Panda to your Every Desire (3 page)

GOVERNMENT plans to cut the number of people claiming incapacity benefit have not gone unnoticed by the staff at Maryhill’s Jobcentre Plus in Glasgow who will have to implement the policy.

They now refer to their office as Lourdes.

“I GOT woken up today by some idiot banging on my window,” said the chap in the pub the other night. “I was raging. There were two other tellers who could have cashed his pension.”

A PSYCHIATRIST tells us that when she is buttonholed at a party and asked what she does to help people with low self-esteem, her quick answer is: “I tell them they should become politicians. That usually solves it.”

A HUMAN resources worker in Glasgow’s call-centre sector tells us he interviewed a chap who had been fired from his last two jobs. When he queried this with him, the bold chap replied: “Well at least it shows I’m not a quitter.”

COLIN MACFARLANE’S book
Gorbals Diehards
, about growing up there in the sixties, tells of shipyard worker Jimmy who explained a fellow worker was nicknamed Brewer’s Droop as his name was Wullie Falls. More opaque was the foreman every worker called Such. That came about, explained Jimmy, when he was promoted to foreman and told the men: “I’m now the boss, and from now on I want to be addressed as such.”

TALKING of shipyards, reader Jim Morrison reminds us of the classic gag: “A Clydebank chap invited a young lady to his flat for a nightcap. ‘See that carpet? It’s aff the
QE2
. And see that chest of drawers? That’s aff the
Queen Mary
. And see that sideboard? It’s aff the
Queen Elizabeth
,’ he said.

“‘Is that right?’ said the young lady. ‘Is this some kind of boat hoose?’

“‘Naw,’ replied the chap, ‘I just rent it aff the cooncil.”’

OUR STORY about shipyard workers with sticky fingers reminds Mark Johnston of a neighbour who kept a
Queen Mary
coffeepot from the final voyage of the Clyde steamer before it became a floating restaurant in London. Says Mark: “Unfortunately, during a break-in a few years later, the coffeepot was stolen.

“As my neighbour was giving a list of the stolen objects to the policeman, he hesitated when asked how much he paid for the coffeepot.

“Picking up on this, the policeman simply told him, ‘Shall we just say it fell off the back of a boat, Sir?”’

AS FINAL year students start applying for jobs, we pass on a tip from recruitment company Career Builders which says that many CVs are automatically rejected by companies because of folk having unprofessional e-mail addresses.

“One candidate,” says the company, “had an e-mail address with ‘loves-beer’ in it. Another candidate had put God down as a referee, but alas did not provide a contact phone number.”

A READER tells us he overheard two women discussing the new staffer in their office. “She looks a bit like Paris Hilton,” said one. “More Paris Travelodge,” replied her colleague.

CAMPAIGNING at Govan Cross to save the aircraft carrier contracts, Glasgow City Council leader Gordon Matheson was beckoned over by an elderly Govanite. The old boy said that in the 1970s his wife had anxiously asked union leader Jimmy Reid if any shipyard workers were to be laid off as she was worried about her man’s job.

Jimmy told her: “We’re fighting for every man, Mary, but it looks like six fitters are being made redundant.”

“That’s all right,” said Mary. “My husband’s only five foot six.”

OUR STORY of Jimmy Reid and working class rights remind Ian Wilson of dismantling a crane at Blairs defunct steelworks in Govan. After the final staff had been paid off, Ian noticed chalked on the wall in large letters: “Those who work and do their best, get their books alang wi’ the rest”.

WE WON’T name the Lothian company where a reader tells us one of the staff, after going on a health kick, had lost a sizeable amount of weight. One of the engineers complimented her and she replied: “Thanks. So you noticed?”

He perhaps should have left it at that, instead of adding: “Well, your arse used to have its own post code.”

AUTUMN, apart from being when the leaves fall, is the busiest time for after-dinner speakers.

Tom Munro tells us former police officer John McKelvie was speaking after the former footballer and rascal Frank McAvennie at the Inverclyde Amateurs anniversary dinner.

John commented it wasn’t the first time he had followed McAvennie – but it was the first time that Frank had been aware of it.

GLASGOW entrepreneur Charan Gill’s Hottest Night of the Year charity dinner at the Hilton involved business people trying stand-up comedy.

The winner was fashion agency owner Jack Konopate, who was praised by judge Tam Cowan for being controversial.

Declared Jack: “I have family back in Israel who own a pharmaceutical business which makes Israel’s best-known cure for indigestion.

“Maybe you’ve heard of it – it’s called Jewish Settlers.”

RUNNER-UP Gaynor Turner of jewellers Macintyres of Edinburgh told the audience that the Scottish team at the Commonwealth Games had eighteen gold medals, eleven silver and twenty-two bronze, adding: “That’ll serve the Canadians right for leaving their lockers open.”

FORMER Rangers and Scotland keeper Andy Goram was at a supporters’ dinner in Dundee, having accepted the invitation by telling the organiser, “Look after me if you can … and remember, I like a nice red wine.”

So Andy’s at the table and is delighted to spot six tempting bottles of a really nice Rioja.

“The guy’s done me proud,” he thinks and, before you know it, Andy and his companions have opened and finished one bottle. Then two. Then three. Four. Five.

Then the night’s big attraction, the raffle, starts. The third item? Six bottles of a really nice Rioja. Which by this time is – well, irretrievable.

Which is why a slightly shamefaced Mr Goram made speedy amends to the organiser by getting tickets for an Old Firm game.

WHO SAYS funeral directors don’t have a sense of humour? A guest at a dinner attended by the Provost of Renfrewshire and other dignitaries to mark the centenary of Renfrew funeral directors Walter Johnston & Sons, tells us one speaker recounted the classic yarn of the young boy being off school, and being asked by his teacher where he had been. He replied that his dad had been in an accident and got burned.

“I’m sorry,” replied his teacher. “I hope it was nothing serious.”

“Well, miss,” he replied, “they don’t mess about at the crematorium.”

CELEBRATING Dunfermline’s promotion to the Scottish Premier League is the club’s legendary director of football Jim Leishman. He told a fundraising dinner in Glasgow for Epilepsy Scotland that as a young player he could have signed for Liverpool, Manchester United or Chelsea.

“But none of them wanted me,” he added, “so I signed for Dunferm-line.”

INCIDENTALLY, one of the hotly contested auction items at the Epilepsy Scotland dinner was a day’s fishing at Balmoral, including the services of a ghillie.

Denis MacCann, boss of the new Hotel Indigo in Glasgow, helpfully explained to the Diary: “Did you know that ‘ghillie’ is Gaelic for sitting on the riverbank laughing while you watch someone with a fishing rod make a complete idiot of themselves?”

A HELENSBURGH reader was at a business dinner recently where the guest speaker was from a leading building firm.

“Rome wasn’t built in a day,” he told his audience, before adding: “Although that was the builder’s original estimate.”

A READER couldn’t help smiling when he was at a business reception in Edinburgh, and watched a chap go up to an American woman with the name “Twila” on her badge and say: “That’s a name you don’t hear every day.”

“Actually, I do,” she coolly replied.

GLASGOW’S entrepreneurs are alive and well, says reader James Davitt, who was stopped on his return to the big open car park behind St Enoch’s by a chap who asked if he had any time left on his pay and display ticket.

Says James: “Thinking I was doing my good deed for the day, I obliged.

“As I was driving away, I noticed he was at one of the ticket machines, selling my ticket at a no doubt discounted rate, to another punter.

“Some Glaswegians could teach those Apprentice candidates a thing or two.”

A SCOTTISH website provider tells us that on their registration page they have a box for the email address of potential customers, followed by a second box marked “confirm email”.

One subscriber had simply typed in the second box: “Yes, above email address is correct.”

READER Jim McGrouther hears on Sky news that Japanese electronics company Sony is throwing itself into the tablet market.

He wonders how worried Scottish confectioners should be.

THERE’S not been much humour in the Glasgow housing market of late, but an estate agent did tell us that he was showing a couple a flat in the West End recently where all the rooms were off an imposing 40ft hall.

When the wife asked her husband if they should put in an offer for it, hubby told her: “I’m certainly in it for the long hall.”

IT’S NOT often we are given a gag by an economist, so we must pass it on. “An Irishman, a German, a Portuguese and a Greek walk into a bar,” he said.

“And the German ended up paying.”

WHEN spring is in the air, suburban dwellers turn their minds to extensions and conservatories. We remember the chap in Bearsden who was building an extension when he was approached by a chap offering to sell him suspiciously cheap bricks.

Not wishing to overlook a bargain, he agreed – only to discover the brick seller had taken the bricks already stacked in the back of his garden and delivered them to the front.

When he went to the police, they warned him that if they were to arrest the thief, they would have to arrest him as well for buying stolen goods.

WE ASKED a Glasgow businessman who regularly checks his Twitter account what the fascination was, and he told us: “It’s a bit like when you are bored at home and you open the fridge to see if there is anything interesting. There isn’t, but it still doesn’t stop you checking again twenty minutes later.”

The average Scot dislikes talking about his emotions and would rather make a joke about relationships. That might not be good for his relationships, but it works out fine for The Diary.

“I ASKED my girlfriend what she wanted for her birthday,” said the chap in the pub the other night. “So with a big smile she held up her left hand and wiggled her third finger.”

He then added: “Gloves it is then.”

IT’S A difficult time for relationships with couples thrown together for days over Christmas and New Year. One chap confessed to us that his wife angrily turned to him the other day and declared: “Why have you ignored the fact that I’ve not been speaking to you for three days?”

The surprised chap could only reply: “I thought we were just getting along.”

THE JOKER in the pub the other night claimed: “The wife asked what I was doing on the computer and I said I was looking for cheap flights.”

He added: “She got all excited, which is strange, as she’s never shown any interest in darts before.”

AN AYRSHIRE reader tells us about the chap turning up at his golf club after being off on holiday. “Did you have a good time?” he was asked.

“The first day of my break,” he told them, “the wife winked at me and said she couldn’t wait to get me in the bedroom.”

He then added: “When I got there I found six litres of paint and a roller.”

RETURNING home in the evening rush hour to Helensburgh, a reader heard a chap on the train tell a pal: “The wife tells me I snore when I’m sleeping. But that’s rubbish. No one at work has ever mentioned it.”

A SOUTH-SIDE lady out for a night with her chums showed them the text her husband had sent the night before when he had been out with his pals.

The brave, but foolhardy chap had texted: “Just having a final pint. Will be home in half an hour. If not back by then simply read this text again.”

THE DATING game, it seems, is still a jungle. Our attention is drawn to the website crapdate.com where people can record their worst experiences. We were taken with the woman who succinctly wrote: “Worst date has to be the guy who pretended to be a doctor. When rumbled, he pretended he was a secret agent posing as a doctor.”