WHAT'S IN A NAME?

Just talking the other day about words and phrases that have changed their meaning over the years or mean different things in different areas. For example, back in the early 70s, when I was about ten, I used to take a tranny to bed with me at night. My parents were well aware of this and nobody would have batted an eyelid. Nowadays I'd have a team of social workers at the door!

Then there's the old Glasgow word 'dogging.' This meant skiving off school and was used by the teachers as much as by the pupils. If you did not produce a note after being absent the teacher would shout at you that you had been 'dogging.' If a teacher accused a pupil of 'dogging' these days he'd have to have a damned good solicitor.

Even in Glasgow there were differences. In Castlemilk 'smoking the beef ' meant smoking a cigarette all the way down to the filter. When I lived in Springburn 'smoking the beef' meant something entirely different. I'll leave it to your imagination to figure out what!

I'm sure there must be more!

BIG BRO BORE

Happy New Year! So that's it. It's all over for another year. Christmas and New Year festivities are over and the shops are stocked up with Easter eggs. It also means that it's time for Channel 5 to wheel out Celebrity Big Brother. As usual, they take a very wide view of what it means to be a celebrity and the house is filled with folk, most of whom we've never heard of. 

I would probably avoid watching it altogether but marriage, or living together, among other things, means that a man has to watch what his wife watches. Escaping into the bedroom to watch something else brings accusations of not wanting to spend time together. So, like it or not, I'll have it on the TV in front of me and will find it hard to escape.

This got me thinking; why don't they put folk in that we know would hate each other on sight? The usual rules would still apply; ie no fighting or violence, but the arguments and tantrums would be great! How about this for a line-up:

Abu Hamza, Roy 'Chubby' Brown, Gary Glitter, Esther Rantzen, Jeremy Clarkson, Peter Tatchell...

I'm sure there could be more but I can't think of any at the moment. Any ideas? You decide!

Oh, I'd throw Julie Burchill in as well. She'd have a breakdown trying to remember who she's for and who she's against this week!

A CAUTIONARY CHRISTMAS TALE

I suffered toothache over the Christmas period and had to take painkillers until I could get treatment. I managed to get an emergency appointment at the Dental Hospital, where the offending molar had to be removed. I went home, took more painkillers, and had a sleep to get over things. I awoke to a pain-free mouth and all my troubles over; or so I thought.

I realised that, during my invalidity, I had not made my customary visits to the lavvy. I won't go into details, however there might have been a Christmas Number 1 this year, but no Number 2! An examination of the packaging of the painkillers I'd been taking, Co-Codamol, elicited the fact that one of the drug's side effects was constipation.

Now, I thought I had suffered constipation in the past but this was on a whole new level. I drank tons of water to help alleviate things, which it eventually did. This did not stop me, however, from grunting and squealing like a stuck pig and at one point screaming out for an epidural! A huge load finally off my mind, I thought that was that.

Now, however, I feel as if I have been gang-raped by a herd of elephants and have to walk gingerly and not make sudden movements. Even coughing makes me feel like I'm suffering a prolapse! Part of me longs for the good old days last week when I had the toothache.

The moral of the story? 
Read the packet BEFORE you take anything!