The Diary: Naan but the brave

Ken Smith

Diary Editor

Friday 4 November 2011

WHATEVER happened to mendicants simply wanting the price of a cup of tea?

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Ken Smith

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Rosie Smithers was in Glasgow’s city centre the other night when a young woman asked her for a pound. When Rosie said she had no change, the young woman persisted. Says Rosie: “She told us that a Peshwari naan had coconut in it, and was better than the average naan, but because of the coconut it was dearer, so she was going to need that pound.

“What next? A tenner for a top she has her eye on?” A grate shockBUDGIES continued. Calum Carmichael recalls: “Professor John Sawyer, at Newcastle University, told me of a student who wanted to enter the priesthood. To get a sense of the work he paid a pastoral visit to a sweet old lady who sat him in front of a roaring fire, released her pet bird from its cage, and retreated to the kitchen to make a cup of tea.“Happening to cross his legs just as the bird flew by, the student struck it with his shoe and the bird landed in the fire and perished in a burst of flames. Horrified, the poor fellow hurriedly left without informing the woman, and gave up any idea of becoming a priest.” Banged to rights?GUY Fawkes Night tomorrow of course, and a reader tells us: “The chap in the pub the other night claimed he worked for a firework display team but was sacked when he accidentally set them off in the wrong sequence.“The chap added that it was ‘bang out of order’.” A Higher causeNOSTALGIA alert. Do you remember the Officer Training Corps, later the Combined Cadet Force, that used to march around the playgrounds of some of Glasgow’s selective schools? A former High School pupil recalls: “One year the maths Higher papers were delayed. All the pupils were in lock-down in the school building until the papers arrived while pupils elsewhere in Scotland were sitting the exam.“Remember this was pre mobile phone days. The chaps in the OTC had the brainwave of using their walkie-talkies to try to contact OTC units at other schools to find out the questions. Don’t think they were successful.”Any other tales of playground square-bashing? Getting quizzicalLOTHIAN ladies Kate McGregor and Linda Tweedie have just published their book Life Behind Bars: Confessions of a Pub Landlady. We are much taken with their description of pub quiz teams. They state: “The average pub quiz is not taken seriously, except for the Quizzers.“These are teams of intellectuals who never miss a match and are normally sourced from the social work department or the local primary school. Their teams have Latin names that not even they can pronounce, and they consume half a lager and a packet of crisps between them, that is until they win first prize when it’s brandy and coke all round.Not true, surely?

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The Diary: Naan but the brave

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