» Puns

Four Candles
That is all.
(Thu 5th Mar 2009, 14:03, More)

» Shoplifting

Not shoplifting as such, more idiotic theft
I should point out before I start that I have never shoplifted in my life, and find theft morally reprehensible. It's just that alcohol seems to blur the line between 'theft' and 'that seems like a good idea'.

My first story is set in Cambridge, where I'd been drinking in my old college bar all evening with a friend. He'd left his bike in the college bike sheds, and as we staggered out of the bar to head back to his house, bottles of wine clutched in our hands (not entirely sure where we'd got them from, but that's another story), he asked me to ensure that he didn't try and ride his bike home. I assured him that I most certainly wouldn't.

Fast forward, ooh, two minutes, and he's wheeling his BMX out of the bike shed (we were in our 20s by then and far too old for this type of bike, but as children of the 70s and 80s it seemed OK to us). This made perfect sense to me, despite my previous assertions. However, a problem had arisen - how was I to get home? I had no bike, and he was sitting on his outside the front of college waiting for me. The answer presented itself to me, conveniently enough, in the form of a nice, shiny, unlocked bicycle standing propped up against the kerb right next to me. Fantastic! I leapt onto the bike, and we both pedalled off happily, wine bottles still in hand.

The fact that the owner of this bike, and their friends, had been stood _right next to it_ when I got on it, had indeed registered with me, but seemed of little consequence at the time.

I got about two minutes down the road when I felt a tap on my shoulder. I turned (wobbled) to see one of the aforementioned people on his bike, asking what I thought I was doing. A large gentleman, who may have played rugby. I stopped, said 'there you go mate' and handed him the bike back. I also offered him my bottle of wine as a peace offering, which he declined.

He then just took the bike I'd stolen and cycled back off in the direction he'd just come from. Without kicking my head in. A remarkably phlegmatic chap, I've always thought.

The second instance is more the usual drunken student stealing of roadsigns, this one from Ventnor on the Isle of Wight whilst on a geology field trip. This is more by way of an apology to the good people of The Pitts, but I'm sure you've had that stolen plenty of times before. It was bloody heavy, mind, and took up a lot of space in the department minibus on the way home.

Length? About half way down Trumpington Street.

Sorry it's a long one, this is my first, so be gentle...
(Thu 10th Jan 2008, 13:59, More)

» I'm your biggest Fan

Not a fan as such
But I once spent an entire drunken weekend in Puerto Banus being stalked by Nicky Butt. No, really. Every bar I went in, he'd come in after me. Every cheesy Euro-club (and they really are shit in Puerto Banus), he'd be there.
He even turned up in the same queue at the airport when it was time to go home. He's a bit of a ratty little fucker.

I also stood right next to Sol Campbell in a club in Dubai, and was going to engage him in a learned debate about how he was a cunt for leaving Spurs for Arsenal.

But then I remembered that a) he's bigger and harder than me, and b) I'm a coward. So I pretended to be cool and ignore him.

I think I should stop going to footballers' hangouts. I don't even _like_ those places; Dubai is a fucking awful place. Another story there, maybe.
(Fri 17th Apr 2009, 15:12, More)

» Common

Is this actually someone's dissertation subject?
If I were studying some pointless subject, say sociology, at a former polytechnic (see what I did there?), then this QOTW would be an absolutely perfect way of getting a shit load of raw data from thousands of people.

I mean, apart from stories about drinking, I can think of nothing that will send a load of Brits (due respect to our overseas readers) into an absolute frenzy of indignant posting more than a QOTW concerning what is essentially the Great British Class System.
Brilliant.

*Goes off to have his tea on the settee in front of the telly*
(Thu 16th Oct 2008, 17:50, More)

» Rubbish Towns

Redhill, Surrey
A truly awful place, and one that has possibly been designed as social experiment. You see, despite it's utter awfulness, a lot of large financial organisations have seen fit to set up offices there, which means a daily culture clash between people wearing suits and with jobs who have to commute there, and people who choose to live there.

I can't write anything better than this gentleman did:

www.chavtowns.co.uk/2004/08/redhill/

Although a couple of stories do spring to mind.

Firstly there was the occasion when most of the staff of a subsidiary of a large, Dutch bank found the spectacle of two people having carnal relations at the back of a bus more diverting than their daily, more worthy tasks. People do this sort of thing at the backs of buses all the time, surely, on a Friday night on the way back from the pub. Why, yes. But this was 11am on a weekday, and the bus was parked in a bus stop lay-by in the MIDDLE OF TOWN. And it was the bus driver who was partaking of said carnal delights, in front of 300 people in a tall, glass-sided office block. Apparently it was quite a show.

Or the time when, walking back from a couple of lunchtime refreshing beverages in the town's only decent pub (names withheld to protect the innocent), a man was observed curling a sizeable log out into the gutter. In the middle of town again, did i mention that? At lunchtime.

Other than that we used to regularly go for post-work drinks in a pub called the Stabbot.*

*may not be its real name
(Thu 29th Oct 2009, 13:31, More)