Panda to your Every Desire (7 page)

“Could you give a description?” asked Andy, wondering if his wife should do her civic duty and come forward as a witness.

“Well, there were two big black ones, a nice tan one, a small red one, and a nice yellow one,” she replied.

A READER out shopping in Drumchapel heard a woman in the super-market ask her friend if she used the self-service checkout tills.

“Use them?” replied her pal. “I use them so much I’m surprised I wasn’t named employee of the month in January.”

A READER swears he was in a south-side chemist’s when a chap came in and asked the pharmacist if he had anything for hiccups.

Without warning, the pharmacist reached over and smacked the man between the shoulder blades and asked: “Did that help?”

“I doubt it,” the customer replied. “But if you like I’ll go and check with my wife who is waiting out in the car.”

A GLASGOW reader in a city centre card shop watched as an old timer holding a fancy large card bent down to work out from the list of codes how much it cost. He looked surprised, as we often do at the price of a piece of cardboard, then muttered to no-one in particular: “If I’d wanted to spend that much, I’d have bought her a present, no’ a card.”

A READER heard a woman having coffee with friends in the Newton Mearns shopping centre declare that her husband so rarely helped her do the shopping that when he entered the supermarket the other day, the machine automatically announced: “Unexpected item in the bagging area.”

AN EAST KILBRIDE reader tells us her son-in-law was at the super-market with his two-year-old twins when a fellow shopper, seeing the twins, rather wittily said to him: “Was it buy one, get one free?”

Unfortunately, son-in-law, thinking the shopper was referring to the cases of beer in his trolley, confusingly replied: “No, they’re £6 each – but there are shelves full of them.”

LINGERIE and beauty boutique Odyssey recently opened in Edinburgh with the stock including a range of discreet, em, electronic massagers for the ladies. Odyssey owner Sarah Connelly had to watch as her dad picked up one of the toys, started shaking it, and asked: “How do you get it to start playing the music?”

GLASGOW public relations worker Claire Cook popped into a fancy-dress shop in Rutherglen in preparation for her fortieth birthday party. A chap in his fifties came in behind her and asked the assistant for a
Shrek
outfit.

The young girl started showing the chap a naughty nurse’s uniform, followed by a saucy French maid’s outfit. As the customer’s face turned a deep red, the assistant suddenly stopped and said: “Oh, you asked me for a
Shrek
outfit, didn’t you? Not a sex outfit.”

A READER feels the most ironic thing he has seen was the chap in an East End of Glasgow Asda store at the weekend who bought forty fags and a bottle of vodka … and then produced a “Bag for Life” to put them in.

A RENFREWSHIRE reader swears he was in his local supermarket when the check-out girl asked the pensioner in front of him: “Would you like help with your packing?” and the auld fella replied: “That would be great – but how did you know I was going on holiday?”

Scotland’s bars are under pressure from rising prices and the smoking ban. Hopefully some of these stories will remind people why a pint and a blether are still a good thing.

GLASGOW barmen – amongst the best in the world, we reckon. Scott Barclay in Hamilton tells us about friends John and Claire visiting from Colorado who popped in to Glasgow’s esteemed Horseshoe Bar, where Claire asked for a gin and Slimline tonic.

The barman looked at his shelves before telling her: “We only have full-fat, hen. Away and run round the block, and I’ll watch your drink.”

A TOPER in the Highlands tells us the locals have nicknamed their local pub the Moderation.

That way they can all tell their doctors that they only drink in moderation.

KENNY REID was watching
Horizon
on the telly and noted that one of the scientists on the programme was called Beau Lotto, and thought to himself: “Surely that’s what much of Scotland gets on a Friday night?”

A LANARKSHIRE reader tells us there is an old fella in his local pub every day doing his newspaper crossword. Unwary newcomers occasionally ask if he needs any help. Invariably he replies: “Four letter word, beginning with ‘P’, a measurement of liquid.”

“Pint?” replies the visitor.

“Thanks, I’ll have a Tennent’s,” the pensioner tells them.

SAYS Rod Macdonald: “When I first came to Glasgow I was having a drink in the Park Bar with two friends. One of them insisted that we go to the Pot Still because they had hundreds of different bottles of whisky. He eventually persuaded us to get a taxi there, and I had a pint of lager, my other mate had a vodka and he had a Bacardi and coke.”

BILL McMILLAN of Linlithgow tells us: “The landlord of a pub beside a well-known Glasgow dog track told me that race nights were his busiest evenings when the pub was full with punters and dog-owners with their dugs. On one evening the door opened and a regular whom he had previously barred asked if the ban was still in place. When he was told it was, his reaction to the unwelcome news was to tip out three live rabbits he was carrying in a bag into the centre of the pub and make a hasty retreat.”

THE REDOUBTABLE entertainer Andy Cameron tells us, and who are we to doubt him: “A blonde brassy barmaid in Maryhill was stunned at the good looks of a tall handsome stranger who walked in, and as she served him his pint she says, ‘Hivnae seen you in here afore – jist moved intae the area like?’

“‘No,’ says the tall fella, ‘I live round the corner, but I’ve been away for twenty years and I’ve just come back.’

“‘Oh,’ she giggles, ‘a merchant seaman are you?’

“‘No, I’ve been in prison for murdering my wife and her mother.’

“The stunned silence round the bar was only broken by the barmaid asking, ‘Oh, on yer own then?”’

AND AN honourable mention to Frank O’Donnell in Fife, who recounts: “A local character in Auchterarder ordered a hawf and a hawf, announcing to the barman that he was sixty-two today.

“The barman said, ‘Have that one on me.’ Thanking the barman for his generosity, he then proceeded to inform the bar that next week he was two to ten.”

HELEN MAXWELL tells us: “The George Hotel in Moniaive is very old and the public bar has flagstones on the floor.

“Years ago when an inspector came from health and hygiene, he asked if the owner was going to cover the floor.

“The proprietor said yes, and when asked what with, he replied, ‘Customers’ feet.”’

EWEN BAIRD tells us that when the Royal Bar in Helensburgh installed 3D television, they charged punters a £2 deposit on the special glasses. The Imperial Hotel further up the road also went for the 3D option and charged a £5 deposit.

Says Ewen: “The initiative of the locals was ably demonstrated when the owner of the Imperial was surprised to have twice the number of glasses returned, while the owner of the Royal was left wondering why none were returned to him. A pricing agreement was later made between the two pubs.”

ALAN BARLOW in Paisley tells us about a local pub used by players from the nearby bingo hall. One of the ladies took unwell and muttered: “It’s all the pills I’ve taken.”

She was taken to hospital where, to be safe, her stomach was pumped. It was only after, says Alan, that she came round and explained: “No’ they kind of pills. It’s the Pils lager.”

GORDON at the George Hotel in Inveraray tells us about a labourer over at Loch Awe who liked a dram before going home for his tea. He had just polished off a plate of mince ‘n’ tatties and a large glass of milk his wife had placed before him after a trip to the pub when the police arrived and breathalysed him following a tip-off he had been driving erratically.

He just scraped through the test and told the cops: “Well it’s either the milk or the mince which is great at neutralising the alcohol,” before his face darkened and he added, “Unless that sod at the pub is watering the vodka.”

A LANARKSHIRE reader hears a bold lad in his local tell a young woman to whom he was chatting that he was from “the US of A”.

Our reader was just thinking that the lad’s accent did not sound in the least transatlantic, when the chap then added for clarification: “The underside of Airdrie.”

ONLY in Glasgow. Barman Mark Ross, working in a hotel on the outskirts of the city, had to tell a tipsy customer attending a birthday bash that he could no longer serve her as it was after hours.

Not giving up easily she then asked: “Can ye no just gee me a wee glass ae wine? Ye know, like a kid’s portion o’ wine?”

YOU CAN’T beat a Scottish education. Bernard Henderson was in a Kirkcaldy pub on a karaoke night when a lady was belting out Carly Simon’s “You’re So Vain”. As the words came up on screen she sang the line: “You had me several years ago when I was still quite naive,” but pronounced it as “knave”.

Realising that was wrong she shouted at the chap running the show: “Billy, your machine cannae spell.”

ADAM, the barman in the Lismore in the West End of Glasgow, watched as two punters compared their new mobile phones. One whipped out a BlackBerry and said he’d downloaded an application that e-mails you when your football team scored.

“That’s brilliant,” replied his pal. “Does it work?”

“Nae idea,” replied the BlackBerry owner. “I’m a Partick Thistle fan.”

RON WILLIAMSON reminded us of the classic tale of the barmaid trying to pour a customer a pint of Maclays, but the barrel needed changed.

When she shouted at the charge-hand: “That’s Maclays aff!” the customer naturally replied: “Wait a minute – I hardly know you.”

A BBC contact was sipping champagne cocktails in Glasgow’s Rogano last week when she heard a chap ask about a table for lunch, but was told by the maître d’that it would be a bit of a wait as there were only two empty tables and both were reserved.

The chap looked around, did a quick count, and told the maître d’: “I can see a few empty tables – what about those?” as he pointed over towards the back of the restaurant.

“You’re looking in the mirror sir,” the member of staff quietly replied.

A READER claims he was in a smart Glasgow bar before Christmas when a chap drained his whisky and announced: “Got to get to the office party. To tell you the truth, I can’t stand any of them who’ll be there – a real bunch of crawlers.”

When the barman asked him why he bothered going, the toper replied: “I’m the boss, it’s expected of me.”

A CHAP who had not been in the pub for a while explained his absence: “I broke my leg and the doc said he was going to put me in a cast.”

He then added: “How he expected me to sing and dance in that condition I’ll never know.”

FESTIVE time in the pubs and, in one giant bar in Glasgow, a young chap was heard telling a young woman he was a “marine coating and heating engineer”. He never got round to explaining he actually fried fish in the Blue Lagoon chip shop.

“MY DOCTOR has just discovered I’m colour blind,” said the chap in the pub.

“It was a real bolt out of the red.”

PUBS are famed of course for their amateur comedians. “I bought ma wee niece a torch for her birthday,” one chap declared in the pub the other day.

“You should have seen her wee face light up.”

STEPHEN THOMAS witnessed an argument in a Glasgow pub over the merits of buying someone a non-alcoholic drink. As the chap declared with perfect logic: “Naw, you’re no’ gettin’ another Coke. If you were sitting in the house you wouldnae have three Cokes in a row, would ye?”

“I GOT aroused watching
Countdown
the other night,” said the loud-mouth in the pub.

“Not bad – seven letters,” he added.

JIM HAIR in Dalry was at a pub quiz where a contestant was asked to name a fish beginning with C.

“Chuna,” the chap replied.

OUR STORY of sandwich fillings reminds Bill McEwan of when he was teaching physics in Motherwell.

Says Bill: “I was discussing the main components of a radio and was attempting to elucidate the function of the tuner when I noticed a look of confusion on one pupil’s face.