Smokin'

I should really be posting more about Shanghai (or at the very least about the European Championships), but instead I feel the need to mention that in the space of five minutes today, I saw two men smoking pipes.

It seems a curious addition to the wardrobe, but there's no accessory quite like a pipe. The first gentleman I saw was honking on his in a determined fashion, puffing great clouds of soot and smoke into the faces of half of Union Street's shoppers. That he was wearing an arresting red tartan jacket, green cords and blue shoes simply added to his style.

The second piper (pipee?) seemed to be using his huge black smoking apparatus as a smoke-powered engine for climbing the steep brae at Market Street - sooking in a big lungful of burning bush before each step.

Both of these men looked to be at least in their seventies, which got me pondering - do young folk smoke pipes?

I don't think I've ever seen a pipe smoked by someone who doesn't also carry a bus pass while wearing a bunnet.

Maybe I should invest in one - it would go perfectly with my wardrobe of cheap Tesco suits and fake clothes from China.

Gaunnae Get Me Sumthin Good Fur Ma Burthday?

A touch of retail genius from Scotland's west coast, in the Haddows branch on Copland Road, Ibrox, Glasgow (home of the Famous Glasgow Rangers).

Yes folks, it's the Buckfast, 20 Mayfair and packet of Rizla "gift pack", for the ned who wants to say "I love you" in that unique, carcinogenic and liver-rotting way that flowers and chocolates just can't muster.