Impish behaviour

WE recounted a tale of wicked whisky pilfering on a grand scale. (A mini-grand scale to be precise. For it was miniature bottles of liquor that were ‘spirited away’ inside women’s beehive hairstyles.)

This anecdote reminds comedy great, Andy Cameron, of the Johnny Cash song One Piece at a Time, where car workers steal a Cadillac from the factory, bit by bit.

It takes ages to achieve, as the vehicle is so huge.

Adds Andy: “Back in the early 1960s I worked in the car plant at Linwood, and it was rumoured that a few Hillman Imps were disappearing in similar fashion. The difference was that you didn’t need to steal the Hillman Imp one bit at a time, like the Johnny Cash song.

“If you wanted one, you just stuck the finished article in your lunch box at the end of the shift, and took it hame…”

 

Astronomy for beginners

WE mentioned the eclipse that took place on Monday evening.

Teacher Debbie Meehan recalls having to once explain to her disappointed pupils that “what we were going to experience was a partial eclipse, not an apocalypse, and certainly not a zombie apocalypse.”

 

Wacky baccy

THE workers of today are a terrible rabble, as we all agree.

What is less often acknowledged is that the workers of the past were equally pitiful.

Peter Wright from West Kilbride recalls being on the team constructing the concrete oil rigs at Ardyne Point in the 1970s.

“We had a chainboy who wasn't the sharpest tool in the box,” says Peter. “He was sent to buy cigarettes, and was told to get 20 Capstan Full Strength, and if he couldn't get those he was to get something else. He came back with a pork pie.”

 

Plop shop

A TRICKY question that only a criminologist could possibly answer from reader David Donaldson, who says: “If I spot an owner failing to pick up a pile of doggy-doo and report them to our overworked police, does that make me a stool pigeon?”

Adds David: “This thought was inspired by a large brown canine hate crime that turned up on our doorstep yesterday…”

 

Water relief

THE other day reader Cindy Reid and her husband visited an Indian restaurant in Perth.

Gulping his glass of water, Cindy’s husband gasped: “The curry’s so hot here, they should have asbestos napkins.”

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Footering about

AN intriguing question from reader Robert McConville. “What has five toes and isn’t your foot?”

The answer, reveals Robert, is: “My foot.”