Short Back and Sides (4 page)

3 June 2009

Customer:
I was up at a garage, looking at the cars. There are some really nice second-hand cars going for a song at the moment. So I ask this guy who was working there how much the car I was looking at cost. ‘That one is €16,599—it's a great car!' he tells me. So I say, ‘€16,599? I was down here yesterday, and the other guy said it was €16,399.' The dealer stared at me for a minute, like he was about to lose his cool, having been put on the spot, and said, ‘Well, are you going to buy it or what?' I couldn't believe his attitude. I'm staring him right in the eye, and I say, ‘I just want to know how much it is!'

4 June 2009

Customer:
I was in Galway last week—had a great time.

Barber:
It's a great spot. I hear about it all the time— and don't forget the Galway girls!

Customer:
During the property boom, you know, some parts of Galway became as expensive as top property in Dublin, and the estate agents started calling it G4!

5 June 2009

Customer:
I remember how bad it was in Dublin in the eighties. It really was impoverished, and the streets were filthy. There was litter everywhere. I was taking some Chinese businessmen into the city centre for a meeting, and they were silent in the car, looking out the windows as we were going down the quays. They were obviously shocked by the state of the place. Then one of them asks me, ‘Is this because of the Troubles?'

6 June 2009

A customer told me that a friend of his was in the North shopping, and he asked someone if there was a B&Q in Belfast. The man stared at him for a moment in disbelief and then said, ‘A B and Q in Belfast? Where did you learn to spell?'

7 June 2009

Comments on the English television series ‘The Apprentice'.

Customer:
Did you see ‘The Apprentice' last night?

Barber:
Yeah, I was watching it. Really surprised Kate was in the final, but she was great. Her presentation was very good—didn't know her profit margin, though.

Customer:
Yasmina was a serious contender from the early days, though. Kate didn't get going till later.

Barber:
So you think he picked Yasmina based on the overall performance?

Customer:
Either that or Sir Alan was thinking he couldn't pick the good-looking one!

8 June 2009

Customer:
I couldn't believe the job Yasmina got, putting TV screens up in hospitals to sell advertising on. I mean, that's not cool. Did you see her face when he told her?

Barber:
I know, she was stunned. I was stunned. Sir Alan is head of such a large corporation, and Yasmina went through hell to win, and then she gets to sell advertising on TV screens? That's what my brother does, and he didn't win anything!

9 June 2009

Customer:
That was the best June weekend. I remember it was 29 degrees. It makes such a difference to your mood. You'd forget all your worries—well, most, anyway!

Barber:
I know. It's weather like that that makes me wish I was unemployed!

Customer:
I'd be careful who you say that to if I were you!

10 June 2009

A customer told me a story of how he had worked many years ago behind the bar in a small country pub in Ireland.

The pub was always quite busy at the end of the week, and during his first week there he was taken aback by the reaction in the pub when the Angelus came on the radio at six o'clock. All the lads removed their caps and sat up, conversations stopped and pints were untouched as they all muttered the Angelus under their breath.

After he had been working there for a while he decided to record the Angelus and play it the next day one hour later, at seven, for a laugh. The tape was loaded, and the lads had been drinking. The real Angelus bells rang out at six. The pub stopped, and the few minutes were passed in quiet prayer. So at seven he played the recorded Angelus, and the exact same thing happened: all the men round the bar removed their caps and made the sign of the cross and began to murmur under their breath. He was biting his lip to stop himself laughing out loud. It was like a scene from ‘Father Ted'!

11 June 2009

Customer:
I was down in Baltimore in west Cork for the weekend. Great place.

Barber:
I hear it's great in summer. There's a pub called Bushe's that people mention a lot.

Customer:
Yes, I was there one night when one of the local people I was talking to told me Jeremy Irons has a castle nearby, and then a helicopter went over the bay. The lad I was talking to announced to everyone with a big grin on his face, ‘That's Jeremy Irons going off to collect his Chinese takeaway.'

12 June 2009

I was talking to an Islamic customer about the burqa. (There was a lot of discussion about it in the media at the time.) He told me that Western women wear a burqa too. ‘No they don't,' I said. ‘Yes they do,' he said. ‘It's called Max Factor.'

14 June 2009

I was talking to a customer who had recently renovated his pub and added a new music venue at the back, and he was talking to me about getting bands in to play.

Barber:
How about Aslan? They always pull a large crowd.

Customer:
Aslan? Ah, no—they're a plastic-glass gig!

15 June 2009

Customer:
Will you trim the eyebrows for me, please? My daughter is calling me unibrow.

Barber:
No problem.

Customer:
I can't do them myself, as I wear glasses and I can't see the eyebrows in the mirror with them on ‘cause they cover them up, and if I take the glasses off, well, I'm back to square one.

Barber:
Well, if you could see without the glasses it's still not easy, as everything is backwards in a mirror, and you're using a scissors near your eye. You could do yourself an injury!

Customer:
Dangerous things, those eyebrows!

16 June 2009

Customer:
Did you hear about the new aftershave for Travellers?

Barber:
No, what's it called?

Customer:
Howrya, boss!

17 June 2009

Customer
(an older gent): Your birthday is coming up soon, isn't it?

Barber:
It's at the end of the month. You have a great memory!

Customer:
We must celebrate with due decorum!

Barber:
Due decorum? What's that, a liqueur?

19 June 2009

Customer:
Did you know it's morally okay to illegally download Amy Winehouse's and Pete Doherty's music?

Barber:
Why?

Customer:
Because if you paid for it they'd only spend your money on drugs!

20 June 2009

Customer
(a guard): Years ago I was driving home after work, and I was involved in a crash. I took a while to come round, and when I did I thought I'd been shot!

Barber:
Why did you think that?

Customer:
Because the airbags use gunpowder to discharge, and when I came round and was semi-conscious I got this really strong smell of gunpowder, and the first thing that went through my mind was that I'd been shot!

Barber:
That would put a few years on you!

21 June 2009

Customer:
I was in town earlier, and there was a march on over the pension levy.

Barber:
Oh, yeah, I heard on the news. Was there a large turnout?

Customer:
Yes, there was—more than I expected. Took me ages to get down the street, but there was a banner I saw that had on it ‘Two Brians and no brains!'

22 June 2009

Customer:
Hey, the Greens were wiped out in the election. We won't have to live in tree houses and knit our own yoghurt now! They had mad ideas, those fascists. Sure there was one in England saying people should only have one or two children, otherwise their carbon footprint would be too big. My God, hello, China, one-child policy and all that!

Barber:
Well, Cowen has brought that in without anyone realising. Now that the economy has crashed, who can afford more than one child?

Customer:
True, true. Well, now that the Green Party has lost some seats, and we can keep our light-bulbs, we might start to get our good weather back. Hello, global warming! Here comes the summer!

24 June 2009

Customer:
My God, what sort of people are running this country? People would get behind the Government more and accept the cuts if the leaders themselves took a cut and made an effort. But there they were on the radio the other day, and they were caught playing golf instead of being at work.

Barber:
I agree. Where's Cowen lately? They're calling him the Virtual Taoiseach.

Customer:
You know, his plan wasn't so bad, but he couldn't sell it to us. I don't ever remember him explaining it. I only heard about it on BBC Radio 4. After the budget, the BBC had a report about the fact that Cowen had gone the opposite way to the US and the UK, and they were watching us to see how we'd get on.

Barber:
How do you mean the opposite way?

Customer:
Well, the US and UK were lowering interest rates and VAT. They were also printing money in the US and borrowing huge amounts to keep everything moving and people spending. In Ireland we had no real choice but to tax everyone just so the Government could keep the lights on and pay the wages. We are borrowing money, but Cowen and Lenihan are trying to minimise the amount, and the idea is we live like this until the wind changes and the economy begins to recover. Then, when it does, we'll have less of a debt and less to pay back, leaving us in a stronger position. It's a good plan. But, like I said, I heard all about it on BBC4! I think Cowen has a bit of the Nixon syndrome.

Barber:
What's the Nixon syndrome?

Customer:
Didn't you see
Frost/Nixon
? Great film. Nixon didn't like people much, and he didn't like having to explain himself.

Barber:
In this day and age it's hard to understand how there's still such a lack of communication skills in Irish politics.

Customer:
It's all gone to hell in a dustcart!

25 June 2009

Not long ago the stories of hospital corridors filled with patients on trolleys awaiting treatment moved everyone in the country. But, as is always the case even in the darkest places, there is humour. An elderly man told me that while he was in hospital on a trolley in a corridor he spoke of how much of an ordeal it was and how embarrassed he felt. ‘Would you believe, they gave me an injection on the trolley in front of everyone! No curtain—nothing,' he told me. ‘I wouldn't mind, you know, only they had to give me the injection in the arse!' He praised the nurses and the families who came to visit other patients and who would always oblige by getting a drink or a cup of tea for a total stranger on a nearby trolley.

He told me about one particular character who had kept the patients' spirits up by cracking jokes and had kept them all laughing. ‘At one stage your man renamed the corridor the Mary Harney Ward.'

Another customer told me that a patient got up off his trolley to go to the toilet only to come back and find someone else on it! And that was before the recession.

27 June 2009

Barber:
I can't believe Michael Jackson is dead. It's like a hoax or something to promote the tour. Maybe he'll be resurrected in three days. It's the kind of thing he'd do!

Customer:
Michael Jackson? Sure he's a Charlie Chester!

Barber:
Well, that was never proved, but he's brown bread now.

Customer:
Or white bread!

28 June 2009

A customer was talking about political scandal, and Charlie Haughey came up in the conversation.

Customer:
Whoever looked after Haughey's press was very good, you know.

Barber:
What makes you say that?

Customer:
Well, it was a long time ago, but Haughey was big into horses, and one day, while he was at the stables, he met a young lady. The story goes that he ended up in one of the stables with her and made a move on her. She began to scream, and her father and brother, who were close by, ran in to see what was wrong. They found a startled Haughey in the stable and cornered him. A punch-up ensued, two against one, and Charlie didn't come out so well. Anyway, the next day Haughey was pictured in the papers with his injuries, and the PR story was that he had fallen from his horse, which was a good cover up, but the giveaway was that in the picture he had a black eye!

Barber:
Is that a true story?

Customer:
I heard it myself!

29 June 2009

One of the lads I worked for cut Johnny Depp's hair for a film that was never finished, as it ran out of finance early on. It was a good few years ago now. I think Marlon Brando was in it also. But I remember a story he told me about Johnny Depp having a pair of sunglasses that everyone was talking about, and wondering where he got them. My friend brought it up in conversation when he was cutting Johnny's hair and asked him if they were designer, which, to his surprise, Johnny found funny. ‘I was travelling around America by car,' Johnny said, ‘and I pulled into a gas station and filled the tank up, and when I was paying for the gas the attendant handed me the glasses, so I asked her, “What are these for?” And she said, “They're free with a fill of gas,” and I've had them ever since.'