Short Back and Sides (7 page)

26 August 2009

Things are only getting back to normal here in the barber shop. For quite some time when I'd go to use a cut-throat razor on a customer's neck they'd jump and say, ‘No, don't use that!' So I'd ask why, and they'd say they had seen
Sweeney Todd
(the film about the mythical murderous barber). I'd have to leave the razor down and trim the hair with a clippers or scissors. But, as I said, it's been a few weeks now since a customer cringed in my chair, and it seems that the fear has subsided. So, sharpen the cut-throats—it's back to the close shaves.

27 August 2009

Customer:
Did you hear about the railway bridge that collapsed in Malahide the other day?

Barber:
I did. I saw the picture in the paper. They were lucky the train had just gone over the bridge and it fell in afterwards!

Customer:
Well, CIE had to put buses on to transport people to work now that the bridge had collapsed, and this morning I heard the buses got into to town twenty-five minutes earlier than the train normally does!

Barber:
So, no need to fix the bridge, then!

28 August 2009

Customer:
I was travelling down to Carlow the other day, and I was trying to find the Dolmen Hotel. There were no signs anywhere that I could see, so I stopped and asked someone in the street.

Barber:
I always feel sorry for tourists travelling in Ireland. I often wonder how they ever find their way round.

Customer:
Well, this guy gives me the directions, and I say to him, ‘How come there are no signs for the hotel?' And he says, ‘Sure everybody knows where the Dolmen is!'

29 August 2009

A customer was giving me directions to a place on the north side. (I ask customers sometimes, and I get great routes from sales reps.)

Customer:
Take a right at the Donaghmede Opera House.

Barber:
The what?

Customer:
That's what it's known as locally. It's Tesco at Clare Hall!

31 August 2009

While we were talking about modern fashion and the ‘youth of today', the subject of the wearing of jeans down low arose. You'll no doubt have seen lads wearing their jeans so low that their underwear shows. It's usually three to four inches below the normal waistline.

Barber:
A young lad who comes into the shop wears his jeans really low, and he told me he has to walk funny to keep them from falling down.

Customer:
Do you know where that whole fashion came from?

Barber:
No, I've no idea.

Customer:
In the States, when a gang are arrested and the police lock them up they take their belts so they can't hang themselves or beat each other up swinging the belts in the cells and hitting each other with the buckles. When they're released they all walk out with no belts and their jeans hanging down low, and, because gangster culture is ‘cool', the kids copy the look.

1 September 2009

When I finished a customer's hair today and had shown him the back in the mirror he looked quite pleased . . .
Customer:
That's great. Now I can't wait until tomorrow.

Barber:
Why tomorrow?

Customer:
'Cause I'm getting better looking every day!

2 September 2009

Customer:
I can't get over how everyone is in such debt with personal loans and credit cards and negative equity. It just shows how most people were borrowing money just to subsidise their lifestyle, and they justified it all with L'Oréal economics.

Barber:
L'Oréal economics?

Customer:
You know, ‘Because I'm worth it.'

3 September 2009

Customer:
I was walking round town last week near Grafton Street. I was off, and the weather was great— warm and sunny. Now, I hadn't been in town for a long time, and, as I looked around, you know, I couldn't believe it. There were street entertainers, people sitting outside coffee shops and bars, talking and reading papers, and I thought to myself [he says in all seriousness]: ‘You'd think you were in Europe!'

Classic.

5 September 2009

A customer told me today that Mary Coughlan, Brian Lenihan and Brian Cowen are now referred to as the ‘drinks cabinet'.

6 September 2009

A barman told me this one. One of them should write a book: they always seem to have great stories!

Customer
(the barman): Had a tour of Americans in the other day. I was handing out a few pints of Guinness. One of the Americans was watching and came up to the bar and said, ‘That looks real good! Hey, I'll have to try a pint of your Guinness, now that I'm here in Ireland. But can I get one without the cream? I'm lactose intolerant.'

7 September 2009

An older, well-spoken gentleman was describing the haircut he wanted.

Customer:
Can I get a partition there on the left?

Barber:
A partition?

Customer:
Yes, you're an expert at partitions, aren't you?

Barber:
The only experts on partitions I know of are Moses and Michael Collins. I think you mean a parting.

8 September 2009

Customer:
The girlfriend says my hair is like a dry Weetabix!

Barber:
It is too!

9 September 2009

Customer:
What's going on with the weather! We've had another bad summer, and the Met Office said it would be good. From day to day they consistently get it wrong.

Barber:
There's just no accountability in the Met Office, and if the people who tell us the weather keep getting it wrong they should be fired. Three wrong forecasts and they're out. That should be the way, and it would make it more interesting for the rest of us.

Customer:
Three strikes and they're out! I think a trapdoor would be great too: everyone would be watching the forecast then. Did you hear about that lad who forecasts using the sun spots? He's said the weather will be great from the 7th to the 21st, I think, so we'll see if he's right next week.

Barber:
It should be good, because the kids are back at school—you know, Murphy's Law and all that. The Met Office said his method is like reading tea leaves in a cup, so I'm told. There's no science involved.

Customer:
It's raining again. Look [pointing out the window], the sun was shining a minute ago. It's Jekyll-and-Hyde weather out there!

10 September 2009

Customer:
Did you hear the banks called in the loans they'd given farmers to buy tractors?

Barber:
No, I didn't.

Customer:
Well, down the country they went around repossessing them. Some farmers had only two or three years left to pay off. But they got their own back, as they filled the tanks with acid and sand, so they're totally useless. The banks can't sell them off at auction.

Barber:
When you think it's us the public, farmers and all that who backed the guarantee that's kept them open for business, and this is how they repay the people. Can't they give us some time to get back on our feet before they come knocking for your house, your car or your tractor?

Customer:
It just shows how desperate they are for cash flow. They're auctioning off cars all the time for a fraction of their worth, just to get some money in. My guess is they're still in trouble. There's still the threat— a rumour I hear a lot—that one of the major banks will go under in the new year.

13 September 2009

The film
Far and Away,
with Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman, was made in Ireland, and a lot of the New York set was filmed on the cobbled streets of Temple Bar. There were lots of jokes going round in the pubs in the evening when the cast and crew had wrapped up. I remember someone in the Temple Bar pub with a plastic milk crate telling people that it was the one Tom Cruse stood on when he was in a scene with Nicole so he'd be the same height as her.

Anyway, this story is true, as I was there myself, and I met some of the regular Saturday customers there. The Boston scenes at the end of the film were shot around Fitzwilliam Square in Dublin, and they needed to cover everything in snow, as it was supposed to be the depths of winter in Boston. This was achieved by spraying some chemical compound over the houses and the streets, and it really looked like snow. It even stuck together like snow, much to the delight of the folk coming home from Leeson Street's clubs in the early hours, who found a winter wonderland around the corner, and in their mildly merry state it was an invitation to mayhem.

As soon as people realised that they could make snowballs from this ‘snow' it was like a school yard at break time. There were snowballs flying everywhere and more and more people joining in as they came down the street. It was total chaos. I met a couple of guys I knew who were regulars in the barber shop, and they showed me a snowman they'd made that was even wearing a scarf one of the lads had donated. I'd say that at the height of it more than a hundred people had been involved in the snowball fight.

The next day, when the film crew arrived, the set was destroyed, and at great expense they had to respray the entire set with fresh fake snow. The next night, clubbers were looking forward to another snowball fight in Fitzwilliam Square, but this time there were a number of guards along the street. Although everyone was disappointed that there wasn't going to be a snowball fight, one of the lads, who was a bit worse for wear, shouted out to one of the guards, ‘So what are you doing here?' And the guard replied, ‘We're guarding the snow.'

Well, I don't need to tell you that people were in tears laughing!

14 September 2009

Customer:
Can I have a carpet, please?

Barber:
You'll have to go to Des Kelly's for that. We just cut hair!

Turns out he wanted a crop.

16 September 2009

Customer
: There's a story out there that the hadron collider is so dangerous to humanity and the planet that it's being sabotaged.

Barber:
I never heard anything about that. I did hear lots of talk about the world ending when it was turned on. So who's trying to sabotage it?

Customer
: [whispers] People from the future!

Barber:
Like Terminator?

Customer:
Exactly.

18 September 2009

Customer:
You know that line in the song there [Phil Lynott was playing on the radio in the shop] where he says, ‘Down at Dino's Bar and Grill'?

Barber:
I do. Why?

Customer:
Well, that's a chipper in Terenure. They have a picture of Phillo up on the wall too. He used to get chips there. It was Dino's for years, but it's a new name now—can't remember. But look for the one with the Phil Lynott picture on the wall.

19 September 2009

Customer:
You know the potato isn't indigenous to Ireland? It was brought to England by Sir Walter Raleigh. He lived here for some time and is said to have planted the first potatoes here! It was grown in Chile and Peru—the Incas were big potato-eaters. Since before the Famine it's been a staple food, and we're almost defined by it: Guinness and potatoes!

Barber:
I can't believe it. The spud is an immigrant!

20 September 2009

Customer:
George Bernard Shaw received a letter from a young lady. I was told she was a model, but nevertheless she was well known in Dublin social circles at the time. She wrote to Shaw in the hope that he might marry her, and she very cleverly added that with her looks and his brains they would have beautiful, intelligent children. Shaw wrote back: ‘I must decline your tempting invitation, on the basis that the children might be born with my looks and your brains.'

22 September 2009

Customer:
Hearing that [a clip of Larry Gogan on the radio] reminds me. A friend of mine told me there was a book with all the funny wrong answers from the sixty-second quiz.

Barber:
I guess it's just another urban myth. It'd be a great one, though.

Customer:
Best one I heard was Larry asks the contestant to complete the saying ‘As happy as . . .' and he can't get it, so Larry gives him a clue and says, ‘Think of my name,' and your man says, ‘a pig in shite!'

Barber:
I love the one where he says, ‘What star do travellers follow?' and the guy says, ‘Joe Dolan!'

23 September 2009

A customer from Waterville told me this story.

Charlie Chaplin was a regular visitor to Co. Kerry, in particular to Waterville, where there's a bronze statue of him. He would arrive in a hotel and set up his projector and put the word out that he was going to show films on a big screen. He attracted a large crowd of all ages and would show selections from his films and private film of Hollywood. As you can imagine, it would have been nirvana to any film buff.

So everyone would arrive in the evening, and the kids would be sent in to watch the films. The adults were nowhere to be seen. They were of course in the hotel bar for the night. So Charlie ended up babysitting, but he didn't seem to mind. He did it many times and would show films over an entire weekend. Maybe he even inspired a few budding directors.