Short Back and Sides (12 page)

I looked out a window and saw that the two strangers were still snooping around, so I decided to ring the guards again, and, pretending I was out of breath and frightened, I told them that I had been on earlier—I had given my name and address before—that I had shot at the two trespassers and that I thought I'd hit one of them! Within minutes there were two garda cars and an ambulance, and there was a helicopter hovering above with a searchlight. They got the two lads, who got some shock, I'll tell you. They must have thought they were casing a celebrity's home. So the guards came up to me, and one of them said, ‘I thought you said you'd shot one of them.' And I said, ‘I thought you said you were busy!'

18 March 2010

Victims of the Celtic Tiger, the lock-hards are a part of Dublin culture that has become extinct in recent years. I was reminded of them the other day by a customer who told me this story:

Customer:
I was parking my car at St Stephen's Green when a lock-hard came over and started shouting his catchphrase, ‘Lock hard!' He was shouting through the window. Anyway, I ignored him, parked and got out. I had my dog and, as I was only stopping for ten minutes or so, left it in the car. ‘I'll keep an eye on the car for you,' the lock-hard said, holding out his hand for a tip. Well, I never tipped those guys—it only encouraged them. So I said, ‘No, thanks, the car will be okay.' ‘Are you sure?' he says, with a sarcastic smile. ‘Of course it will be. I have my dog in the back,' I replied. I begin to walk off, and the lock-hard shouts, ‘Can he put out a fire?' He earned his tip!

19 March 2010

Customer 1:
It's a great day today: the weather is good, and Seánie spent the night in a cell.

Barber:
Everyone's talking about it. I can't imagine he got much sleep.

Customer 2
(in the next chair): I don't think there are many bank managers in the country who slept last night!

24 March 2010

After being surprised by reports of terrible weather in Wellington, Australia, for the Irish rugby match, I was told by a customer, ‘Sure there's penguins on the beaches in Wellington. That's how cold it gets over there.'

25 March 2010

An American tourist staying at the Sheen Falls in Co. Kerry rings the reception desk late one night complaining that he can't sleep and could they turn off the waterfall!

25 March 2010

Barber 1
: Did you put the kettle on? I asked you ages ago.

Barber 2
: I tried, but it didn't fit.

26 March 2010

The news announcing that the pubs in Limerick would be open on Good Friday came on the radio in the shop.

Customer
(from Limerick): Did you hear that? He's done it: the pubs will be open on Good Friday!

Barber:
How did he manage that? Even the Government was against it.

Customer:
I don't know, but Kiely [the Mayor of Limerick] will be voted in for the rest of his life!

27 March 2010

Barber:
You know, the clocks change tonight, but I can never remember if they go forward or back an hour.

American customer:
Well, in the States we have a saying: ‘Spring forward, fall back.' That way you won't forget. Good, eh?

Barber:
Hey, that's really clever. And we always thought yous Yanks were thick!

28 March 2010

Customer:
Don't talk to me about the road signs in this country! My God, how tourists get around this country is beyond me!

Barber:
Especially when you leave the airport: if you can find the M50, every exit on it is signposted as an exit to the city centre. I don't get that.

Customer:
And why are the signs after the slip roads rather than before? I've seen people reverse on the M50 to get back to the off ramp, which is madness, anyway!

Barber:
One of the older customers who comes in told me there's a theory that the signage thing goes back a long way in our genes. He said that, for years, people were turning sign posts around to point in the wrong direction so that British soldiers would get lost going out across the country! He said that in some places you can still see evidence of this. I remember seeing signposts where I live turned to face the wrong direction, so it could well be a genetic hand-down from our forefathers.

Customer:
He could have something there, all right. So now when we have to do the job properly we are unable to! We're experts in misdirection.

29 March 2010

Customer
: Great the way everyone is so health-conscious these days: they serve porridge in McDonald's now.

Barber:
Porridge? Are you serious? I can't imagine that.

Customer:
Oh, yeah, McPorridge, I think it's called. I suppose they have to move with the times.

Barber
: That's very funny. It just sounds all wrong. Do they do a McPorridge meal?

2 April 2010

This story has been round the block. I even met the woman involved—or at least she claimed to be—but she never told me this had all ended up in court! A customer who was involved in the case brought it all back to me today . . .

Customer:
I was involved in a case years ago in which a judge had gone to a hairdresser to get his hair cut. Afterwards he was sitting in the chair with a gown on, and he was waiting for someone to come over and blow-dry his hair. A pretty young woman came over to him and, after introducing herself, began drying his hair. The judge was fiddling round under the gown for a moment. Then, to the hairdresser's surprise, the old man began to jerk the gown up and down around his lap. She looked on in horror, watching as this old guy was for all the world jerking off under the gown! As she watched in disbelief, the gown kept moving up and down in a rhythm. Suddenly she whacked him across the back of the head really hard with her hairdrier! ‘You dirty bastard!' she screamed. Everyone in the shop turned to see what all the commotion was about. Then the manager came over. ‘What the hell are you doing?' he asks. The hairdresser rips the gown off the customer and turns his chair round for all to see. But it wasn't what she expected: underneath the gown, the dazed and confused judge had been innocently polishing his glasses on his lap!

He won his case.

4 April 2010

There was a three-year-old boy in the shop, and his mother was telling him that he was a big boy and that he had to have his hair cut. He was having none of it, so he started screaming crying—and I mean
screaming
. The lad whose hair I was doing turned round to the mother with a grin and said, ‘How much does he charge to haunt a house?'

We all burst out laughing.

5 April 2010

Customer:
I was in the Dáil bar recently, and it's like a snapshot of the past. The men and women sit separately: the men at the bar, mostly, and the women around in groups, like a country dance-hall in the sixties. The men at the bar were throwing back the pints before their lunch, and they were telling sexist and racist jokes. Then the food was served like a carvery lunch—real old style, lots of gravy and mash. Then, when they finished knocking back the pints, they went in to vote!

Barber:
I have to say I'm not at all surprised.

7 April 2010

Customer:
I was on a stag party in Somerset recently, and guess what they sell in the vending machines in the gent's toilets!

Barber:
No idea. What?

Customer:
Viagra, condoms and inflatable sheep. Seriously! I'm not joking!

Barber:
That's like a one-man show.

8 April 2010

Customer:
Ah, I hear it's not great for football unless they have close-ups. You'd need more cameras to get more shots of the ball coming towards the screen, which leads me to an idea a friend of mine had for a laugh. He said, ‘Bring a football to the pub, and then at some stage throw it into the crowd watching the match!'

9 April 2010

Customer:
I have a friend who lives in the Waterways in Sallins, Co. Kildare, and, if you remember, they were totally flooded back in November. The cars were almost floating in the car park! He told me a local person had mentioned that the place used to flood regularly in the past and that they called it the swamp. It was a pitch-and-putt course, and it would flood so badly that you could see the flags but not the flagpoles! How they ever got planning in flood plains is beyond me. My friend said the management company had gone bust in the recession, so I said he should contact the builder, and he told me they'd gone out of business too!

Barber:
Their apartments and houses are worthless now, as they can't get insurance. Nothing has been done, so the chances are they'll flood again in the future. It really is a terrible situation. A customer told me recently that the Planning Department didn't have many inspectors going round the new estates being built to check that the work was being done properly, and that, as a result, the quality of the work suffered in some developments. But the wastewater from washing machines and dishwashers is going straight into the domestic wastewater pipe, which, in a lot of cases, ends up in local rivers and streams. And, according to this particular customer who tests the river water, it's killing a lot of the ecology. No more tadpoles in the rivers and God knows what else!

Customer:
There had to have been a lot of brown envelopes going round, that's all I can say.

11 April 2010

Customer:
I hit a pothole last week. After the snow the roads have been in a terrible state. Anyway, it nearly took the wheel off my car: it damaged the rim and blew out the tyre. I was so angry! A friend of mine knew a lad in the council, and he told me to go up and ask for him, as he could compensate me for the damage. So it took a phone call and I was up at the council offices waiting for this lad. He was nice enough, and he asked me about the damage. Then he asked me where the pothole was. I told him, and he says, ‘Ah, that's not our hole!'

Barber:
That's brilliant. So whose hole was it?

Customer:
He said that the gas company had been digging up that road last and that the council wasn't responsible for it once they'd been there. I gave up after that.

13 April 2010

Customer
: Do you know why we don't eat much fish in Ireland? I mean to say, for an island nation we have an abundance of fish, but people don't care for it.

Barber:
I've often wondered why. The French, Spanish and Greek people all love their fish: they even have fishing rights in our waters, thanks to the Government, which gave our fishing grounds to Europe.

Customer:
Well, it being Good Friday yesterday, I remember travelling as a young lad down to hotels in the midlands, and the church made it a sin to eat meat, so we were more or less told to eat fish on Fridays—not just Good Friday. But in the midlands they didn't have fish in the hotels, as it wasn't possible to transport from the coast to the country and keep it fresh, so they'd offer you two boiled eggs and toast with a pot of tea! That's the reason we don't eat fish here: it was seen as penance food.

14 April 2010

A customer told me this story many years ago, and it's supposed to be true.

A business man called Charlie drove home from the pub very drunk late one night and got stopped by the guards at a checkpoint. There was a garda car by the footpath, and he parked behind it. They realised he was hammered and asked him to get out of the car. It was a while before he could get standing on the road beside them, and he was swaying gently from side to side.

The guards were about to breathalyse him when a car came speeding round the corner, left the road and crashed into the ditch! The two guards ran to the crash, leaving the drunken man alone. Charlie decided to make a break for it and impulsively jumped into the car and drove home as fast as he could. He told his wife that he had been stopped and that if anyone happened to call she was to say that he'd been in all night. Next morning the doorbell rang. The man's wife opened the door to two guards.

‘Is your husband here?' they asked her.

‘Yes, he is. Why, is there something wrong?' she asked innocently.

‘Well, we think he drove off from a garda checkpoint late last night.'

‘Oh, no! It couldn't have been him. He was here last night with me.'

‘I see,' the guard said. ‘Could we speak to him?'

‘Sure, hold on.—Charlie?'

A few minutes later the businessman came down, fresh from the shower.

‘Good morning,' he said. ‘How can I help you?'

‘Good morning. We believe you drove away from a checkpoint in Stillorgan last night.'

‘Ah, now, that couldn't have been me. I had a quiet night in last night.'

‘Well, would you mind if we took a look at your car?'

‘Sure, that's no problem. It's in the garage. I'll just get the keys.'

So they walked over to the garage, and, calmly and confidently, Charlie turns the key and pulls up the garage door. To his absolute horror, the car in the garage is a garda car!

‘How did you think we found out where you lived?' the guards asked him. ‘You left your car at the checkpoint, so we ran your number-plate.'