Glasgow Blog - The Book

This is a quick note to firstly thank the people who still visit the site, still almost every day.

I haven't posted for some time and may start again, as the people of Glasgow are still doing mental things, but I just need to start writing it all down again.

What I have done is put my favourite posts together and released it as an ebook on Amazon at;
http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00KQMACQO


Thank you again,

Will.

White Suit...Don't Mention It.....Don't.

A colleague told me this story the last week, after we discovered we used to drink in the same pub in Finnieston around the same time.

He had worked in an office around that area and they used to go the pub at lunchtime.

The pub was called Brooklyns, but it has been renamed now. The time was around 1990. He said they'd decided to go the pub to start their Christmas office night celebrations.

One of the team was a guy from Maryhill. He had on his white suit. Yes. His white suit.

As they stood at the bar, there was a voice from the other end of the bar which resonated quite easily around the small pub.

"Look at the poof in the white suit".

Oops.

Do you remember the scene in Trainspotting when Begbie puts down his pint before going mental? Keep that in mind here.

The chap from Maryhill set his pint down and made his way around the bar and with a swift movement, lifted a table by its legs and ran at this man and his two friends, with the table acting as shield.

He piled into the group of men sending them into the wall, their pints flying. He then rammed the table into them a few times for good effect before dropping it. But he wasn't finished there.

As they were still stunned he set about all three of these grown men with his fists and from the first hand account I heard of this "punched fuck out all three of them" until they were immobile on the carpet.

Nobody tried to stop him.

Mr Bannerman

I heard a story years ago from the naked shower lady (That Woman Was In The Nip 30/8/07).

There was an incident in the office when the ladies toilet became a little 'jammed' one day.

Someone had gone in and been absolutely repulsed by the sight of a huge log in the bowl. It wasn’t one that someone had forgotten to flush away. It was lodged in there.

Naturally she didn’t try to flush it away or go to use another cubicle…she went back out to tell everyone which prompted a discussion as to whose it was. Some people actually went in to view the log and came out almost pissing themselves.

They narrowed down the list of culprits to a middle aged woman who would have been mortified if she knew they were discussing her huge shit. Apparently the log stayed there for some time. At some point during the day, someone overheard this middle aged woman having some trouble on the phone with a customer named Mr Bannerman, as they learned.

After short discussion, someone suggested that they name the shit “Mr Bannerman” and so it stayed as that and was literally talked about for years afterwards. That shit is now office folklore.

I often wonder who Mr Bannerman is and what he would think if he knew he had a huge turd named after him.

Glasgow's Dumbest Criminal

One time in the recent past, it was 1.30am on a Saturday morning. I was standing in front of the television, doing the ironing, a bit drunk and watching Scarface. As you do.

My wife came running downstairs and told me to cut the sound and put the lights down.

'What the hell are you talking about?' I enquired, swaying slightly as I turned, gripping the ironing board for support.

'There's a guy in street with a baseball bat and he's smashing car windows'. That perked my interest.

We bolted upstairs to view the scene covertly from a sliver of a gap in the curtains in the darkened bedroom. We were just in time to see him disappearing round the corner 100 yards away.

She described him to me. Tracksuit, cap..... and a baseball bat. None of that surprising.

She'd seen him walking past, stop at a neighbour's car and smack in the back window, move on then take the wing mirror off another car.

I went out the front door under cover of darkness and checked the headlights of my car on the driveway but they were intact. My car has been vandalised a few times over the years from having the wing mirrors battered off (using a For Sale sign out the garden opposite - which we witnessed) to the car being keyed. The second time the car was keyed, you could see where the scumbag even lifted off, then started a new scratch to get the last last side panel as well. I keep my car on my new driveway now. £2000 well spent.

We called the Police and to their credit they were there quite quickly. After a short talk they disappeared round the corner at the end of the street, and into the park area. About an hour later, there was a knock at the front door. The Police arrived to take statements from us.

An hour later. More Scarface. More wine. Very little ironing.

With the excitement and all, I'd kept on drinking, even cracking open a new bottle.

As the policeman and policewoman sat on our sofas taking statements, there was a slight comedy moment when I wobbled slightly and knocked the ironing board, causing the iron to fall.

Instinctively I grabbed for it, and thank Christ, I managed not to grab hold of the hot bit. It was 2.30 in the morning, and I'd had a couple of bottles of wine. The Policewoman on the sofa just looked at me.

What the Police told us next just made our night.

Very soon after we'd called them, they sent a car that was nearby into the area. An unmarked car.

At the end of our street, there is a large area of grass leading to three paths and when the police arrived they drove forward onto the grass to drive through one of the pedestrian tunnels to follow the likely route of the ned. But their car became bogged down in the soft grass.

The two policemen got out their car and began the job of rocking it and pushing it to get it moving again. Out of the darkness this guy came along the path and seeing their predicament, walked up and offered to help them push. It took a fraction of a second for them to note the tracksuit and baseball cap and slapped the cuffs straight onto him.

What a dick.

Of course he denied it. Denied it all. What evidence did they have? It could have been any other ned walking around at that time of night in a tracksuit.

Well, his baseball bat. Distinctive. Even at a distance, under the streetlights as he had swung it around his head, my wife had seen it had a striped design to it. But there was no trace of it. It was gone.

As I walked to the train the next morning, I saw a broken piece of wood lying behind a fence. Striped. It was the handle of the broken baseball bat with nice smooth blue and yellow tape carefully wrapped around it in a beautiful striped design. Smooth tape. Probably covered in fingerprints. It went to the Police later that day.

Apparently he was a bit squiffy from some drugs that night.

Jam With The Fellas

Some time ago I was walking along St Vincent Street on my way to Queen Street Station to go home after work.

There was a couple of women behind me chatting about the weekend that had just past.

From what I gathered one's boyfriend had been out with his mates, flicking away at his guitar. I got this snippet of information from what she said to her mate.

She actually said this....

"Yeah, he went to jam with the fellas on Sunday"

What?

Firstly, was he actually 'jamming' in the Bob Marley sense? and was he with any 'fellas'? Would he call his mates 'the fellas'. I doubt it. I've only ever seen that word in The Sun newspaper which gives it no credence at all.

Who actually says these things? I felt like slapping her.

It's Not Cool But It Keeps The Rain Off

Tonight I have a simple story.

It is a story of a simple man.

I was in Morrisons supermarket earlier tonight, and a man was walking around with a rather oversized but heavy duty waterproof jacket on. Like it was pishing down outside. It wasn't.

The jacket seemed to have been washed recently.

The evidence was the two large yellow washing pegs clipped to the man's hood as he wandered around looking rather nonchalant....with two clothes pegs clipped to himself.

Um, check with your wife first?

Knob.

An Offer Of Dirty Sex

I was on Argyle Street a few weeks ago doing a bit of window shopping when it started pissing down and the rain was getting heavier by the second. I was about a twenty minute walk from my office so decided to take shelter in a shop doorway until it passed.

I was sharing it with a Big Issue seller and she was dressed head to toe in black robes and a headscarf. I’d say she was in her mid fifties. I ignored her as I didn’t want her to start asking me to buy the magazine. She called out to some man across the street and I took it to be some eastern European language. He trundled across the road dressed in his battered suit jacket and into the shelter.

Then the strangest thing happened. A homeless guy walked up. He had a dirty old rucksack on his back, a dark blue parka jacket, hood up against the rain and a huge, wiry, dirty beard. He stopped in front of us and proffered a small bundle of coins to the woman, about £1. He put it in her hand and waved off the offer of a magazine. Then he just walked off.

What a bloody lovely bloke. He’s homeless, or doing a very good impression of it and he’s handing out his money to others.

After a few minutes the rain wasn’t letting up and I decided to try door hopping. Spending a minute or so in each doorway and walking a short distance in between to avoid getting wet. On thinking about it now, it’s not going to work, as I’ll still spend roughly the same amount of time out in the rain. However, I did it.

I moved off and then the rain came on heavier suddenly so I ducked into a lane which leads to a bar/restaurant. The lane is near the Argyle Street arcade, the L-shaped indoor jewellers haven.

I saw as I walked in there were two people further in the lane. The lane opens out to a courtyard about 30 metres away from the street. I turned to face the street so I could watch the people walking past. I heard footsteps behind me and voices getting closer to me but I couldn't make anything out. A few seconds later the guy walks out the lane into street and she followed. I heard her call after him. It was mumbled but I heard her say "Twenty pounds!" He was looking over his shoulder at her but he walked off and she stayed in the shelter of the lane.

I didn't want to be seen to be taking an interest about what that might have been about so I turned to my right slightly and took an interest in something else along the street. But then I felt a presence at my left shoulder.

"Scoose me mate have you got any change like, for me bus fare?"
"No, sorry" shaking my head.
"Aw please mate"
"No"
"But I need something extra for me bus fare". She unclasped her hand and I saw about eighty pence there. It was at this point I noticed her Newcastle accent, and I thought where's she wanting to get the bus to?

She said she needed to get to the hospital and I then noticed the blood on her face - smears on her forehead, her cheeks, her lips, even her teeth. Her teeth.... she had four on the top row at the front and the rest were hiding at the back somewhere. The rest of her mouth was just dark spaces.

She lifted up her matted fringe of dark brown (dyed dark red) hair and showed me a huge gash in her forehead, just in the hair line. It looked about half a centimetre deep. It was red and inflamed and a wide open wound. As she'd reached up to brush her hair our of her eyes her fingers caught her roll-up cigarette and bent it almost at a 90 degree angle.

I thought this is only getting worse for you isn't it?

She kept saying she was in a strange country and that she was a Geordie. Newcastle is only 300 miles away and she had managed to source booze and cigarettes already so she was far from helpless.

I said I only had notes on me, hoping to deflect her thoughts away from my money.

"You can afford to give away a note"
"Not a £10 note I can't" In truth I had a £5 note and a £1 coin on me.
"Aw, c'mon, you've obviously got money. Look at you, with your suit n that"
"Well, I've got more money than you that's for sure" I said. I was standing there with my small Primark poly bag containing my £4 jumper.... yes, I am loaded.

Then we spent around two solid minutes going back and forth about my 'money' while she told me I had more money than her, to which I agreed numerous times. She then offered to walk with me to get change from my bundle of £10 notes she then said...

"Look if you give me some money I'll do anything you want..." my eyebrows raised "...as long as we can keep it a secret, cos I don't normally do that kind of thing". She stared at me. Her eyes were almost pleading. Cheap blowjob...on Argyle Street...on a weekday lunchtime?

I looked at at her dirty, bloodstained face and the thought crossed my mind I wouldn't want to put my cock in there for any reason. Number one. Disease. Number two, those four teeth would grate right along my shaft. And then there's the number three...blowjob in broad daylight on a city centre street... etc.. arrest, jail, divorce, bedsit.

As if to persuade me to start throwing my money at her, she sought to show me exactly how much blood she had on her.

She started to pull up her grey hooded top and I soon saw that it was only one of three she had on. I glanced out towards the street and saw people looking at me. A man in a suit in an alley while a manky homeless woman began pullng her clothes open. Christ almighty.

She pulled the first one open, then with one hand pulled at the zip of the second one. They both had blood on them. She third one came open and she pulled up her white blood stained t-shirt to show me her belly. Bloodstained. What the fuck had she been doing?

When she had pulled her t-shirt up I actually thought she's going to show me some titty here.

It was at this point she stumbled and dropped some of her change. Her head swung loosely round as she heard the clink of the coins on the ground. I helped her out by pointing with my toe towards a shiny 20p lying in the cobbles and she swayed her head back and forth tryng to locate it.

She saw it and bent down to pick it up and (very) unfortunately overbalanced and pitched forward onto her face spraying the ground with her small coins, her poly bag over her wrist rustling. She made no sound at all as she battered face first into the ground. No sound of pain. Nothing.

I grimaced at the thought of her manky bloodstained clothes against my 100% woollen suit and drew back instinctively. She was on her knees, forward on her face. She hadn't even managed to break her own fall.

I looked down at her and quickly realised it could be a while before she resurfaced from the wet cobblestone and within about two seconds I had made my decision.

I stepped over her into the rain. Leaving her where she lay, almost motionless.

Because she had fallen several passers by were looking at her, and looking at me. I realised that they might think I'd pushed her, but there was no way I was going to help her up. I walked off rather briskly, without looking back. If I looked back, I would have looked guilty of something. I stopped again in another doorway 30 metres ahead and there was no sign of her wobbling around in the street trying to find me.

I waited there for a few seconds, then buggered off.