"Strange" goings on...
in the late eighties i studied in nottingham for a couple of years, before dropping out in spectacular style...
returned home (200+ miles away) to re-group, as it were, and spent the next 14 years working in the licenced trade before jacking that off to work for myself renovating property.
one day my mobile rings and a voice (kind of familiar but cannae place it) asks if i'm blaireau69 the builder guy? and briefly describes a wee bit of work needing doing, am i interested?
aye, nae bother, give me some details and i'll pop round for a look before i commit...
the guy on the other end expresses some considerable relief, cos he's sick of leaving messages with mrs builder or on builders answerphones and not hearing back from them. he'd phoned me cos i was the only building repair/maintenance firm in the area that listed a mobile number in the yellow pages.
anyway, i say give me your name, address and phone number and i'll pop round.

he "okay, don't laugh, my name's 'strange'..."
me "laughs! seriously?"
he "yes. i told you not to laugh"
me "sorry, it's just i was at college with a guy called "s***** v***** strange" in nottingham in the late 80's"
he "fuck me, blaireau69 mc***?"

we never really knew each other that well at college, and he certainly didn't know where i came from. he'd moved to my home town about 2 months before for work. these days we are great pals, he was witness at my wedding just over a year ago and we've been on motorbiking holidays together.

and his surname actually is "strange"!

the world is this () big. aye?
( blaireau69 , the Cumbrian Travis Bickle., Tue 13 Feb 2007, 12:42, Reply)