AH, the working man as art critic. Architectural historian Barnabas Calder writes of his love of brutalist architecture in his just published book Raw Concrete. He tells of the partial demolition of Paisley Civic Centre in 2010, and how he managed to save a section from the rubble. When he was then moving out of Glasgow he told movers it was a fragile ornament.
It was well packaged, he concedes, but the removal man wrote ‘lump o’ concrete’ on the label. Says Barnabas: "When I explained what it was, he crossed out his label and wrote instead, ‘Precious relic of car park'.”
IT reminds us of a former colleague who recently moved house who had many a cardboard box full of books which the removal men struggled with down the stairs of one flat and up the stairs of where he had moved. Eventually after taking the umpteenth box up the stairs, the removal man remarked: "Have you ever thought of getting a Kindle?"
Any other removal tales?
INTERESTING take on the plight of the Prime Minister from Scots author Irvine Welsh whose new novel on the psychopath anti-hero of Trainspotting, Begbie, entitled The Blade Artist, has just been released. Interviewed on the telly, Irvine said that while David Cameron was a terrible Prime Minister, he was nonetheless good at PR. He explained: "If I had him as my PR guy, he'd say The Blade Artist is about a boy wizard who saves the world from the forces of darkness, and I would say, 'No it's about a psychopath with a knife.' And he'd reply, 'Well, there's no real difference between a knife and a wand is there?' So he'll get away with it."
BEST Man gags continued. Says Barrie Crawford: "I was at a wedding in Strathaven when it was said that the groom had a soft spot for his mother-in-law - a peat bog on the Muirkirk road."
DON'T forget there is a Scottish Parliament election coming up in a few weeks. As the election literature begins to cover the door-mats, David Cunningham tells us: "My local SNP candidate in Renfrewshire Derek Mackay has written to me stating that the SNP 'have frozen the council for the last nine years'. That would explain why they seem so lethargic, then, although I think he means 'council tax'."
SO all this talk about tax-dodging is not new. Thom Cross in Carluke tells us: "Anent a letter in The Herald concerning beer brewed at Holyrood. William Younger established his brewery at Holyrood in the precincts of the Abbey as it was outside the city walls and so did not have to pay the excise tax charged on Edinburgh city brewed beer. Holyrood was a thus a 'tax-haven'."
WE asked for songs about David Cameron's difficulties, and suggestions include:
*We're scammin'
*I will do anything for love - but I won't do VAT
*Nobody Knows Where My Money Has Been
*And of course the Proclaimers' classic 'I would hoard 500 grand, and I would hoard 500 more'.
TODAY'S piece of whimsy comes from Kevin O'Neill who says: "Exercising can add years to your life. For example I jogged four miles today and now I feel like I'm 73."
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