A tar-layer was branded Scotland's answer to Crocodile Dundee on Friday after grabbing a meat machete from a Helal butchers to "show" someone what a real knife looked like.

In a re-enactment of the iconic scene from the 1986 film where Paul Hogan confronts a knifeman in the street, John McLaughlin, 39, marched into the shop, walked past the staff, and grabbed the machete, said to have a foot-long blade, from a rack behind the butchery counter, and put it down the waistband of his trousers.

Then he walked back out into the street with it and uttered the famous words to a man outside, who he said had a knife with him.

McLaughlin said: "I told him 'that's not a knife - this is a knife'", and produced the massive blade.

Adrian Fraser, prosecuting, told Stirling Sheriff Court that the incident happened during business hours.

Witnesses phoned police after seeing McLaughlin "with his arm out, showing this man the knife he had taken from the shop".

Mr Fraser said: "Some of the witnesses said it seemed to be an attempt to keep the other man away from him."

The depute fiscal said the knife was "variously described" in police reports as a machete, or a kitchen knife.

McLaughlin, a roads labourer and tar-layer, of Queen Street, Stirling, pleaded guilty to possessing a bladed weapon in public without reasonable excuse in the incident, which occurred in Barnton Street, Stirling in October last year.

Defence agent Frazer McCready said: "He returned to the shop after a short period of time, wiped the item, and gave it back.

"He stays near the shop and because of that he was aware that behind the butchery counter of the Eurasia Food Store there are a number of large knives.

"He was heavily intoxicated at the time, full of vodka, and decided he'd get one to show his cousin Stephen.

"He took it out of the shop to show his cousin and then took it back again.

"That's his explanation, but clearly it's not a 'reasonable excuse'.

"It's almost like something out of Crocodile Dundee."

Sheriff William Gilchrist said: "Right, I'll need reports."

Sentence was deferred until June for the preparation of a criminal justice social background assessment.

Outside court, McLaughlin said: "I know the people in the shop - I've been friends with them for many years, coming up to 21 years.

"A man who was with my cousin had a knife, so I went into the shop, borrowed a butcher's knife, and said to him 'that's not a knife - this is a knife."

He added: "I didn't do it to put anyone in fear or alarm.

"Afterwards I felt a bit stupid about it."

At the Eurasia Foodstore in Stirling, a spokesman said: "We weren't worried - it was obvious it was a joke."