» My first love

First Love...
We were born close together in time, our parents reckoned we could have been siblings. Her name was Deborah, which never seemed to be right for her. Everyone thought we'd get married and be together forever but we never did, although it alwasy crossed my mind. I once suggested meeting up in the new millenium, but it never happened, but it would be strange seeing everyone again, since they've all grown up.

Sorry, now you can all beat me to a Pulp ;)
(Thu 20th Oct 2005, 14:18, More)

» Terrible Parenting

Hmmm
Only a couple spring to mind, both my mum. She dislocated my older sister's elbow when playing with her as a toddler, resulting in a lovely trip to hospital.

Secondly, we had an Aga when we first moved in to our current house. I watched her hold my then three-year-old brother kind of in the manner of holding a newborn (i.e. on his back, arms under neck and knee), lowering him repeatedly over the hotplate cover (a sort of dome shape) and saying "i'm gonna burn your bum! I'm gonna burn your bum!" Little bro was laughing like crazy, so she did it some more. And some more. Then she caught his bare arse on the red-hot cover.

I don't think I've ever heard anyone scream so loudly since.

Mad as a hatter.
(Fri 17th Aug 2007, 9:18, More)

» Join us... come join the cult

I
have a Morman smile at me in recgonition everytime he sees me.

The reason being he once said "would you like to join the Church of Jesus Christ and Latter Day Saints?" so i said "no, i'm already in a church".
"oh really, what church is that?"
"the church of K.M.A".
"oh right, what does K.M.A. stand for?".

"Kiss My Arse" and I legged it.
(Fri 27th Jan 2006, 3:46, More)

» Kids

I made my Dad very proud of his parenting.
Mum and Dad decided between them that when teaching their offspring about the world (in that way that parents do) they would make no comment about skin tone and the like and would leave us to notice it for ourselves, on the basis that all people are equal and that sort of thing doesn't matter and so on and so forth.

A policy that bore fruit one day when i was about 4. I was with Dad and we were out at a museum, one of the RAF ones I think (possibly Hendon). He tells me we were sat in a cafe at lunch time, when I looked around me with an earnest expression. With a frown, I said:

"There are a lot of them here aren't there, Dad."

Dad knew precisely what I meant, and braced himself for it.

"A lot of what, Ben?"

"Browns".

He broke into a broad grin.

"And what are Browns, Ben?"

"People with brown skin".

I of course meant people of Afro-Caribbean extraction. It's now one of my Dad's favorite stories about my childhood. He's very pleased with how I'd worked it out myself and invented my own term for it, untainted by other's input.


On the same subject, one of my oldest friends apparently announced his knowledge of such things when on the Tube with his mum. He pointed and bellowed "Look Mummy! Chocolate Man!" She was mortified.
(Thu 17th Apr 2008, 21:26, More)

» Spoilt Brats

Finally, one I can answer!
The only story I can think of off the top of my head involves a guy at my college, well, more specifically two of them...

First, some background. My parents, while being what could be described as reasonably well-off, didn't especially spoil me and my siblings. We never wanted for anything and by and large we got what we wanted for birthdays and christmasses, within reason.

Besides which Dad's done a good job with the family firm (where I now work), steering it through the last few recessions and generally looking after things, you could say he's definitely earnt the right to live well.

My schooling (selective grammar, of the purple persuasion) has meant that inevitably I've come across some right Nathans, but this guy takes the biscuit.

For his 17th birthday, he got a brand new black New Mini Cooper (and they were brand new out at the time and pretty rare this being in the days before all the estate agents got them) completely loaded with every conceivable extra. Basically, it was the balls. Everyone (myself included, and rightly so) were incredibly jealous of it. However, his loaded Dad must have bribed the examiner, because there was no way the boy had passed his test judging by his driving.

Within days, he'd reversed it into a telegraph pole, when attempting to parallel park. While an awkward maneuver, somehow he managed to climb the kerb and hit the post with a sizable whack that almost knocked it down.

Out comes Daddy's cheque book and the car's repaired and immaculate. No need for dent repairs, just replace everything and away we go.

Fast forward a couple of weeks, and he's bent it again, this time banging the nose on the car in front, again while parking. How he managed that I'll never know, yet off it goes to the bodyshop.

Then, the coup de grace. A few non-eventful weeks pass, and people come in to school to notice that Mini Driver and another person from our year were missing.

Apparently, over the weekend, Mini Driver no longer had a Mini, and the other classmate was lucky to be alive. They'd been tearing around backroads in the countryside when Mini Driver clipped a kerb just before a sharp bend.

The impact threw the Mini violently into the air, and as we all know, brakes no longer work when no wheels are in contact with the ground. Consequently the Mini didn't slow down. It went straight on at the bend, and then stopped.

Suddenly.

By hitting a house.

It was written off, and both were hospitalised. Mini Driver suffered cuts and bruises at the most. The other guy wasn't so lucky. His internal organs were battered to hell (ruptured this, strained that etc), and he spent a long time in hospital. He was never the same after that.

It served to prove to me that some people know the price of everything and the value of nothing.
(Thu 9th Oct 2008, 20:26, More)