Drawing a conclusion
THE death of Fidel Castro reminds former Merchant Navy officer Ian Smith in West Calder of passing Cuba on the cargo ship The City of Khartoum at the height of the Cuban Missile Crisis in October, 1962. An American Navy ship in the blockade signalled to Ian’s ship to identify itself.
Says Ian: “I started to signal back in Morse code that it was the British ship, the City of Khartoum. But after signalling ‘Kha’ he immediately asked me to repeat as he obviously did not believe any word began with ‘Kh’. I tried again and he asked me to repeat it, so I ended up sending it as The City of Cartoon which he was happy with, and which the other officers called the ship for the rest of the voyage.”
Questionable tenure
“ENGLAND has appointed Gareth Southgate as manager until 2020,” said the football fan in the Glasgow pub at lunchtime.
“What? Do they get a new one at half-eight?” his pal replied.
Damned with faint praise
OUR Ayrshire golf club story reminds Robin Gilmour in Milngavie: “Some years ago before electric trolleys,
a retired Procurator Fiscal for Kilmarnock had Old Sam caddying for him at an Ayrshire course. ‘Well Sam!’ said the Fiscal, ‘I believe you were caddying for Sheriff Dickson last week. How did you get on?’
“‘He was rubbish Sur!’, came the reply. ‘He’s definitely no better than yersel’.”
Rolling in the aisles
A READER emails to say: “Trick people into doing an impression of someone with a wasp in their clothes by shouting ‘Tickets please!’ on a busy train.”
Catty remark
SOME folk will agree with author Lynne Truss who told the Radio Times: “In olden times, cats were bigger and stronger and could kill us. Everything about cats makes sense once you have absorbed this simple fact. Now that their powers have been diminished by time and domestication, cats are a) still trying to kill us, and b) seriously annoyed that they can’t.
“They see us laughing at sites called ‘Cats Who Look Like Hitler’ and it makes them despise our stupidity even more.”
How?
WE foolishly asked a colleague if he had done his Christmas shopping. “My son said he wanted an Action Man for Christmas but now he tells me he wants a Red Indian. I’ve been trying to put a brave face on it.”
Lesson learned
TAXI tales continued. Says David Martin: “I remember getting into a taxi with John, a fellow teacher. The taxi driver, hearing our conversation, piped up, ‘Are you two teachers, then? I could never be a teacher.’ To which John said, ‘You should have stuck in at school then’.
“The driver was less anxious to converse after that.”
Bridges and troubled water
MUCH merriment when Boris Johnson’s Foreign Office announced on social media “Opening in 2017, the 2.7 km Queensferry Crossing will be the longest three-tower cable-stayed bridge in the world”with a picture instead of the Forth rail bridge and road bridge.
After it was inundated with folk replying with pictures of other bridges around the world, the Foreign Office loftily stated: “Lots of views of our beautiful picture. Any misunderstanding is water under the bridge.”
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