No Mean City

It’s like something out of the Mafia days in New York where each person has a moniker.

I’m talking about the gangland/mobster culture in Glasgow where each of the ‘personalities’ has his or her own moniker.

I suppose that’s when you’ve made it gangland Glasgow – when somebody uses your most obvious trait to replace your name.

Me – I’d be Tam ‘The Punter’ Cupples for my liking of playing the stock market. J would be Julie ‘The Wardrobe’ Hellon ….. for obvious reasons. Guy would be Guy ‘HTML’ Evans whilst Kitty would be Kitty ‘The Designer’ Evans.

So where did all this come from on a Monday morning? It came from last Friday’s Glasgow Daily Record, which I only read for two reasons; (a) to keep up with my team (Rangers) and (b) to see what mobster has done what this week.

On Friday there was this hilarious story about the widow of an infamous Glaswegian gangster getting married. If the monikers had been left out, it would not have been worth reading but here is a summary of the story with monikers included.

The widow of millionaire mobster Tam "The Licensee" McGraw will wed her drug dealer boyfriend this weekend in a lavish £50,000 bash. The Licensee got his nickname because his ‘legitimate’ businesses included pubs and clubs but his enemies, including Ian “Blink” McDonald (would kill in the blink of an eye) and Paul “Gunner” Ferris (who was a gun runner) also christened him “The Licensee” due to the fact that he had been given a licence by the Glasgow police to carry on his criminal activities. Margaret “The Jeweller” McGraw and lover Jim “Golddigger” McMinimee are splashing her late husband's cash on a dream wedding at a posh hotel.

The glamorous 55-year-old granny has invited 30 "special guests" to an all-expenses-paid weekend at the plush Bothwell Bridge Hotel in Lanarkshire. Last week, the Record revealed the hotel's manager, Luigi “Italian Stallion” Gustinelli, had been fired after gangsters went to his boss's home and made threats over gambling debts. Luigi Gustinelli was awarded £42,000 in an unfair sacking case against hotel owner Luigi  “The Godfather” Martalo.

Margaret, nicknamed "The Jeweller" after her love of gold, was delighted when sleazy partner  “Golddigger” McMinimee, 49, proposed last year - just months after she cremated her husband of 36 years. They admitted they had been in love for years.

Among those expected to attend the wedding are security bosses, Michael "Benji" Bennett and Stephen "Scudder" Scullion. Both associates of The Licensee, they were present in the Royal Oak pub in 2004 when Craig “Big Man” Devlin and John "Joker" McCartney, another expected guest at the wedding, were shot.

Other guests who got the call but who couldn’t make it were Robert “The Birdman” O’Hara  (???), a regular at the New Morven Bar run by Arthur “The Godfather” Thompson and latterly by “Gunner” Ferris, and Jamie “The Bull” Stevenson.

You couldn’t make it up.

The picture is of a book cover using the title, 'No Mean City', a term which plagued Glasgow for decades.