Glasgow

It was bound to end in tears. As I wrote here, the Daily Record in Scotland billed columnist Frankie Boyle as "the comic who can't be gagged" yet, from the outset, censored what he wrote. Now Boyle has quit the paper because it refused to run his jokes about Michael Jackson. Boyle wrote to members of his mailing list: "Oh dear. Had to quit my Daily Record column over a moral disagreement. We disagreed over whether it was ok to make jokes about a dead child molestor."
PS: Meanwhile, in Australia, Newtork Ten censored a Bruno joke about Katie Holmes on Rove - apparently over concerns that she would get the huff and refuse to appear on the show. Fearless broadcasting at its best, folks!

From Popbitch, a joke before I leave Scotland:

A man walks into a Glasgow library and says to the librarian, "Excuse me Miss, do ye huv any books on suicide?"
The librarian looks up and says, "F--k off! Ye'll no bring it back!"

I will be leaving Glasgow in three days after six months in Scotland. Today, for the first time, a Scotsman stopped me in the street and asked me directions. And I was able to give them!

In Australia, a person behind a counter summonsing a new customer would say "Next". In the UK, at least at Tesco and The Pound Shop*, they say "First".
* Where, of course, everything costs a pound.

I'm starting to feel like Mr Smoke Too Much in Monty Python's Travel Agent sketch. The flight for my package holiday to Malaga has been delayed - again. It's now due to fly out of Glasgow at 3pm. I woke up at 2.30am and I have been at the airport since 4am. I could be half-way to Australia by now! I can't even get a Watney's Red Barrell - not because it's England and the pub shuts every time your thirsty (it's Scotland and the pub is never closed), but because they don't sell it any more. Also, I don't think it's wise to start drinking just yet ...

Brotherhood of Man, the 1976 Eurovision Song Contest winners who are still touring with the original line-up, are playing in Glasgow tonight. I hope they have changed the inappropriate final verse to their big hit Save Your Kisses for Me.
PS: Peter Tork, of The Monkees, has revealed he has a rare form of head and neck cancer, but the prognosis is good. I wish him well.

I've just returned to Glasgow from Stirling - home of the famous castle and the Wallace Monument, which pays tribute to my famous ancestor Sir William (aka Braveheart) - but I nearly missed the train. Why? Because the video monitor in the ticket office at Stirling said the next train to Glasgow would leave from platform 9. I duly went to platform 9 and, after a while, heard this announcement: "The next train on platform 3 will be for Glasgow Queen Street." On a hunch, I called across the platform to a station employee and said: "Where is the next train to Glasgow leaving?" And he said: "It's now on Platform 3." Which is not the same as what the platform announcer had just said. As it was peak hour, I initially assumed that there were trains to Glasgow from both platforms but, as indicated in the ticket office, the first would leave from Platform 9 (which has no monitor). As it turned out, if I'd stayed put, I'd have missed the train altogether. Memo, Stirling station announcers: please think before you speak.
PS: The wasn't a case of me being stupid, at least not on my own. Another passenger was similarly perplexed.

Prestwick Airport near Glasgow is reportedly losing money and will have to make cuts. The first thing to go should be the airport slogan "Pure, dead, brilliant" followed by everybody who thought that evoking death was a good way to market an airport.

The Daily Record has hired edgy Scottish comedian Frankie Boyle as a columnist, but it already seems he's a bit controversial for the family paper. In his first column, The Record has rendered the word "bastard" as "b*****d", shit as s*** and piss (I think) as p***. None of these words would be censored from most Australian papers these days, as long as the editor felt they were contextual - which they are here given Boyle's oeuvre. Stranger still is the fact that I have heard the F-word (which most Australian and British papers would not print in full) more on television - and, significantly, in the street - here in Scotland than I ever have in Australia.
PS: Boyle's column is subtitled, "He's the comic who can't be gagged".

A new publication, The Atlas of True Names, renames places "to reflect their origins and literal meaning". Thus London is Hillfort, Vladivostock is Dominate the east!, Edinburgh is Sloped Castle, New York is New Wild Boar Village, Paris is City of Boatmen, Chicago is Stink Onion and Glasgow is Green Hollow. Great Britain is Great Land of the Tattooed.

It's not just in Australia where waiters greet all customers with the catch-all term "guys". They're doing it in at least one Glasgow venue too.

A friend was looking at kilts in a Glasgow shop window and couldn't believe that the traditional Scots outfit and its accessories could cost as much as 700 pounds. "And look," she said, "they're all frayed along the edges." I'm afraid that's how they come ...

I've just encountered the worst busker I've ever heard, outside Woolworths in Glasgow's Argyle Street. If I were the manager, I'd give her money to go and sing outside Argos.

As well as being one of Lonely Planet's top 10 cities to visit, Glasgow is - for the fourth year running - also the second best place to shop in the UK outside of London's West End!

I love Glasgow, but it's not a place to be without a watch (or a mobile phone that tells the time). As far as I can tell, none of the old clocks in the inner city are actually working.