OUR train tales remind John Crawford of travelling from Glasgow to London overnight on Paisley Fair Friday when a well-dressed and well-refreshed businessman came on board, threw away the ticket from a reserved seat, sat down and began to sing The Song Of The Clyde before falling asleep.
Says John: "He only woke to dodge the ticket collector during the night. When we arrived at Euston he disappeared again but came up to us on the platform to ask, 'Did you folks notice if I had any luggage when I got on last night?"
A well-off Joe
GLASGOW patter continued. Rhyming slang has always featured in the Glaswegian vocabulary including "Joe the Toff" for "I'm off" when someone leaves. Recalls Kevin Toner: "I was with some mates in The Horse Shoe Bar and in the company of some folks up from Dorset.
"Later on, one of our local guys stood up and said, 'Right, I'm Joe the Toff, nice meeting you all' and walked out of the bar. Cue questions from our southern friends about how this Joe got to be known as 'The Toff'."
On the wrong tracks
T In The Park next weekend, which reminds us of a former colleague phoning a chart star, known for her experimental avant-garde electronic pop, for an interview before she appeared there. When the phone was answered he could hear a metallic whine subsiding in the background.
"Were you mixing tracks for your new album?" he asked, only to detect reproach and pity in her voice as she replied: "No, I was Hoovering my couch."
The price is right
THE possessions of Two Fat Ladies television cook Clarissa Dickson Wright, who died in March, are being auctioned in Carlisle this month. Clarissa was also Rector of Aberdeen University 15 years ago, when the robing ceremony ended with her being carried by the rugby team on a stuffed bull to a nearby pub, where Clarissa bought a drink for all the students who followed her in.
She later wrote: "Being flush in those days I left my credit card behind the bar and picked up a tab for £500 - quite modest I thought."
She did not explain if she thought it was modest for students or modest for an Aberdeen bar.
Taking no prisoners
A LOT of folk are abroad on holiday just now with their families, taking advantage of the cheaper prices before the English schools break up. A reader on a Mediterranean beach tells us he heard a fellow Scot, a mother, shout out to her bathing children: "Watch out for thae prisoners of war!"
He assumed she had got a bit mixed up about her jellyfish, but he nonetheless had a quick glance over in case some chaps were coming out the water with their hands up.
Drinker's hands are tied
A READER in a Glasgow pub heard a young chap further up the bar who was sipping a soft drink decline the offer of a pint with the remark: "I'm allergic to alcohol."
As this surprised the folk with him, he added the explanation: "Whenever I take it I break out in handcuffs."
No finger buffet
SO much meat is prepackaged these days, a Newton Mearns reader was pleasantly surprised in an up-market supermarket to be asked how he wanted his meat cut. He tells us he recalls being in a Galloway's butcher shop in Glasgow many years ago when the lad in front of him, when asked: "How would you like that sliced?" replied: "Withoot yer fingers."
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