BACK in the day, a Glasgow Corporation bus destined for Yoker passed my grandmother’s house in Possilpark. Yoker sparked images of clowns and eggs in young minds and there was much childish speculation about where, or what, it was. Decades later, a spaced-out character called Dee Dee on Limmy’s Show notices a bus to Yoker and feels the urge to visit a “pure fabled land that sounds like a pure mad egg yolk”. What follows is a trip in both senses: an inner monologue mixing fear and paranoia with hope and discovery. Limmy (or Brian Limond by Sunday name) is known for his quick-fire comedy sketches and restless imagination. His first short story collection, Daft Wee Stories, gamely tried to transfer some of this to the page. There were daft stories, wee stories and stories that had to be read upside down. That’s Your Lot is his second book of short stories and here he adopts a more traditional approach.

The collection includes 29 stories ranging in length from four pages to more than 30. The vast majority of his protagonists are young (ish) men and many are introduced by name in the first sentence: “Vinnie was down in London for a few days”, “Martin was a cobbler” and so on. One immediate problem is that no matter what name Limmy gives his boys or what road he sends them down, they all seem much the same: self-absorbed and not nearly as interesting to others as they are to themselves.

In Taxi Patter, for instance, Vinnie goes to London to attend a concert by his beloved Art Garfunkel. He arrives a day late and, in a double-whammy, realises Art had performed in Glasgow and he missed that, too. Vinnie wants to impress his taxi driver who is busy objectifying passing women so he pulls his trackie leg tight “to show the shape of his hard-on” to the cabbie. Vinnie thinks the driver might be gay. We think Vinnie might be. Art Garfunkel could mean something here. In the end, it’s all a bit passé and doesn’t seem to matter much, except to Vinnie.

In Trophies, Martin is a cobbler who also engraves trophies and used to joke with customers that his skill with shoes is related to the number of trophies he has around the shop.

Now he obsessively keeps an eye on supposedly dicey characters who might pinch stuff and the trophies are mute testimonies to what he might have been. Eventually, some of the male protagonists acquire female partners who find them as insufferable as the reader does. In Soft Play, Tom waits for his children to finish playing and is so bored that he imagines moving things with his mind. This distresses his partner Claire who is also bored but can’t match Tom’s uber-boredom which stems from his family life in general and her in particular. Sadly their boredom soon begets ours.

Benidorm is the final story and the longest at 37 pages. It is also the most effective as Limmy finally gives his characters a chance of breath. Against the odds, he finds four more male names and sends Kenny, Peter, Scott and Scott’s 60-year-old alcoholic Uncle Andy to Spain.

The group is much diminished from previous holidays as other mates are “getting old” or, perhaps, giving the obnoxious Kenny a body swerve. The binding theme, as the title of the book suggests, is about discovering the limitations of life and failing to find ways to defy them. It’s a point that is far too long in the making.

But if the intention is to make the reader feel the protagonists’ frustrations, 29 stories about men with similar dilemmas certainly does that. We’re too far from Yoker and the things that moved us, but at least this collection helps us appreciate Daft Limmy in his previous incarnation. There’s always his Twitter account to remind us of that.

Limmy’s That’s Your Lot is published by Harper Collins, priced £14.99