Panda to your Every Desire (15 page)

Says Marion: “His classmates were very impressed, but my scepticism cast doubt on whether dogs would really be allowed to do bungee jumps.

“The answer was, ‘Naw ma dug – it was Mad Doug did the bungee jump!’ The gentleman in question turned out to be a local worthy who was game for anything.”

A DUNBARTONSHIRE teacher tells us she needed all these holiday weekends they get after introducing her primary class to search engines on the computer and explaining how to enter the term you want to search for, and then clicking on search.

When she asked for a suggestion, one youngster suggested typing in “mum’s house keys” as his mum had been searching for hers for two days.

A LENZIE reader was not impressed by her husband when their ten-year-old son came home from school and declared that a girl in class had been yelling at him, but he didn’t know what he was supposed to have done wrong.

What annoyed our reader was her husband piping up: “It’s just like a lesson in being married, son.”

CLASSROOMS continued. Barrie Crawford tells us: “When meeting new classes, I liked to check what pupils wanted to be called. A boy named Robert might like Rab, Bob or Bobby. Going round one class, I asked a Jennifer, ‘And are you called Jennifer?’

“She stuck out her hands and replied, ‘Ma hauns ur freezin’ – feel them!”’

RETIRED teacher Ada McDonald recalls talking to her class about minerals, how they are found, and what they are used for.

She was then trying to turn the discussion to oil and hinted: “Factories would grind to a halt without this liquid.”

A child’s hand shot up and he confidently answered: “Please Miss. Tea.”

GREGOR YOUNG in Castle Douglas recalls holidaying on Arran with his parents and when out one day they came across a pub, which his delighted dad described as an oasis.

It explains why the young Gregor, in school shortly afterwards, put his hand up when the teacher asked what an oasis was and emphatically replied: “A pub in the middle of nowhere.”

OUR CHILDREN are under increasing pressure to do well at school these days, but one reader didn’t realise how bad things were until she overheard her sons, aged six and three, getting ready the other morning.

Pressed for time, she asked the older one to help his young brother get his jacket on as he was mucking about.

She then watched him go over to his brother and announce: “Fraser. If you don’t go to nursery you won’t get a good job!”

CLASSROOMS continued. Should we believe Russell Smith who tells us: “I remember many years ago our second-year science class was posed the question, ‘Why are there holes in a brazier?’

“Those of us who were better informed knew that the answer given by one genuine innocent, ‘So that a lady wouldn’t sweat too much,’ was not the response that was expected.

OUR STORIES of Scots struggling to learn French remind Paul McElhone, now in Beckenham, of being so determined to pass O-Grade French, after failing previously, that he memorised an essay, “A Day in the Country”. Says Paul: “When I looked at the exam paper, my heart sank. The subject was ‘A Day in the Life of a Lighthouse Keeper’.

“All was not lost though. I began my essay by declaring that it was his day off and he was going to leave his island and go for a walk in the country. The first few sentences were a bit flaky, but the rest was perfect.”

A BEARSDEN reader tells us he was driving his kids to school on the day before his birthday, and as usual they were fighting and squabbling in the back.

Above the din he told them: “If you behave and be kind to each other, that would be the best birthday present ever for me.”

His older son replied: “Too late. I’ve already got you a present.”

OUR SCHOOL stories remind a reader of a primary teacher telling the allscottishteachers.co.uk website of reading her P2 class a story entitled “The Speckled Hen”, and asking if anyone knew what speckled meant.

One animated lad jumping up and down answered: “I know, Miss! It’s got glasses!”

A READER tells us school pupils are still telling terrible jokes. His son came home from school yesterday and asked: “What’s the difference between a kangaroo and a kangaroot?” He is still groaning at the answer: “One’s a kangaroo, the other’s a Geordie stuck in a lift.”

Sorry about that.

A MILNGAVIE reader returning from holiday in Ireland liked the insouciance of his Dublin taxi driver when he urged him to step on it as he had a plane to catch.

When the driver asked when the plane was taking off, our reader replied: “An hour!” But his driver told him: “Sure we’ll have time for a pint on the way.”

HOLIDAYING at Easter was a Glasgow chap who had been persuaded by his family to go pony trekking in the Lake District. Being a tad dubious about the venture, he asked his wife as they were putting on their riding helmets and surveying the four-legged beasts in front of them: “How can I pick the slowest one?”

“Put a bet on it,” his wife replied. “That usually works for you.”

A BEARSDEN reader planning his annual Easter holiday on Lan-zarote tells us he was there last year when a little boy aged about six came running up the beach near where he was to tell his sunbathing mother in a distinctly Glasgow accent: “A big wave knocked me over and a wummin had tae help me oot.”

“What was yer da doin?” asked the mum.

“Laughin’,” replied the wee boy.

A CHAP in a Glasgow office heard two of the younger staff discussing their summer holidays, with one girl saying she had been to Greece. When her colleague asked what it was like, the girl furrowed her brow and replied: “It’s a bit like Spain – but more Greek.”

JOHN THOMSON in Hamilton went on an open-top bus tour of Arran in which the driver’s running commentary, desperate for interesting things to tell them, intoned: “This is Whiting Bay, site of the longest pier on the Clyde.”

And after a short pause: “But it’s no’ there any longer.”

READER Jock Clark in Kilmacolm has just returned from a touring holiday to Italy, Slovenia and Croatia. An elderly lady on the trip was often seen carrying a large box around with her.

Jock’s curiosity eventually got the better of him and he asked what it contained.

“It’s a cyclamen plant,” she explained. “I didn’t trust anyone at home to look after it while I was away.”

A STIRLING reader on holiday in a Texas diner heard a local, about to tuck into a monster steak, declare: “Vegetarian – an old Indian word for lousy hunter.”

DEREK McCANN in Aberdeen was flying from Atlanta to Orlando in the United States when a family of four behind him in the queue were told there were only two remaining seats. At that the grumpy mother announced she and her daughter would take them, and her husband and son could get a later flight, for all she cared.

Later on board the plane Derek heard the woman ask a steward if he knew what had happened to her missing husband and son.

Says Derek: “When the attendant told her they were in fact up in business class, her face was a picture.”

READER Phyllis Cleghorn in Stirling was going on holiday to Jersey and phoned her bank to let them know so that her credit card would work there, and not be blocked for unusual activity.

After explaining to the call centre worker on some foreign shore that she was going to the Channel Islands for a week, she was put on hold until a supervisor came on the line and asked: “Where did you say you were going for a week?”

When Phyllis repeated that she was going to the Channel Islands there was a pause before the supervisor replied: “Oh. My colleague said you were going to China and Ireland.”

A READER visiting Lord Nelson’s
HMS Victory
in Portsmouth tells us that the tour guides naturally take the history of the ship very seriously. And our reader tells us it just had to be a Scottish voice that shouted out on the tour, when the guide reverently pointed out the plaque on the spot where Nelson fell: “I’m no surprised. I nearly tripped ower it ma’sell.”

NOT MANY Scots are great linguists it has to be said. But a reader in a branch of Superdrug in Glasgow’s city centre had remembered enough French to realise that the French girl in front of him was saying to her pal: “Why do they need suntan lotion here?”

HOLIDAY problems we had never thought about. Neil Gibson and wife flew off on holiday, and his good lady, not wishing to leave the car keys lying around an empty house, planked them in the oven. The only problem was, she hadn’t counted on dutiful daughter coming round to the house the day before they returned to bake a birthday cake – which came out to the aroma of melted plastic, and a car outside that could no longer be opened.

CHRISTINE PACIONE, of Milton of Campsie, overheard a blonde, tattooed lady at a holiday spot asking about going on the sunset cruise. When asked when she would like to go, she replied: “Sunday morning.”

IN GLASGOW'S Barlinnie Jail, the most prized possession is an illicit mobile phone. There is even a chair with a built-in X-ray machine to check felons for a hidden model. Dead pigeons, with mobile phones concealed in the carrion, are even thrown over the walls for the incarcerated to retrieve.

So we wonder how much the prison officer was joking when, before the start of David Haymen performing Rony Bridge's autobiographical one-man play
Six and a Tanner
inside Barlinnie, he asked the inmates attending to switch off their mobile phones during the performance.

A GLASGOW lawyer phones to tell us a colleague was in court trying to butter up a witness by telling him: “You're a very bright, smart witness.”

And the chap replied: “Thank you. If I wasn't under oath I'd repay the compliment.”

A BBC film about Scotland's famous safecracker Gentle Johnny Ramensky, reminds retired reporter Gordon Airs of interviewing another safeblower, Paddy Meehan, who told him that he did a bank job with Johnny towards the end of his criminal career.

Searching about in the dark for the safe, Johnny whispered that he had found it. Recalled Paddy: “I padded up and saw it was a fridge. I opened the door and the light came on. He said his eyes weren't what they used to be, and I said, ‘You're no' kidding.'

“When we found the safe I let him put on the plastic explosive. He was always so finicky – he just wanted the door to swing open perfectly. I packed in a lot more and he complained that it would blow the door off. I said: ‘Listen, it's no oor safe.”'

OH YES, the London riots. A London hoodie contacts us: “I'm told a police van rushing to the riots hit two looters. One was thrown through the windscreen and the other was knocked over a wall.

“The Met charged the first one with breaking and entering, and the second with leaving the scene of an accident.”