by Peter Quinn
Customer: What does keratin do?
Barber: It makes your hair and nails grow faster!
Customer: The way my hair is growing, you know I’d almost believe that.
Barber: Times like these, it’s every man for himself. Would you like to buy a nail-clippers?
Baldness cure!
24 July 2010
Customer: Did you ever come across a cure for baldness that worked?
Barber: Yes, I found a great recipe online that’s easy to make: it’s just chopped onions, cayenne pepper and ginger, all soaked in alcohol for a few days. Then you strain it and rub the liquid into your scalp.
Customer (sits up in the chair, eyes wide open): Really?
Barber: No, I’m only pulling your leg!
The wonder of Oz
26 July 2010
Customer: Cut it shorter than usual. I’m off to Australia later today.
Barber: Are you going for long?
Customer: A year at least—seems to be jobs available again over there.
Barber: You’re the third customer this morning who’s heading off for work. It’s amazing how many Irish people go to Australia. Most people have either been to Australia or they’re going to Australia, and I never met anyone who didn’t like it!
The cause of the boom
27 July 2010
Customer: I read lately about how the boom started. I was always wondering where all the money came from and how it just stopped as though someone flicked a switch.
Barber: So how did it start?
Customer: A huge amount of industry went to China because they were able to manufacture goods at a fraction of the cost. There was even a rumour that the Irish football jerseys were being made over there, but that’s just hearsay. So, in a nutshell, they made a fortune, and workers, as you know, are paid a pittance. So China loaned this money to the American banks, and they had so much money coming in they were giving it away. Economies boomed, and people were overstretched, living on credit and getting big mortgages. Then China stopped the supply, and—bang!—the whole system fell apart!
Barber: So Bertie took the credit for the wave, when all he did was surf on it!
Jedward
28 July 2010
Customer: Don’t even get me started on those two! It’s music for the Teletubby generation!
Barber: Music? They couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket!
Southill, Limerick
29 July 2010
Customer: A friend of mine went into a shop in Limerick, and he’d left his car parked outside for a few minutes. When he came back out it was gone. He ran over to the garda station, and, as it had just been taken, the guards jumped into a car and, with my friend, headed towards Southill. Within minutes they were out of the city, and, as they drove by a field, they topped. One of the guards noticed the gate was open. They parked the car and walked back to the field, and there was the car. But there was no-one around, so the guards say to him, ‘Stay down and be quiet,’ and they all sat tight and waited. It wasn’t long before they heard the lads who’d taken the car coming back, talking and laughing. When they got up close to the car the guards grabbed them and took them off. It turns out the lads had gone off somewhere to get drums of petrol, which they had with them when they were caught, to set the car on fire. They were obviously new to stealing cars!
In the army
30 July 2010
Barber: Were you away, or did you get that tan here?
Customer: Yeah, I was away. I’m in the Army Reserve, and we went to Lourdes a few weeks ago.
Barber: What was the army doing in Lourdes?
Customer: There’s an international military pilgrimage to Lourdes every year.
Barber: I’m finding this hard to comprehend: you’re telling me there’s a military pilgrimage to Lourdes? How can that be possible! It sounds all wrong.
Customer: French soldiers used to go there in the forties to pray. It caught on, and more and more countries began to go. Now armies come from all over the world.
Barber: I see. And what do the soldiers pray for?
Customer: Mostly peace, I suppose!
Barber: Well, I’ve heard it all now!
Quick thinking
31 July 2010
A customer told me that he’d been in a car crash on the way home from a pub after having a few drinks. This was a good few years ago, before the drink-and-drive clampdown. He’d taken a corner at speed, lost control and scraped the car along a wall sideways, then came to a sudden stop when he hit a parked car. Uninjured, he got out and saw a pub across the road.
He went in and ordered two straight whiskeys and asked the barman for a receipt, which he put in his pocket. Then, after knocking back one, he emptied the second into a plant pot at the side of the bar but pretended to knock back the whiskey. He went back outside, and the guards had arrived.
He went over and told them that it was his car and that he’d lost control coming around the corner. The guards noticed the smell of alcohol on his breath and asked him if he’d been drinking, to which he replied, ‘God, no! But I went into the bar over there to get a stiff drink to steady my nerves. Here,’ he said. ‘I think I still have the receipt in my pocket!’
The empathic barber
1 August 2010
Barber: Doing anything for the weekend? Will you have a few pints?
Customer: No, I have ME, so I’m very tired most of the time.
Barber: So what’s that then?
Customer: It’s an illness I’ve had for—
Barber: Jaysus, it’s not contagious is it?
Customer: No, not at all, it’s just that when I get a good night’s sleep, instead of waking up refreshed I wake up feeling exhausted, every day. Some days are worse than others, though. I can’t drink alcohol: it’d wipe me out for days. So I only have a few hours a day when I’ve enough energy to get out and about and get things done. I spend a lot of time just sitting around at home.
Barber: So you have a lot of time to yourself then, says you. That’s lovely, isn’t it?
A triumph
2 August 2010
Customer: On a bike-run at the weekend there was a guy with a vintage Triumph. It was in great condition, so I said to him I’d never seen one so good and with no oil leaks! To which he replied, ‘Well, it would if it got any!’
Cover-up
3 August 2010
Customer: A lad I used to work with had three wigs of different lengths, and he’d go through them all, pretending his hair was getting longer, and when he wore the longest one for a while he’d announce he was off to the barbers to get it cut. He’d arrive back wearing the shortest one! He thought he was fooling everyone, but we all knew!
Nice job
4 August 2010
Customer: I’m a transparent-wall maintenance engineer.
Barber: What’s that?
Customer: I clean the windows at the airport.
Shamrock Rovers v. Juventus
5 August 2010
Customer: Looking forward to the game tonight. Juventus aren’t playing in their home ground because U2 are playing there tomorrow!
Barber: Sounds like it was a plan.
Customer: The Irish invasion!
Beauty salons
6 August 2010
Barber: There are so many beauty salons closing down in the last year. They’ve been hit so hard in the recession.
Customer: But Irish women don’t look any less beautiful than before.
Barber: So what are you saying? They were wasting their money?
Bono’s back
7 August 2010
Customer: What did Bono do to his back? He must have slept on a cheap bed or something.
Barber: Well, he does do those high kicks on stage.
Customer: If you ask me, that pain in his back was all in his head!
Pass-remarkable
9 August 2010
Customer: I was out walking the pier in Dún Laoghaire with my girlfriend, a
nd the weather was great, so we asked a lad to take a picture of us, and he spent a while looking at the screen, getting the picture in focus. He took the photo and handed me back the camera, and, as my girlfriend was walking off, he quietly says to me, with a big grin on his face, ‘Your bird has a great rack!’
Barber: No wonder he spent a while focusing the camera: he was checking her out!
Soccer in the US
10 August 2010
Customer: Soccer will never take off in America. It’s just not going to happen!
Barber: I heard a quote in a film: ‘Americans will never embrace soccer!’
Customer: Who said that?
Barber: Homer Simpson in The Simpsons Movie!
Recession haircuts
11 August 2010
Customer: I see a lot of people are getting the recession haircut.
Barber: You mean a shaved head? But that’s been around a long time.
Customer: It’s really big in the States now. Lots of athletes and football players are wearing it.
Barber: Well, I can’t imagine any football players feeling the pinch over there—it’s just a fashion thing!
Some neck
12 August 2010
Woman barber (approaching a customer in the waiting area): You know the way you always give me a fiver tip?
Customer (a little surprised): Yeah . . .
Woman barber: Well, would there be any chance I could get an advance? It’s just one of the girls is going out for our sandwiches, and I’ve no money!
More soccer in the US
13 August 2010
Customer: I was working in a bar in the States when the World Cup was on, and the Americans just don’t get soccer. I had the TV on to see the games at work, and some of the lads at the bar watched it too.
Barber: What did they think of it?
Customer: The game ended in a draw, and they kept asking me who won. ‘It’s a draw,’ I said, but they kept asking, ‘But who won?’
Barber: They don’t have games that end in a draw over there, as far as I know. They might have to change some of the rules to get it to the next level over there.
Customer: That’s what I’m afraid of!
Best weather in years
16 August 2010
Customer: The Donegal postman was right! The weather here is just as he said it would be.
Barber: It’s really good today. There’s no-one around—must’ve all gone to the beach!
Customer: You should close the shop and head out there yourself with a mirror and a chair—make yourself a fortune!
First Irish toll road
17 August 2010
Customer: Do you know when the first toll road opened in Ireland?
Barber: Must be the one on the M50. That’s the oldest I remember.
Customer: No, the first toll road here was the Carlow–Kilkenny road back in 1731!
Moving south
18 August 2010
Customer (a Protestant originally from the North): I moved down to Dublin in the late sixties, and back at home all my friends and neighbours were shocked.
Barber: Why were they shocked?
Customer: It was the biased perspective they had of life in the South. They really were horrified by the idea of me moving into a Catholic area. They were saying things like ‘Those Catholics throw their rubbish out in the front garden—babies’ nappies and all.’ Terrible things. It turns out they’d heard all this but had never been down South to know what the reality was. So when I’d go back up to visit they were amazed to hear that it was nothing like that. I thought it was really funny. It still makes me laugh!
Barber: I imagine it’s the same on both sides: stories played a part in keeping up the barriers. They demonised each other.
No point
19 August 2010
Barber: Will I trim your eyebrows? They’re quite long.
Customer: Sure why would you do that—they’ll only grow back again!
Some people
20 August 2010
Customer: I’m glad the Celtic Tiger is dead. I didn’t like a lot of what was happening to people and their attitudes.
Barber: It did get out of hand, all right, but then we were new to all that: kids in the sweet-shop.
Customer: Well, that’s a very diplomatic way of explaining it. I remember sitting outside a coffee shop, relaxing in town, having a cigarette, and a well-dressed woman walked by with a child, and she pointed to me as she went by, never catching my eye, like I wasn’t there. She says to the child, ‘Look at that dirty man smoking a cigarette. That’s disgusting!’ I couldn’t believe my ears!
Barber: That’s incredible!
Holidays in Ireland
21 August 2010
Customer: Great value in hotels here at the moment—must be all these ghost hotels that NAMA are running.
Barber: It used to be a different story: high prices and terrible service, in some places.
Customer: I remember staying in a big hotel years ago in the west. It was packed the week we were there. I’ll always remember the breakfast we were served. It was disgusting: the fried eggs were like rubber. I was saying to the wife that I’d try the scrambled egg instead, and the lad at the next table overheard me and says, ‘Don’t get the scrambled egg—it’s worse!’ I ended up paying a fortune, and the kids were an extra eighty or hundred euro each a night. My son was four—sure he’d hardly wear the carpet!
A bad kebab
23 August 2010
Customer: I was so sick at the weekend. I was out on Saturday, and we were out all night drinking cocktails and shorts, and I was feeling fine—well hammered, though. And then I made a big mistake: I got a kebab on the way home—never felt so ill. I was on the couch all day yesterday, and I rang in sick today! Must have been food poisoning.
Barber: You were drinking shorts and cocktails all night, but it was the kebab on the way home that made you sick?
Long-distance swimmer
24 August 2010
Customer: A friend of mine swims every day. Regardless of the weather, he’s out in the sea. He swims off the coast of Waterford, down at Helvick Head, and he was telling me recently he was swimming back to the harbour when he saw two American tourists. They get a lot of them down there—it’s a beautiful spot. So he gets back to the harbour wall, just below the Yanks who were watching him, and he shouts out, ‘Is this Wales?’ To which they reply, ‘No, this is Ireland.’ ‘Oh, no,’ he says. ‘I must have missed it!’ And he kicks off the harbour and swims back out to sea, with the Americans standing there amazed!
Highlighted hair in schools
25 August 2010
Barber: All the lads are in getting their highlights cut out because they’re going back to school. I always wonder why they’re so hard on kids who have colour in their hair.
Customer (a teacher): Well, I can tell you why. I’d have agreed with you fifteen years ago when I argued the same issue with a principal in the school I was working in. It was mostly girls who had highlights then. So I won my case, and the kids were all getting highlights, and we let it go. Then, one day, a girl came into school with bright orange hair. We had to draw the line, and she was suspended. I asked her why she had done it, and she said she wanted to be different.
Barber: So by removing the ban you forced the rebels to the next level.
Customer: That’s exactly it!
Faith
26 August 2010
Barber (during a conversation about faith): It’s well known when there’s an imminent threat to life that people turn to a higher power for help. Like a plane crash, for instance—most people will turn to prayer out loud, even.
Customer: Not always the case, though. When I was young I was with my parents, driving through the North of Ireland on a quiet country road late at night. There were lots of trees, I remember, so we were well into the country when we turned a corner, and there were about five men in balaclavas with guns or rifles—I can’t remember exactly
—but we thought that was it, with our Southern-reg. plates! We had no choice but to stop, and my dad rolled down the window when one of the guys came over to the driver’s window. ‘Are you Protestant or Catholic?’ he asked. After a few seconds my dad says, ‘Neither—we’re atheists.’
Barber: But still, I bet he was praying it would work!
Customer: I know I was. It worked, all right. We made it through—scary moment, though!
Sunshine and rain
27 August 2010
Barber: The sun is back out. It was raining just a minute ago!
Customer (a student): I love this weather!
Barber: Are you serious?
Customer: Yeah, the girls see it’s warm and sunny, and they come out in T-shirts, and then, when they’re out walking around town, it rains, and it’s like a wet T-shirt competition out there!
Barber: There’s always an upside to everything if you look hard enough!
Shopping
28 August 2010
Barber: Are you doing anything for the weekend?
Customer: Yeah, I’m going to a party tonight with my girlfriend. We were in town all morning because she wanted to buy a dress, and she saw one in the first shop we went into but didn’t get it, and she went off on a mad one, going to every shop in town, dragging me with her. Three hours later she decides to go back and get the dress she saw in the first shop!