really is hardcore. You need to bring a serious amount of stuff with you.
Barber: No-frills holidays!
Miracle Grow
23 July 2010
Customer: My hair is growing like the grass lately! You must be putting something in the water: Miracle Grow or something!
Barber: Since the recession began, barbers have been dumping bags of keratin in the reservoirs.