the only one i can think of
Our local council invented a character to encourage kids to stop dropping litter. It turned out to be some jobbing actor painted green, covered in crisp packets. He went to all the schools whilst the local councillor talked about how he lurked in bushes waiting for you to drop litter, so he could collect it, make more copies of himself, then take over with their messiness. The problem was that he was bloody terrifying. Consequently, we were all to scared to play outside for quite a while, as we were aware that a creepy man was watching us from the bushes, and we also all developed the habit of stuffing our bags full of rubbish to prevent him breeding.
(niceandwarmandhot vive la résistance, Fri 6 Jan 2006, 14:20, Reply)

I managed to convince a friend
that Stephen Hawking was cockney rhyming slang for walking. It's now in common use around our school and I fear it may have spread.
( Lightguy hail satan, Fri 6 Jan 2006, 14:19, Reply)

I once heard.......
woman can achieve an orgasm, didn't fool me for minute.


insert it all you want, length and girth of John holmes if you want, it's just can't happen.
( The Awful Puppy Bakery is still bored, Fri 6 Jan 2006, 14:14, Reply)

The Penguin Story, again
moonat8: My wife, the charming Mrs Duck, also swears by the "idiot mental kid taking a penguin home" story.

She claims it was her best friend from school's six-year-old son on a visit to Marwell Zoo, famed for its lack of security guards patting you down for stolen animals at the exits. The kid kept asking if "penguins like the dark, mum" all the way home, the offending bag rattling around in the boot of the car.

The Mrs Duck version of events says her friend took the penguin straight back, but they still had her arrested, and the courts stung her for 600 quid.

"It must be true - it was in the Evening Post!" she wails, yet I believe her not.
( Scaryduck LIKES EGG, Fri 6 Jan 2006, 14:08, Reply)

asteroid
did anyone hear the thing about a asteroid 4 times the size of earth coming for us ready to hit in 2013?? I heard they made a press release and quickly retracted the statement and erased all evidence of such a things existence?

FACT*** POSH DOES STAND FOR PORT OUT STARBOARD HOME AND DADDY LONG LEGS DO HAVE A FATAL VENOM****
(AnGeBloWz, Fri 6 Jan 2006, 14:08, Reply)

Dad Facts
My dad reckons that if you tie a scarf round your head it indicates that you are a baptized Seikh. Is this true or is it just another turban legend ?
(I'M JACK MEADOWS, Fri 6 Jan 2006, 14:08, Reply)

daddylong legs
I told him it was the crane fly when we had one flying around in the office and told him to watch out for it.
This is years ago, I havent seen animals as Gervais is a smug cunt and wasnt funny in the 11 o'clock show and isnt funny now.
(Barry Chuckle has gone out in the thong to feed the pigeons, Fri 6 Jan 2006, 14:05, Reply)

Santa Claus
I was once told that he was Jesus' real dad, I'm still not certain if this is a legend or not because for that to be real it would presuppose the existence of Jesus which is pushing it a little ... isn't it?
(I'M JACK MEADOWS, Fri 6 Jan 2006, 14:00, Reply)

Just to clear this up
The daddy longlegs spider is one of the most venimous creatures on the planet, the daddy long legs (crane fly) is about as venimous a a can of top deck.
( The Awful Puppy Bakery is still bored, Fri 6 Jan 2006, 14:00, Reply)

A mate of mine
claimed to have seen Tupac in the park, walking his dog.
In Christchurch Park (Ipswich).
After he'd been shot.

No wonder he's still making records like there's no tomorrow - if that's not a good alibi, I don't know what is!
( The Mock TurtIe ™ --- Thinks you are a cunt, on, Fri 6 Jan 2006, 13:58, Reply)

Bathroom Tap Water
When I was a kiddy my best friend informed me that drinking tap water from the bathroom would kill you. Unfounded as this claim was, I believed it without any doubt; from thereon in I just didn't drink bathroom tap water, it became second nature.

This all came crashing down at a friend's 17th birthday party (in a restaurant) when, as a dare, I ate a tablespoon of chilli-sauce. In a fit of mouth-searing agony I legged it to the bog and drank some serious amounts of water. It was then that I chose to acknowledge the "bathroom water will kill you" thing. So I sat, petrified beyond all reason that I was going to die in the very near future, in the restaurant's toilets. Weeping. I didn't want to die.

After 30 or so minutes I realised that I'd been following a bollocks rule for survival for nigh on 10 years and that I wasn't going to die after all. I felt really, really fucking stupid.
( Fictional Emma, Fri 6 Jan 2006, 13:55, Reply)

I once heard.......
Merkin tourists when visiting Britain pronounce Loughbourgh Loogabarooga.
( The Awful Puppy Bakery is still bored, Fri 6 Jan 2006, 13:55, Reply)

Murder - Gallic Style.
I heard that popular Sattelite Dish Face looking singer Sophie Ellis Bextor was killed by a popular French Footballer.

Apparantley it was murder on Zidane's floor.


Just Fuck Off
(hoogie Original Cunt Horse Author, Fri 6 Jan 2006, 13:54, Reply)

Purple Aki.
Around Liverpool in the early 80's, terror tales circulated about this modern-day bogeyman, who if he caught you, you were given the choice of being bummed by him, or having your name carved into your arse with a knife. The term 'Pop or Slash?' was coined.

I thought that he was a myth until he was banged up for stalking boys in St. Helens a couple of years ago:

blog.urbanomic.com/sphaleotas/archives/000039.html

The 'Pop or Slash' bit wasn't true though... or was it?!
(Green-Alsatian, Fri 6 Jan 2006, 13:50, Reply)

Good grief, Gleeballs!
I never realised that Legless and I were one and the same for all this time.

But then again, I am...
(stusut79, Fri 6 Jan 2006, 13:49, Reply)

I think every person at school
must have heard about the teacher who hanged himself, the person who OD'd in the bogs, the child molesting teacher, the fit teacher who shags people on school trips?

I fell for none of them, apart from the person who OD'd in the toilets, 'cos we found him.
( The Beast can't help looking at womens breasts on the tube, Fri 6 Jan 2006, 13:48, Reply)

Daddy Longlegs
Emo - Ricky Gervais states this 'fact' in his stand up (Animals).
(moonat8, Fri 6 Jan 2006, 13:45, Reply)

Careful conditioning by an evil sister
My sister and I used to walk round out local woods every now and then. We'd walk a reasonable distance until we were walking alongside a big metal fence that surrounded what looked like a big important building to my young innocent eyes (it turned out to be a sewage plant). My sister told me that the fence was electric and to never go too near it. She told me this again and again over a few weeks until one day on our walk she suddenly pushed me into the fence. I screamed and screamed until I realised that my sister was pissing herself laughing and that I was not actually being electrocuted.
(moonat8, Fri 6 Jan 2006, 13:43, Reply)

SatchmoR
Sorry mate! i hate to make others lose, i've got so many people playing by accident now and i feel kinda bad!

But according to The_Pink_Mongoose i've condemed myself to Hull (Yes Hull)so Karma has once again swiftly and deftly f$£ked me!
(Xyphious : Sinkin' Gin since '85, Fri 6 Jan 2006, 13:43, Reply)

The Penguin Story
Friend of a friend story. This lad a mentally retarded younger brother, let's call him Kevin, who got taken on a trip to the zoo with a bunch of other kids. All the kids were rounded up at the end of the day except for Kevin. They eventually found him wet through and muttering to himself with his rucksacj on his lap. They asked him how he got wet but he just continued to mutter so they took him back to the coach. His Mum picked him up from the school, took him home and told him to go and run a bath to get warmed up. Later she heard lots of splashing around and giggling comnig from upstairs, she went upstairs to find Kevin standing next to the bath watching a penguin have a swim, his open, empty rucksack next to him.

I believed this until someone else told me the same story. My friend convinced me that it was a true story and that he'd met this mental kid!
(moonat8, Fri 6 Jan 2006, 13:39, Reply)

It never fails to amaze me what people will believe.
A few years ago I used to churn out some half arsed lies that people believed, like Antony Daniels who played C3PO was also the singer in shit 70's disco merchants Shalamar, everyone believed it until someone remembered that he is white and they were black!

Another was that Paris St Germain football club and rugby club used the same players! They don't even have same amount of players for each sport, which probably means a lot of my mates are a bit (very) gullible.

The trouble is though, that when you come out with a nugget of useless and unlikely information, like, they speak Welsh in parts of Patagonia in Argentina, people think you're taking the piss
(El Cabron, Fri 6 Jan 2006, 13:34, Reply)

Daddy Long Legs
I convinced a bloke I worked with years ago that Daddy long legs (crane flies) would be deadly due to the venom they carry but they cant open their jaws wide enough to break human skin.
I have told various people this and posted it online, a few months ago my missus had a spammy email with "things you never knew" one of them was the daddy long legs are poisonous "fact" I had made up.
there is even a web page somewhere debunking it.

Its wrong I feel proud about it isnt it?
(Barry Chuckle has gone out in the thong to feed the pigeons, Fri 6 Jan 2006, 13:15, Reply)

Shakin Stevens lives down the Elms
"The Elms" being the road round the corner from us.
Us: Oi what's your name
Man on Bike: Shakin Stevens, now fuck off.
Us(running to tell mum): Mum, mum, Shakin' Stevens lives down the Elms.
.......Silence..........
Us: He said Fuck Off
Mum: WHAT THE HELL DID YOU JUST SAY...SHERYL DID YOU HEAR WHAT SHE JUST SAID?-(SLAP)-DON'T YOU EVER SAY THAT WORD AGAIN (SLAP)

I still can't get my head round the fact she wasn't excited.
(patbutcherearrings, Fri 6 Jan 2006, 13:14, Reply)

The_Pink_Mongoose
The Rat Blood myth is from Rohld Dahl's 'Boy'. Good read. :)
(Black_Dwarf frawD_kcalB, Fri 6 Jan 2006, 13:04, Reply)

Berlesconi
A few of us on p45rant.com dreamt up a bunch of media pranks a few years ago - the most infamous one involved claiming that in a fit of nationalism, that Berlusconi was demanding a Carravaggio painting back from the Irish National Gallery, on the basis that it was Italian. That story made the front page of the daily broadsheet, the Irish Independent.


More of our pranks

"Since we're coming clean, because 5-7 Live exposed us yesterday, yes, P45.net did write the following stories of recent months: Monaghan Association in New York St Patrick's Day Parade Row; Mysterious underground tunnels under Clontarf; new taxi fleet to offer cheap fares to dublin airport; New minimum walking speed for Dublin; Liam Lawlor - the movie; Glenn Crowe to become first Eircom League million transfer; Berlusconi demands immediate repatriation of 'Ireland's' Caravaggio. In case you missed the originals...."


The Caravaggio Prank.
(blather http://blather.net, Fri 6 Jan 2006, 13:01, Reply)

Other stuff.
1) I used to believe the one about it being impossible to lick your own elbow, 'til I saw somebody actually do it. It's not impossible. Just very difficult.

2) There was a rumour going round school that licorice contained rat blood. Not sure where that came from.

3) A friend of a friend's, sister-in-law's, pet dog's, second cousin four times removed's mate etc. once lost his penis in an "accident" involving a vacumn cleaner. Sure we've all heard that one...

4) That people who deliberately remind others of The Game on B3ta are doomed to a life in Hull, being forced to listen to the Crazy Frog & watch Celebrity Big Brother for all eternity.
( Sylia Stingray is pilfering the biscuits on, Fri 6 Jan 2006, 13:00, Reply)

There's been a few..
But notably, that our local kebab vendor was called "John Van de Kebab". Months later I asked him and it wasn't, of course. It was "Benny Chillisos".

Not really, it was Nick.
( browser still relating boring anecdotes into a void on, Fri 6 Jan 2006, 13:00, Reply)

Smello...
I'm afraid the truth about the bespectacled dorky friend of Fred Savage in "The Wonder Years" is far, far worse than the legend.
(><(((">, Fri 6 Jan 2006, 12:58, Reply)

Another one in the same vein as the 2 Unlimited car crash thing...
I was told years ago that Snow (the early 90s one-hit-wonder of 'Informer' fame) had been stabbed and killed outside a concert for saying that he thought white folk to be better rappers than black folk.

I still believed it until about 10 minutes ago when this QOTW prompted me to Google it. By the looks of things he's actually still recording (then again so is Tupac).

Damn you b3ta for destroying my blissful ignorance. I feel like a right twunt now.

EDIT: Fuck it - I believed the daddy long legs venom story and the Port Out; Starboard Home one too. Cunted.
(Arnolfini wasn't feeling very funny on, Fri 6 Jan 2006, 12:57, Reply)

Legless
Nice try. Don't try back-tracking now. I've fallen for it once, I won't fall for it again. I'm not that stupid.

EDIT: In fact I demand you admit it right now.
( Gleeballs is mostly made out of chocolate and hate., Fri 6 Jan 2006, 12:53, Reply)