Panda to your Every Desire (9 page)

THIRD LANARK, continued. Martin Milarky regales us: “As a ball boy at Cathkin, I witnessed many strange incidents. After the match, players, club officials and ball boys, amazingly, gathered in the lounge to partake of sausage rolls, but it was also where the Hi-Hi players were paid. Even as an eleven-year-old, I knew it was wrong to see the great Thirds and later Celtic goalie Evan Williams paid his £8 wage by having sixty-four half-crowns from the gate money counted out while he juggled a sandwich and a cup of tea. Meanwhile, friends and cronies of chairman Bill Hiddleston knocked back the champagne feet away.”

THE NAAFI, which supplies food and drink to the armed forces, celebrates ninety years of its existence. A book just published on the NAAFI’s history relates that after the Falklands War there were still many British troops on the islands who liked buying souvenirs in the NAAFI shop. A best seller was a soft toy penguin – which was made in Britain, shipped 8,000 miles to the Falklands, and then taken back to Britain by the delighted troops.

NOSTALGIA alert: Bill Thomson in Bothwell recalls when folk had to send telegrams to wish relatives abroad a Good New Year. An old uncle in Dumfries some years ago sent such a message to his sister in Canada, which ended with the traditional New Year greeting “Lang May Your Lum Reek”.

She still has it framed on her wall, as along the way it was typed up and sent as “Lang May Your Bum Reek”.

OUR STORY about the typo in the telegram reminds Maureen Puricelli in Carluke of when her brother some years ago was a student in Spain. A fellow Scottish student, anxiously awaiting the news that he had become an uncle, finally received the telegram informing him: “It’s a box!”

WE ASKED for your stories about Robert Burns, who died of course of rheumatic fever. As George Morton recounts: “Some years ago my young niece concluded her school essay on Burns with the statement that he died at the age of thirty-six, of romantic fever.

“She’d done her research, then.”

BUS TALES continued. David Scott reports: “I remember travelling up Maryhill Road on my way to Firhill on the top deck of a Corporation bus in the early 1970s. It was winter and as usual all the windows were steamed up.

“There were two women behind me speaking in hushed tones until one of them screeched, ‘Whit’s she marryin’ him fur? He hisnae goat a telly.”’

OUR NATIONAL Service stories reminded Ian Deuchar in Milngavie: “When square-bashing at RAF Wilmslow, we had a corporal drill instructor who would stick his face six inches from yours and scream at the pitch of his voice, ‘I’ll put my boot so far up your backside (the corporal used another word) you’ll wonder why your teeth have turned black.”’

AND EDINBURGH Tory councillor Alastair Paisley reported to RAF Bridgnorth in Shropshire for his National Service basic training. “I still remember square bashing,” says Alastair, “and the drill corporal shouting that if you made an error, he would pull off your arm and beat you to death with the soggy end.”

TALES of Army catering remind a Kelvinside reader of lining up for food in the mess where the cooked food looked so vile he put only a piece of cake on his tray. The cook asked him if that was all he was having, and when he replied that the rest didn’t look very appetising, the cook asked in that case if he would like two slices of cake.

When our reader replied in the affirmative, the cook leaned across and cut the cake on his tray in half.

OUR TALE of army cooking reminds Alun Hotchkiss: “An ex-army pal told me about the time he complained to the cook that the meat in the rabbit stew he was serving didn’t look or taste like rabbit. The cook admitted that he’d run short of rabbit and had padded it out with a bit of horsemeat. When pressed about how much horsemeat he’d used, he replied, ‘About 50–50 – one rabbit, one horse.”’

AS OUR National Service stories march off, Stuart Paterson recalls his induction at the centre in Glasgow’s Union Street. “After the medical, and interview, you filled out a form which included a question on the job you wanted during your two years in the RAF,” said Stuart.

“With typical and admirable Glasgow optimism, the recruit next to me leaned over and asked, ‘Hey, Jimmy, how do you spell pilot?”’

THE ANNIVERSARY of decimalisation reminds Bill Copeland of the American sailor, on leave from the Polaris submarine base at the Holy Loch, travelling to Glasgow to try his luck at the Locarno Ball-room. The cabbie told him the fare was “seven and six” (7/6d) but the American, unfamiliar with the currency, simply held out a hand bulging with change.

The cabbie picked out half-crowns and shillings while explaining: “Seven of those and six of them.”

The giant pandas coming to Scotland – in case you were wondering why they are on the cover – reminded a reader of the gag: “My granddad has the heart of a lion, which explains his lifetime ban from Edinburgh Zoo.”

“FOLK are just copying that woman who put the cat in the wheelie bin,” said the chap in the pub the other day. “I opened my bin and a wasp flew out. What sick person would have put it in there?”

LYNDA NICOLSON tells us about a Hamilton colleague whose aunt wrote a Christmas card for a new neighbour, and addressed it to Mr Candle.

She had been told his name was Mr Connell – but had assumed that was just the local pronunciation.

AFTER our story about Mr Connell being called Mr Candle by a posh woman, the great entertainer Andy Cameron contacts us: “My wee pal Hamish Colgan of Haddington was trying to impress a rather posh young lady by taking her to Edinburgh’s finest restaurant.

“As they were perusing the menu a man at the next table fell to the floor and was shaking violently. Hamish tried to calm his companion by saying, ‘I think he’s having an epileptic foot.”’

A DOCTOR tells us that a patient complained that he couldn’t hear properly. When asked if he had any previous bother, he said a number of years ago he had an operation for a perforated eardrum.

“Which ear?” asked the doc.

“Oh it must have been about 1977,” replied the patient.

A CHAP in the pub claimed that he joined a gym and asked a trainer there what machine he should use to impress the ladies.

“Probably the cash machine on the wall outside,” the trainer replied.

PARENTS, and even grandparents, going on Facebook, opening Twitter accounts and sending text messages, is depressing younger folk who thought it had been their sole preserve.

But not all of the oldies get it right. A West End girl tells us: “My mother thinks the abbreviation WTF stands for ‘Wow that’s fantastic’. So when I texted her that I had bought a new dress she merely replied ‘WTF’.”

READER Ken Macdonald in Howwood wonders after a temporary hearing impairment and listening to the television news with subtitles, whether we are giving folk with hearing loss a totally different view of the world than the rest of us.

He tells us: “One example was the BBC news where a story about a maternity hospital mentioned a baby “being delivered by forceps”. The subtitles stated ‘as a result of being delivered by four Serbs’.”

A MOUNT FLORIDA reader on the bus into Glasgow heard a couple of chaps discussing whether they always finished a takeaway curry when they had it delivered. One of them opined: “The biggest lie I tell myself is that I’m going to eat the rest of it for lunch the next day, not over my sink at midnight the same night.”

COMMONWEALTH Games news, and Bill McKelvie reads in a Scottish newspaper that Lord Coe handed over “the host city fag” to Glasgow council leader Gordon Matheson.

Considering Glasgow’s health record, Bill’s not convinced it was a misprint.

WE MENTIONED restaurateur Charan Gill doing stand-up shows at his Slumdog restaurant during Glasgow Comedy Festival. Naturally it reminded a few readers of the Indian waiter asking a diner: “Curry ok sir?”

“Naw, ah cannae sing a note!” he said.

And Ian Ross tells us: “Phoned the Ashoka and asked, ‘Do you deliver?’ They said, ‘No – just chicken, lamb or beef.”’

KEITH CHAMPAN in Knightswood tells us about the young lad phoning the Ashoka and asking if they did takeaway.

When they said yes, he replied: “What’s 140 minus 88?”

MATT VALLANCE recalls that when the great batsman Sachin Tendulkar was playing for Yorkshire, a Bradford curry house offered two special curries: the Boycott and the Tendulkar. “Both,” says Matt, “gave you the runs, but you got them faster if you had the Tendulkar.”

JOHN QUINN in Lenzie tells us of a relative with the job of delivery driver for an Indian takeaway, who got fed up with the complaints. It came to a head when a customer complained that his crispy poppadoms were broken when they arrived.

John’s relative merely replied: “Whit ye greetin’ aboot? Ye cannae get a whole wan in yer mooth anyhow.”

“WHAT’S the difference between peaches and nectarines?” a reader phones to ask. When we fail to answer, he says: “Nectarines don’t try to trade on their dad’s name to get a TV series.”

A CHAP in Edinburgh’s Queen Street was staring at the Scottish National Portrait Gallery where scaffolding was being dismantled after some stone-cleaning. Looking at the historical figures he declared: “Honestly! You’d think they’d have repaired everything while they had the scaffolding up – that statue’s missing an arm.”

The woman with him squinted up and told him: “That’s Nelson.”

OUR BITING dogs tale reminds Allan Cook in Helensburgh of his family pet Buster, who took a dislike to the vet. Says Allan: “Our vet had a leg shot off in the last unpleasantness. Buster was smart enough to always bite the vet’s good leg.”

A READER who smokes – yes, there are still a few of them – has his own little joke when he buys a disposable lighter in a newsagent’s. When the chap serving inevitably flicks the lighter to check it’s working, our smoker tells him: “It’s all right – I’ve been smoking for thirty years so I know how a lighter works. You don’t have to show me.”

AN ABERDEEN reader phones: “I bumped into a man sobbing outside a department store who told me he hates this time of year, having to dress up in a ridiculous red outfit and embarrassing himself in front of thousands of people. I told him, ‘Look, Mr Hartley, it was your decision to sign for Aberdeen.”’

“I DON’T think my girlfriend is the brightest,” said the chap in the pub.

“When I told her that they sometimes perform cavity searches at airports looking for drugs, she said surely you couldn’t hide much drugs in your mouth.”

OUR MENTION of ovens reminds Joe Hunter in Norway of his dad having the unfortunate experience of having two teeth fall out of his top set of wallies.

Says Joe: “He was resigned to going to the dentist for a new set when a workmate said that Araldite would fix it, so he bought some and fixed both teeth perfectly back into the top set.

“He then had a look at the instructions which said it would benefit from heat to make the glue fix quicker. So he popped them in the oven, checked back later, and found all his teeth floating in a pool of melted wax.”

IT’S THE traditional time of year when folk vow to exercise more. A Glasgow reader hears a perky chap in his office say to a colleague: “Are you going to hit the gym after work?”

“Only if my car skids on the way to the pub,” his colleague replied.

AGED relatives continued. Gerry McCulloch tells us he suggested to his mother that she should write on the back of holiday photographs when and where they were taken.

Sometime later when he was looking at them he noticed she had written: “Arran. Last week.”

THE POOR health of Glaswegians reminds Jayne Burnett of attending a public health conference when a speaker announced that a man was likely to live five years longer in Edinburgh than in Glasgow.

A GP in the audience piped up: “Aye, but who would want to?”

NEW YEAR is a time for reflection. A reader tells us of her friend bemoaning the fact she was getting old by explaining: “My knees used to crack only when I crouched or knelt down very fast.

“Now when I run down stairs, it sounds like I’m microwaving popcorn.”

A READER who was playing the piano at a senior citizens club in Glasgow tells us one of the ladies told him she talked herself out of a speeding ticket by telling the police officer who stopped her the reason she was going so fast is that she had to get there before she forgot where she was going.

OUR mention of the now-closed Glasgow Zoo provoked a flurry of emails from readers telling us: “Glasgow Zoo finally closed after its entire animal complement was reduced to one small dog.

“It was a Shih Tzu.”

“I DROPPED my mobile phone in the bath, and wasn’t sure if it would still work,” said the chap in the pub.

“The wife asked if I had tried ringing it. I told her I had, but not much water came out.”

“I ALWAYS like to strike a happy medium,” a reader phones to tells us, “which is why I’m now banned from the British Paranormal Society’s awards night.”

“I WAS flicking through the magazine in my dentist’s waiting room,” said the chap in the pub. “Isn’t it a shame what happened to Grace Kelly?”

A GLASGOW reader fears his mate might not be that bright as the two of them, plus a third friend, went on a weekend fishing expedition which involved great food, nice accommodation and a few pints, even although they only caught one fish amongst them.