Free Glasgow Urban Myths by Ian Black

about children’s books on the grounds that they are luring children to Satan,” Rowling told a Glasgow Evening News reporter in a recent interview. “People should be praising them for that! These books guide children to an understanding that the weak, idiotic Son Of God is a living hoax who will be humiliated when the rain of fire comes, while we, Satan’s faithful servants, laugh and cavort in victory.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
    Wee boys and other creatures

    There is a prevailing myth in Glasgow that all wee boys are smart-arsed experts in repartee, not to mention banter and talking back.
    There is the standard story of the chap parking his car outside the football and being asked by mini-blackmailers: “Watch yer car, mister?” This is, of course, an implied threat that if you don’t give them a quid or whatever the going rate is, that something nasty, like disappearance, especially if you are in Ibrox or Parkhead, might just happen to your vehicle.
    The story goes that a guy points somewhat condescendingly to the Dobermann/Rottweiler/Irish Wolfhound in the back of the car and says: “I think my dog can watch my car for me.”
    I can find no one to which this has ever happened but the mythical replies grow year on year. So far I have heard:
    “Yer dug pits oot fires, does it?”
    “Yer dug blaws up tyres, does it?”
    “Yer dug fixes broken headlights, does it?”
    and the classic, “Paints oot scratches, does it?”
    The new one this year is, “Worth much, that dug?” which, given that people are spending a fortune on the above breeds, really is pretty smart. You lose your car and your pet.
    The other variation I have been told about was a couple of smart kids actually juggling bricks, a bit like saying, “I hope I don’t drop a brick on it.”
    Throw them a rag and say: “Wash the windows and meet me here after the game.”

    A couple of guys are out one night in town on the bevvy, with a few drugs thrown in. They’re highly illegally driving their car back to Easterhouse in the middle of the night, when something runs in front of the car and on to the other side of the road. For whatever reason, possibly because they are both steamboats and possibly because they have both seen The Hobbit , they agree that it was a goblin, and they pull the car over and attempt to apprehend the goblin in the interest of science.
    They manage to catch the goblin and put it in the boot of the car. They get home to one of their houses, lock the goblin in the kitchen, and then pass out. When they awake, they wonder if the evening’s events were just a dream, a drug trip, or if there is in fact a goblin in the kitchen. They open the kitchen to find a frightened 5-year-old boy who has Down’s Syndrome. They called the police to report the boy, and end up being heroes because the boy had been missing for days and his well-off parents were frantic. They received a decent-sized cash reward for his safe return.

    Two guys were walking in the Campsies when they came across a big hole. The two saw that it was a deep hole, but wanted to know how deep, as you do. They threw stones in and then bigger stones. When they heard nothing hit the ground, the two decided to use something heavier and bigger. Just at the edge of a farm field they found an old railway sleeper. It took both of them to lift it, but they finally got it to the hole and threw it in. Just then a goat came running towards the men at full speed. It went past the two, jumped up into the air and into the hole. The two looked at each other in amazement. Behind the men, a farmer came out from behind a dyke and said, “Have you seen my goat?” The two men looked at him and said, “Aye, we did. It jumped into this hole.” The farmer looked around and then said, “No, it couldn’t have been my goat. It’s tied to a sleeper.”

    A cat that had helped itself to some salmon mousse, prepared for an upcoming dinner party, later turns up dead in the garden. The hostess,