GLASGOW fish restaurant Gamba is celebrating its tenth anniversary this month, and owner Alan Tomkins was reminiscing about an early-morning break-in the restaurant suffered in its early years.
"After a ransacking session in which he not only set off the burglar alarm but the fire sprinklers and high-pitched fire alarm," says Alan, "the thief then left the premises with two bulging black bin-bags full of our booze and tableware.
"He then waited right at the entrance to the restaurant - with all alarms blaring - booty over each shoulder, and flagged the first black taxi he saw.
"Now West George Street at Blythswood Square is not over-busy at six in the morning, so the driver, obviously highly suspicious, drove him straight home and called the police.
"Within 20 minutes of his visit he was arrested and duly locked up. Not the brightest fish in the sea."
Pass on your own favourite restaurant stories and, who knows, Gamba might invite along the winner to help celebrate their anniversary.
Merry dance GLASGOW'S SECC is helping to host the televised Eurovision Dance Contest on Saturday. Representing Russia is Alexander Litvinenko and partner Tatiana Navka dancing a fusion of cha-cha, samba, rumba, paso doble and Russian national dance.
As our, perhaps confused, correspondent at MI5 comments: "No doubt he is saying to himself, This is the last place they'd look for me if they guessed my death was faked'."
See red OUR Manchester correspondent phones to tell us: "So Manchester City has signed Real Madrid's Brazilian forward Robinho. Apparently, no-one told him there were two teams in Manchester. Boy is he in for a shock."
Roots mon! GERRY MacKenzie heard a chap in the pub announce: "I was reading that American presidential hopeful Barack Obama is claiming Scottish blood in his ancestry."
"Would that be the Maryhill Baracks?" replied his drinking buddy.
Not playing ball GLASGOW-BORN football internationalist John Wark, right, in his home town to promote Setanta's coverage of upcoming Scotland games, was recalling his appearance in the great/bad football film Escape to Victory which starred Michael Caine, Sylvester Stallone and Pele. John, and fellow players including Bobby Moore, Osvaldo Ardiles and Mike Summerbee, flew in to Budapest to film the footballing scenes about PoWs playing the Germans.
But as filming dragged on, and the players were expected to deliver lines, John was picked to go in to see Oscar-winning director John Huston and the producers to claim a pay rise for their increased involvement.
A terse "**** off the lot of you" had John returning empty-handed to the players who decided to shelve any further wage demands.
Large-print version A FIVE-FOOT-tall poster detailing Scottish Opera's new season has been prised from the wall of the Theatre Royal in Glasgow.
There were no ripped strips lying on the pavement, so it might not have been vandals. It would be uncharitable to suggest, of course, that, given the age of many of its season-ticket holders, it was merely taken by an ageing opera fan whose eyesight required such large lettering to keep track of what's coming up.
Vicious cycle Round-the-world cyclist Mark Beaumont unveiled a 10ft-tall steel bike, created by artist John Cosby, on the banks of the Forth and Clyde Canal in Clydebank at the weekend, to raise awareness of the canal.
As John himself described The Bankies' Bike: "The arty bit is the easy part. The real graft is dealing with the bureaucracy, the structural engineers and the sub-contractors." He was, of course, talking about graft in its original meaning of hard work.
Being Clydebank, though, someone had to shout out something. As Mark unveiled the artwork, a local wean hollered: "On yer bike, big man!" "Just bought a new CD called Sounds of the 70s," declared the regular in a west end bar.
"But it was just full of old folk coughing and complaining about everything."
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