Daniel Craig was in most of my classes in school.
I nearly punched him once in PE.
( FeralCatMan Unusual disease collector., Fri 21 Sep 2012, 16:25, 2 replies)

Another one
According to my gran, one of my ancestors may have been murdered by Jack the Ripper. Apparently she ran away from home having been knocked about by her husband and was involved in the oldest profession - she's one of the women who were apparently murdered on the same night.

Good stock, right there.
(Jimbojames Wishing every day could be like today, Fri 21 Sep 2012, 16:24, Reply)

Capesy! Move your van!
I used to live in the house next to the bungalow where former World's Strongest Man, Shot Putt olympian and budgerigar breeder Mr Geoff Capes used to live. I went to school with his daughter too. But they had moved before we moved in. However our paths were always destined to cross: one day my dad was reversing his car into a main road (this alone would have thoroughly peeved Mr Capes, since he was formerly a police officer) when all of a suuden he felt a crunch. He'd backed straight into Geoff's huge red Vauxhall Frontera which was emblazoned with something along the lines of 'This is Geoff Capes' Car' or similar - opening school sports days and appearing on Superstars (probably) clearly wasn't enough for Geoff, he wanted all the residents of Spalding in Lincolnshire to know he was driving round the town.

Needess to say 'Capesy' wasn't amused. My dad on the other hand made light of it..'Well, that's one way to meet the 'former' world's strongest man'

I think my dad's hand has just about recovered, some twenty or so years since.

I also once served Dave Gedge off of the Wedding Present a pint in the pub I worked in.
(martpr martpr, Fri 21 Sep 2012, 16:24, 1 reply)

Pool party
When mini-me was very little he was in a film with some famous types.
One being Colin Salmon.
All the actor had to do was sweep up the kid and run him out of a building past the indoor swimming pool.
He lost his footing and fucking fell in, fully clothed and with my son wrapped around his neck.
Everyone screamed and started flapping around like a bomb had gone off, so the security bloke did a dramatic running jump belly flop at them and dragged them out.
I wouldn't mind but it was only about 3ft deep.
( Herb Alpert's Taxi Driver I have very beautiful lips, Fri 21 Sep 2012, 16:19, Reply)

The first "text to telly" fluffer on the continent.
During the first tonic-clonic baby steps of "interactive" telly the boss of a local station was in a bit of a kerfuffle. After he opposed airing Big Brother (this is ridiculous, no one will bother watching) and generally kept his boozy, sweary, cynical showman mates in their 80s miasma.. there was this new keen thing from the US of A - sending texts to telly. And this was the future, one for the hip kids, like AOL or boybands. We would be the first in Yurop to spread this cheese. I was getting high and shagging his daughter in the meantime, doing the odd household chore to top up my booze piggy (not her, well, differently) at the parents' place. At other times even having a talk with the patriarch on media and arts, which was my budding profession and/or pretense to nick posh vino from his lair on the veranda. Yes sir, very interesting indeed (cough cough) ah yes those computers, good stuff, them, oh what was that, money? Sweet. Let's do it.

The heart of flashness draws me in. Busy underlings pace through many-doored corridors, dragging soma for us, the millions about. The Man casually gossips with creatives and presenter types. His station is 10 years further down from my demography, still the buzz rubs off. Some even direct a few words of general acceptance to the bebaggypanted lynx smelling yoof I was. Then I am in the inner sanctum, settling in for the night with a platter of buns and soft drinks fit for a space age serf. They brief me that there is as of yet no interface from text to screen, That will be me. Oh my. And off we go.

The show rolls off, something folk music and has-beens doing fun sports and live audience (yes, indeed, live everything) doing their spiel with the pomaded smiler. Then! he anounces us. On flicks my grid. Up surge dozens of pages of random LOLFIRST messages from the last week. Technician winks and kicks the lot out of the queue. Then the first hamfisted cries of the public come farting in. We copy every dozenth or so, flush the racism and scorn and bump the greetings. The bands even hear from some of what we splurt out there from some other monkey sending comments the presenter is plugged into. They keep mentioning it across the commercial breaks and in the ticker under the screen where our texts go. As the sun goes down and we reach stable workflow techie dude leaves me alone.

And there goes the prankster. Despite the crude UNIXy surface there was a step where you could edit stuff, we used it to throw last names and numbers out. So you want to propose to the fat slag next to you on the couch? Let's add a cheesy remark about how bovinely she snogs. Something from a county I don't like? Let me just casually funk up the grammar so everyone knows how daft your lot is. And a shout-out for my mates, beavisly butt-heading their way through this guff. Smiley here, useless one word tourette filler there. Whatever a teenage mind burps hither.

Yeah, I was the first text-to-screen pipeline guy in Europe. Remember remember.
(funktrash soul = combustion engine, Fri 21 Sep 2012, 16:08, 3 replies)

Vic Reeves owes me a pint.
One night in a local music/watering hole, my band was playing. After the break the singer came back and said, "we've had a request." I said, "yeah? What? Get in the van and don't come back?", "No" he says, "someone in the audience wants to come and do a song with us."
Of course, it was Vic Reeves (with a bloke who looked and dressed exactly like him by his side. I can only assume it was his less-famous, but jealous brother). Anyway, he comes up and does a few songs, some in the style of a club singer and struts his stuff - at the end of one song he dramatically threw the mic-stand down on the ground - straight into a brand new gleaming pint that a mate had thoughtfully bought for me and popped up on the side of the stage.
I looked him in the eye, expecting a "Sorry about that; let me get you another...what was it you were drinking?" ....and the twunt looked straight through me without a word.
Apparently, a few years before, our singer was on holiday in Greece and had dived into a pool.....not realising that the water was only a couple of feet deep and cracked his skull open. The only other person near the pool was Reeves. He jumped in, laid him on his side, then went for assistance...presumably saving our singers' life.
After this they became friends and he could be seen in the audience of our gigs quite frequently. This was the only time he came and sang with us. We were booked to play at his sister's wedding, but I'd left the band before that gig transpired.

....but also:

I used to have Anthony Hopkins' granddaughter as a 'friend with benefits' for one.
I've been on that Tonight with Trevor McDougal programme too, the director (who was also the current director of something called Coronation Street) got a numb arse crouching down in my garage -which doubled up as an office...and also BBC's Working Lunch.
My Nan's cousin is Hank Marvin.
I once spat in Michael Howard's pint in my local when he wasn't looking. This was shortly after he'd passed the 'Criminal Justice Bill Amendment - or whatever it was' which gave police the power to close down anywhere with no notice if it was playing music with 'a repetitive beat', so it seemed somewhat deserved at the time.
(dchurch bah, Fri 21 Sep 2012, 16:06, Reply)

I lived in Memphis, Tn for 4 years
and my Dad was head of security and operations at Graceland.

Check and fucking mate.
(Set your faces to Stunned Bigly, Fri 21 Sep 2012, 16:03, 4 replies)

Nobel piss
My dad's foot was peed on by a Nobel prize winner, Sir William Lawrence Bragg, to be precise. I'd like to say that my dad never cleaned that shoe again, but that wouldn't be true.

And my sister was at school with Carole Decker out of T'Pau.

Not sure which of these two claims is shitter.
(Smale is stuffed, Fri 21 Sep 2012, 16:02, Reply)

Bob Hawke - Australian Prime Minister in the 1980's
During the 1980's my ex-wife was HR manager at the Australian House of Representatives. Christmas 1988 (the first year they were in the new parliament house) the Labor Party (who were in government) put on a party for all the parliamentary staff. So, I tagged along, got a free beer. Anyway, this short, silver hair guy smoking a fat cigar comes up to me and says "G'day, mate, I'm Bob, how's it going?"

So I reply, "G'day Bob, I'm Ken. Great party, thanks for putting it on."

We chatted for another minute, then he moved on to do some more schmoozing.
(Maclir, Fri 21 Sep 2012, 15:59, Reply)

I watched Ron Lobeck play football.

( Brandy_Bumwinkle, Fri 21 Sep 2012, 15:47, 1 reply)

I was supposed to be a famous writer.
Sort of.

My friend is a moderately successful (read: impoverished) novelist. He’s got three books under his belt, done with very well regarded publishing houses, and is generally considered a serious and thoughtful up-and-comer.
The trouble with serious and thoughtful novels is that they usually make absolutely fuck all for the author. Because most of the time no-one gives a fuck except critics and wankers.

So my friend had a brilliant ruse – he wrote a trilogy of potboilers. Knockabout crime capers with a supernatural flourish, purely visceral heaps of shit that would be lapped up by the shallow masses and make him a fortune. Brilliant!

But there was no way he wanted his name (“serious novelist,” under contract to a distinguished publisher) associated with this bilge. He needed a front man. Someone who could put their name on the book, do the meetings and the promotional guff and the interviews, while he sat back and reaped 60% as a credited ‘assistant’. Which is where I came in.

My friend got us a contract with a great agent, and she sent this golden goose to all her chums at the big publishers here and across the pond. We spent the next month waiting for the bidding war to explode, speculating feverishly about how we’d spunk our millions.

Every single editor rejected it.

Half of them didn’t even reply. The most cutting comment came from one who was clearly good at his job, and possibly a bit of a cunt:
“With books like these, books that rely heavily on their mythos and more fantastical elements, you have to really feel that the author cares. And this book struck me as a flippant one in that respect, done cynically to get sales. It’s an exercise in mass-market paperback box ticking, and not a particularly good one at that. No thanks.”

I am available for signings.
( Wet-chinned bag shanker Cannot parse Wogan, Fri 21 Sep 2012, 15:33, 2 replies)

My 1st girlfriends Mums 1st Husband
was in The Hollies.
( Ya What Skiddlyboop, Fri 21 Sep 2012, 15:26, Reply)

The School Sports Partnership
was an initiative to encourage sports in state schools in the 1970s. I puffed my way once around the field (about 200 metres) and my reward was a photo of myself sitting on Kris Akabusi's knee. Awooga! Which is a bit weird for a 12 year old, thinking about it.

His knees buckled from my weight and he had to retire from sport.
( browser still relating boring anecdotes into a void on, Fri 21 Sep 2012, 15:19, 1 reply)

I'm on Page 3 of today's Daily Mail
Not with my tits out, but because a Twitter I done about Waitrose was judged to be funny. I wasn't trying to be funny, I was angling for free stuff.

I will now spend the weekend scrubbing myself down with a wire brush.
( Scaryduck LIKES EGG, Fri 21 Sep 2012, 15:19, 1 reply)

I went to school with Fred Wedlock's daughter.

( Je suis un vagabond is an unfunny, up your own arse middle class knob, Fri 21 Sep 2012, 15:18, Reply)

You can see the back of my head
for 2 fifths of a second in the hit movie "Wimbledon". I played a security guard.
( browser still relating boring anecdotes into a void on, Fri 21 Sep 2012, 15:15, Reply)

I'm Friends
with the guitarist from 8 Deadly Words
(andythepieman Is surfing the waves of indifference on, Fri 21 Sep 2012, 15:14, Reply)

Robert Downey Jr's two veg
Readers, you may recall the first of the recent spate of Sherlock films when it came out several years ago. You may also recall a scene where Sherlock and Watson chase a villain through the streets, barging past people going about their business. At one point, they overturn a cart full of fresh vegetables. Gentle reader - I ate the cabbages on that cart. In fact, they became a most wonderful sausage and vegetable stew.

(This part of Sherlock was filmed - as many big budget productions are - at Greenwich Naval College in London. The place becomes a giant film set, mostly closed off to the public. But my friend used to work in a shop on site and took pity on all that poor veg, about to be thrown away, and brought it back to a good home.)
(moosefish, Fri 21 Sep 2012, 15:01, 2 replies)

A few hours in hell...
My ex-boyfriend played a round of golf with the world's biggest twat, Jim Davidson. He lived up to this stellar reputation by making sleazy comments about his friend's daughter's boobies (to the girl's dad) and telling very unfunny 'jokes'.
(ThursdayNext drowning in gin on, Fri 21 Sep 2012, 14:52, Reply)

I used to work with Craig Philips' Cousin
You know the one, the first one to win Big Brother (UK). That Craig.

I'd like to tell you about how I got lots of dirt on Craig, how much of a bell end he was and all that, but frankly the guy I worked with was as much of a twat as he made Craig out to be, so it was painful even being in the same room as him.
(Kushan just wants to fit in..to your mum, Fri 21 Sep 2012, 14:39, Reply)

I was working in a restaurant
When Michael Winner came in and ordered soup. I was the one who didn't spunk into it.
(andythepieman Is surfing the waves of indifference on, Fri 21 Sep 2012, 14:35, Reply)

I got up on stage
During the show and asked for Duggie Browns autograph when i was about three. He was signing autographs during the interval and my gran urged me to go up and get one but i dithered so much that i was late and the show had restarted. I seem to remember he was good about it and got me to talk to the audience through his microphone (no not a euphemism).
Around about the same time while in town with my dad we bumped into Richard Dunn the man who had just fought Muhammad Ali for the World Heavyweight title. My dad asked him to pose for a photo with me holding my fist to his chin but misunderstanding i instead punched him in the face. I would like to say i laid him out with a massive drug fuelled blow and drove off in my Honda accord of justice but that would deny the truth which was i got a bollocking for hitting the nice man and the resulting photo was of me looking very sulky indeed.
(andythepieman Is surfing the waves of indifference on, Fri 21 Sep 2012, 14:32, 1 reply)

Angus Deayton went to my school.
I wasn't there at the time.
( .Yeti., Fri 21 Sep 2012, 14:25, 1 reply)

My uncle and his mates
live close to some of the main London studios and have been involved in film and T.V. to various degrees. As with most actors with equity cards, my uncle has a real job and teaches art and drama. One of his claims to fame is tutoring the Harry Potter kids when they were filming.

His best mate made it to 'guy playing pool' on Eastenders with Phil and Grant, when all the stories were about Phil and Grant. I remember we all sat down to watch - he chalked his cue and said 'your turn', or something like that.

They had a 'production company' called Pink Hippo Productions and they toured schools putting on performances. They also campaigned a bit too, dressed as pink hippos, but this came to a halt after they were campaigning against McDonald's in Leicester Square and a man in a suit informed them that McD's were a very big company and had more money (and better lawyers) than they ever would, so would they mind disappearing.

R.I.P. Pink Hippo Productions.
(Jimbojames Wishing every day could be like today, Fri 21 Sep 2012, 14:20, Reply)

In my early teens I sometimes hung around with the son of a Grumbleweed.
Strangely the lad always had more friends in summer when the pool was in use and there was a chance of catching his sister sunbathing.
The Grunbleweed himself was a decent bloke and was restoring a couple of classic cars so I sometimes chatted to him about them whilst his son decided which outfit to wear and had swearing matches with his mother.
(Me, I'm not... in any way intoxicated, Fri 21 Sep 2012, 14:20, 3 replies)

My friend...
Once had a girlfriend who's parents Milkman was Stings Dad.
(Woodlouse say it with flowers. Send her a Triffid, Fri 21 Sep 2012, 14:12, Reply)

Pat Sharpe and the Pissy Lemon
I did a ski season in the Alps a few years ago and one night Pat Sharpe was DJing at the local club. After several drinks, my manager at the time (a delightful scouse lady called Jen) decided that he was shit and was going to punish him for said shitness in her own unique way.

She picked the lemon wedge out of her drink, urinated on it (on the dance floor, as you do) and launched it at the mulleted DJ. It hit him square in the face and we all had a good laugh.

Not sure if he knew it was covered in piss though.
(CasuallyObscene, Fri 21 Sep 2012, 13:55, 2 replies)

Wham cRap
I found Andrew Ridgeley's (he of Wham non-guitar playing fame) wifes purse outside a pub in St Agnes, Cornwall.
It was stuffed with cash.
Like a good turd, I handed in into the bar. The barman took the purse over to Mr and Mrs Ridgeley, and pointed at me to indicate who had handed it in.
Did they thank me? Did they fuck. No reward, no pint, not even a thankyou.
( insignificantsnivellinglittleturd I Like Peas, Fri 21 Sep 2012, 13:47, 1 reply)

I stole a child from The Algarve once
it was in the papers and everything
(TheManWithThePlan cussed your mum on, Fri 21 Sep 2012, 13:43, 2 replies)

Failing to be on TV
I was visiting a mate in New York. We were wandering around Times Square, and noticed that there were lots of camera crews around, doing Vox Pops. Looking up to the big screens, it became apparent why: the verdict on Clinton's impeachment was about to be announced.

So we tried to get interviewed. Strangely, the TV people all seemed to be avoiding us. I think it was my mate's coat, which looked (and smelled) like he'd stolen it from a vagrant who'd died in the gutter from a combination of meths, hypothermia and explosive diorrhoea.
(moon monkey is busy making memories worth repressing, Fri 21 Sep 2012, 13:41, Reply)