Short Back and Sides Read Free Page B

please
    3 May 2009
    Customer: I need my hair cut badly.
    Barber: No problem, sir, I can cut it badly for you.
Bail-out
    4 May 2009
    Customer: It’s nearly eight months since the Government bail-out. You know, I had a suitcase packed and a flight booked to get out of here that night, only I waited. And I wasn’t the only one—a lot of people in finance were ready to run!
    Barber: We almost had a total meltdown. So how come you waited?
    Customer: I was pacing the floor when my wife suggested I try to get some sleep and wait for the news that morning. I turned on the radio first thing, and it was announced in the headlines on ‘Morning Ireland’ that the Government was going to bail out the banks, and I couldn’t believe my ears!
    Barber: A close call!
Karma man
    5 May 2009
    A customer who was visiting India got a taxi from the airport to the hotel where he was staying. The driver was friendly and spoke English.
    Customer: On the way to the hotel I told the driver to blow the horn at a car that made a dangerous swerve in front of us. ‘Oh, no, I can’t do that,’ he said. ‘Then someone will do it to me.’ I thought he was just fobbing me off, but as we drove on I noticed in the mayhem that is normal driving on the streets in India that no-one blew their horn, no-one flashed their lights in anger and no-one rolled their window down and shouted abuse at careless drivers who caused them to brake hard. In fact, it was the opposite: everywhere I looked I saw genuine smiling faces behind windscreens or on bicycles. It was a real culture shock. ‘It’s karma,’ the taxi-driver explained. ‘Have you heard of it?’ ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘we call it “what goes around comes around”.’
Television licence crackdown
    6 May 2009
    Back in the eighties there was a television licence crackdown, as I’d imagine that there were very few licence-holders in those dark days in Ireland.
    Customer: I remember the TV licence inspectors had a white van with a radar-like attachment on the top of the roof that would drive around estates all through the summer months—back when we had real summers— and they were supposed to detect if you had a TV on in the house. The idea was that, if you had, they’d call to your door and ask to see your licence. It became known to everyone quite quickly, and the children playing outside would come running back to the house to tell you, and you’d switch the TV off until the van was gone. I remember a neighbour saying that when the children all came running you didn’t know if it was the ice-cream van or the TV licence men!
    Barber: I do remember hearing something like that before. It’s so funny. Imagine the boardroom meeting—coming up with the idea to use a van with the sci-fi radar on the roof.
    Customer: People are much too clever to fall for something like that now. But I imagine it had a lot of people running to the post office to get a licence back then.
Travellers (redefined)
    7 May 2009
    Customer: A Traveller was standing outside his caravan one morning at the side of a busy motorway. He was explaining to his young son that the people in the cars were going to work in the city. ‘Some of them,’ he said, ‘have travelled miles. Maybe a two-hour commute each way, every day! They leave home early in the morning and get back very late at night. I’ve heard them say that they feel like they live in their cars!’ There was silence for a moment while the little boy thought. Then he turned to his father and asked him: ‘So why do they call us Travellers?’
    Brilliant.
M50 mystery solved
    8 May 2009
    There has been a lot of speculation about the situation with the M50. Drivers have never seen anyone working on the new lanes. I drive by there myself regularly, and I don’t remember ever seeing anyone working or driving any of the many abandoned-looking construction vehicles.