"Ho' wee baws!"

While on a bus across the great city of Glasgow, on the way to a gig of a band I was manager of at the time, I witnessed one of the finest lines I am ever to have heard.

The bus was packed with the working men leaving early for their suppers and mothers escorting their children home after their sporting endeavours. There were few seats left as we approached a stop outside what seemed to be a club called "Cleopatras". What stepped on the bus was no Queen of the Egyptians. Two females jumped on the bus with builds that could have fought in a welter weight fight. They pulled three small children on board with them, argued with the driver and then headed for the rear of the bus where three seats were left vacant.

As they squashed into the seats and continued their adult conversation the smallest of the children let out an obscenity that not even I can repeat here. As the bus reeled with the shock, one of the women - presumably the mother - grabbed the young by the sleeves of his jumper and growled into his face, 'Ho! Wee baws. I"ll cut ye" free of yer manhood if I hear any more of that.'

I was so tickled by the quote that later that evening I tried to use it myself when the owner of the club tried to refuse me payment for the band. Needless to say, it left me convinced that such phrases uttered by a woman has far more impact and affect.