My Beer Club.
I run a Beer Club at my work (The Hop Hounds).

Each payday 50 of us deposit a small percent of our pay into a central account. We let it build up to a decent amount, then blow the lot on cartons of new and interesting beers.

I do the purchasing and choosing, which is good fun, going into a bottle shop and cleaning up pretty much all of the boutique beers on offer. You get all sorts of free tat too, sunglasses, inflatable sofas, steins etc etc. Everyone gets to try lots of beers they wouldn't normally buy, and sometimes scores some beer orientated merchandise.

At first I thought I'd struggle to find enough variation, but 9 years later, I haven't repeated a single brand.

The absolute worst one was a bizarre Chinese beer that smelled ultra farty when opened and some of the bottles had dead insects floating in them. Quality control was somewhat lax in that brewery.

The second worst would have to be any beer brewed with fruit (raspberries, blueberries). Disgusting concept, I don't care how "traditional" it is.

And yet, I still buy good old VB cans for myself when I go to the bottle shop.


A typical Hop Hounds evening is as follows:

Prepare your beer first.

There's something deeply, deeply assuring and Zen-like about laying a slab of beautiful green VB cans into the bottom of an esky, busting open bags of ice over the top, layering ice evenly over the first layer, repeat for another layer of cans, and top with more ice. Stand back and admire your handiwork, then close the lid firmly, and let sit for 1 hour.

Meanwhile prepare lamb chops in a deep platter with olive oil, rough chopped fresh rosemary, sea salt, white pepper, crushed garlic and a good squeeze of lemon. (Tip; when squeezing the lemon, make sure you squeeze it so as the juice trickles through your fingers, and be sure to contort your face into a violently scrunched belm. Don't know why, just seems to be the current practice of personality chefs on TV). Mix the whole lot with your fingers, and then wipe your hands on the curtains/dog.

Thickly slice some Haloumi, chuck it in some olive oil. Debeak the octopus, cut it all up into small chunks and chuck that in some olive oil too, but add heaps and heaps of lemon juice to break down the protein because they can be rubbery fuckers, even when cooked with care. Again, this presents an excellent opportunity for further belming.

By now, the beer will be chilled, guests have arrived and are sitting around discussing sex, religion and politics, so fire up the bbq and turn it to low. Let it slowly but surely heat up. Contrary to popular thinking, bbq's need to be heated for a good 20 minutes before cooking. This allows the metal to retain heat when all the food is slapped on. This is an opportune time to sit down and have some beer whilst the food marinates in various juices.

If you are dedicated and reasonably "piss fit", you should try and manage to get through one dog beer prior to cooking (6 human beers = 1 dog beer).

Just as everyone is getting a bit blind and increasingly adjective-y, stumble to the fridge and get the food. Slap all the chops on first, this usually results in a few spectacular flames from the oil, and will guarantee a few "ooohs" from your guests.

At this point, do your best to ward of the Type A personalities who will inevitably wander over and lend advice on your bbq'ing technique and try to manhandle the tongs from you. Stand your ground and advise them to go forth and multiply. Also, aprons with rubber tits are not cool, don’t do it. They undermine your natural authority, the Type A will walk all over you and the rubber is a fire risk. Rubber tit burn is no laughing matter.

Next is the haloumi, it will cook quickly; flip it frequently to avoid carcinogenic charring. Lastly, fling the octopus on, frequently move it around, a minute at most should do, always put it on the grill side, press down with the base of the beer can should be welded to your hand to achieve the striping affect.

Slup the whole lot onto a large platter, serve with pulpy white bread rolls and a feeble green salad, prepared for the chicks in the group.

Everyone will tear into the food, as alcohol removes table manners and cutlery protocol. The ice cold beer cuts through the oil wonderfully, and before long you will be on your second wind, fishing around the glorious arctic slush in the esky to find those last few elusive cans of beer.

At this point, it may be prudent to repeat the bbq’ing for the greedy ones, but be aware that your technique will be compromised by alcohol. Let the Type A personality weave his magic, be sure to insist he wears an apron with rubber tits. Sympathise when he burns himself.

This is also an appropriate time to turn the music up a bit louder, as you’re favourite ever song is playing, and it is very important that all present experience your taste in music. Also, by this time the garden presents a convenient place to urinate, as really, toilets can just be a hassle, and it’s only piss anyway. No one died from walking on a pissy lawn.




Sometime later, you will awaken to your young daughter gently bouncing on the trampoline beside you. She asks “Daddy, what is that on the front lawn”.

“Octopus,” you blearily reply. “Don’t touch it”.



Encourage the dog to clean it up. Never drink again.




Ah yes, I love my beer club.
( Ken Oath, Sat 23 Jun 2012, 13:08, 54 replies)

In which grandmasterfluffles gets into a spot of trouble with Jesus
Where I grew up, the local Baptist Church ran a “Holiday Club” for primary school age children during the first week of the summer holidays.

Now, my parents were atheist Jews, and my spiritual education thus far had been pretty non-existent. My parents had nothing but contempt for religion. However, they were more than willing to put that contempt aside when the church was offering to take their little shit - sorry, adorable seven-year-old - off their hands for a week, even if it was in return for a bit of light indoctrination.

I wasn’t the only Jewish kid at Holiday Club - there was another Jewish girl who lived down my road, whose mum used to send her off each morning with strict instructions to “stick your fingers in your ears whenever they talk about Jesus” - if she’d followed those instructions she’d have had her fingers in her ears all day. And judging by the number of Muslim and Hindu kids there were at this thing, the Jewish community weren’t the only ones relinquishing their spiritual beliefs for a bit of peace and quiet.

Holiday Club was hell. During the morning, we’d have to sit cross-legged on the floor and sing Jesus songs. During the early part of the afternoon, we’d pick an activity to do - sports or arts and crafts. Then after that it was back for more bible stories and Jesus songs.

One day I’d sat through hours of Jesus songs, made a Jesus picture in the art class, and now I was back in the hall for more fucking Jesus. I actually didn’t know who this Jesus dude was, but I was thoroughly pissed off at him. And now this woman at the front was ranting about how Jesus had once turned some water into wine. “Well, bollocks to that,” I thought, “Everybody knows there’s no such thing as magic.” Then Jesus Woman lowered her voice to a tone clearly intended to convey a sense of wonder and excitement. “And now children,” she breathed, “We can recreate that miracle. Here I have a jug of water, and if we pray really hard, it might turn into wine when I pour it into this other jug!”

“Ooooooooh!” breathed 50 seven-year-olds.

“Bollocks,” I thought.

“So everybody pray with me. Dear Lord Jesus, please turn this water into wine. Please show us your wonderful miracle Jesus, Amen.”

She poured the water from one jug to the other, and sure enough, it turned red. Pandemonium ensued. “Whooooooaaahhhhh! It’s turned into wine! It’s a miracle!” Jesus Woman sat there smiling fondly at all of her new converts, sweet innocent angels who’d been shown the love of Jesus and would surely now be saved. Unfortunately, above the cacophony of gasps and squeals, one voice rang out loud and clear: “That’s not wine!” I raged. “You just put red dye in the bottom of the jug!”

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how you get expelled from Jesus Club.

Not really. Oh how I wish I had been expelled. What actually happened was that they told my mum about my little outburst, and everybody at the church was utterly vile to me for the rest of the week. I never did get on with Jesus…
(grandmasterfluffles Come to my Armageddon party on, Tue 26 Jun 2012, 17:38, 21 replies)

When I was old enough to serve booze, I gave up my Friday Night/Saturday Morning shift working at the petrol station
...to go and work a Saturday afternoon bartending shift at the rugby club in Stourbridge.

Stourbridge had a respectable national league standing (and have done ever since) so it was't just Stourbridge vs. Dudley but nationwide teams. On any given Saturday during the league the main team might be home or away, but due to rotation between the main team, the 2nd team and the 'Colts' (youngsters), there would normally be 6 teams (home and visitors) in play. Plus all the spectators.

So, a shift would start at midday, opening up the bar and the teams that were playing would normally come up to the bar to drink a pint or two of squash (some form of Weak Lemon Drink), and the spectators would perhaps have a half of lager or a Winter Warmer, in the run up to kick off.

Then the games would kick off and it would be like a graveyard shift, nothing to do but stack seats, stack shelves, read a book (this was before mobile phones/gameboys). And then Half Time would come. So, suddenly every single spectator from all of the matches would come in wanting to grab a quick one and maybe a pack of crisps before the 2nd half- slightly hectic.

You'd have to grab two Britvics at once and pop the crowns off with one hand while typing into the till with the other while setting off two pints on the auto-delivery 1/2 pint clicker for lager, one for bitter, and the Murphys tap (which was NOT automatic and would overflow if you didn't keep your mind on it) while keeping a mental tally of the round you were furnishing- mental arithmetic par excellence. Example- in your head, work out the cost of 3 lagers, two Mickey Mouse (50/50 lager bitter), 2 Murphys, 3 bitters, a glass of wine and 3 lemonades... and I did it all the time! Fuck kids these days who only have to press coloured buttons on touch screens.... Back in those days there was ony one till in the bar and hopefully, 2 or more people serving on an old fashioned digital till. You couldn't tally up and lay away while another user entered their takings, you could not use your RFID coin to identify your transactions, you and YOU ONLY could enter cash exchanges into the till and if someone else was working alongside you, you had to keep your accounts in your head- as did they - because there was no computerised till back-office system that would separate your transactions from the other folks.

It was like a beautiful, frantic ballet, keeping all the plates spinning etc. but after 15 minutes people would drift back out to watch the game. Regain breath.

So, another period of quiet which let you wash glasses, clear tables, retrieve pots from the balcony overlooking the pitch,

Then the Full Time Whistle goes and all hell and chaos breaks loose at once.

All the spectators rush in at once to get served first. And because they know it's going to be packed at the bar, they all order two drinks per person each.

Suddenly it's pandemonium, it's 3-deep the entire length of the bar, you have to keep track of who was next in order and not just the ones waving £20 notes ALTHOUGH! This is not a normal pub or club, everyone vaguely knows each other, courtesy abounds, consideration is shown and people are patient.

Recognising this situation and the impracticality of having 70,000 glasses available on demand, there are plastic jugs available which mean you can get 7 pints to a table, let people decant themselves and all you have to do is put one on the drip tray and let that tap run? Err, unless it's lager or bitter which as we've already established, delivers half a metered pint and then stops. So some kind of logistical delivery plan is needed as you face about a hundred hopeful faces- place glasses on the bitter pump, click to start, 10 seconds for a delivery of 1/2 a pint, meanwhile whip jug on to drip tray for stout, set it going, dash to optic to get double gin, come back, click switch for next 1/2 pint on both pumps, keep eye on Stout jug, pop the cap on the tonic for the gin, get the ice, move the now-complete pint glasses off the lager pump drip tray, grab the slice of lemon for the G+T, calculate (IN YOUR HEAD!) 3 x £1.17 for the lagers/6 x 0.89 for the bitter jug, gin(0.80)+tonic(0.47), 2 x bitters (0.83 each), replace empty pint glasses on drip trays, both lager pumps being situated 5 feet apart mean you can trigger both at once if you stretch your arms to straining point, keep eye on half full jug on the pump, grab crisps in order of asking, open fruit juice with left hand/spear cherry with cocktail stick with right, drop it in the balloon glass, enter sum total of mental calculation into till, get money, give change, continue click-delivery of lager to complete those pints, jug almost full so bang tap up to let it settle, find tray, load up drinks, and Who's Next Please?

So, repeat for all the spectators at the bar, then 20 minutes after the match ends, all the team players come up from their post-match showers- 6 teams worth of 15 players each, and then THEY've worked up a real thirst, so each of them want 3 drinks each plus refills for friends and family so the whole process of frenetic serving starts again:- if you don't clear the spectators from earlier then you feel like you're denying the players who have earned a well-deserved pint their rightful throat quencher.

Now, by that time the rugger buggers are in celebratory mood, so many more drinks are ordered but at a sort-of manageable pace. The away teams may load up on to their coach and go back to their respective clubs, but by the same measure, your away teams will be coming back to shoot the shit with their colleagues and chat about their respective games, the games on TV, other stuff.

A feature of rugby is that the players and fans tend to be a bit more blue-blooded than their footie bretheren, due to schooling or lineage, I don't know, they all seem to be a pretty well off and affluent people, so of course social networking was rife but productive. Doctors and lawyers and property developers and car dealers would all cut little self-rewarding deals between themselves- and why not?

Meals were provided from the kitchen so the drinkers were able to keep on drinking, standard stodge (bacon egg sausage beans, basically a 2nd Full English on that Saturday) but slowly up to the 6:30pm period when the bar was closed, eventually the wives would drag their husbands back home to have a nap before their night drinking adventures.

Except there was always a hardened cadre of leftover boozehounds who would round up the afternoon with 'suicide pint'. Each guy would specify a drink that the others had to down in one. So:-

Player 1 asks for a round of drinks consisting of 1/2 a lager, Babycham, 1 measure cointreau, 1 whiskey. All get one, all down-in-one.
Player 2 asks for 1/2 a bitter, bottle of Cherry B, 1 measure gin, 1 blue curacao. All get one, all down-in-one
Player 3 asks for 1/2 a limeade with brandy, Benedictine, Tia Maria, Taboo and mint cordial. All get one, all down in one.

Player 4 is made of more perverse stuff.

Bottle of Guinness.
add 1 schooner Advocaat.
add 1 shot vodka.
add 1 Gold Label (barley wine)
add 1 bottle of tomato juice.

All get one. They look at the drink. The drink curdles playfully and looks them back square in the eye.

...tick tock tick tock tick tock......echo....

only one finishes. Two retch 1/2 way down. Mr 'finally comes to his senses' refuses. So he 'lost' :-)

It was a thoroughly enjoyable time, they were a great bunch (including a former school sports teacher of mine who was quite amusing but slightly surreal to see a formerly quiet, authoritative teacher singing bawdy songs while pissed).

There were other benefits- all of the people who attended, be it players or spectators, they were an extraordinarily generous bunch. At least one punter in 10 who was ordering a £50 round would add 'and one for yourself?'. As I had to drive to and from the club I'd have to demur and when they insisted I'd have to say- OK, thank you, can I have 50p in the tips jar?

This did happen but occasionally one would insist - no, I want to buy YOU a DRINK. So I'd say- sorry, I've got to drive and can't drink. Then one of them said- well, I'll get you a bottle, you can take it home with you and have it later.

Fuck!

Yes please.

During that season it happened so often that I was able to experiment with every alcoholic beverage on sale, starting at one end of the bar (Diamond white) through the middle (Newcastle Brown) to the elderly person's drinks (Snowball, Tat Cherry B stuff and Gold Label I mentioned earlier, Mackesons' Stout). I'd regularly finish a shift with a plastic bag full of bottles to take home because when a drunk well-off guy stands at the bar for 3 minutes insisting that they will buy you a drink, it's often easier to give in and than your lucky stars.

And then there was that New Years Eve event. Blimey. It was sit-down do but they wanted the bar open and I had to wear a bow tie. Shit, my first legal New Years Eve to get pissed (not that I hadn't done out on the lash the previous 2 years) but I was offered triple time.

Which was a lot in its own right but the tips were double that on top. Like I said, rugby club? Generous patrons.

Only one downside, dear reader.

If you've never worked a bar, you may not realise after a shift of pulling pints of beer, lager, bitter etc. the smell of it is on your hands, in your hair, up your nose, so while the benefit of working Saturday afternoon meant you were paid just in time for a Saturday Night out with your mates, you rarely went out thinking 'I really fancy a pint of beer now' as the thought of it might make you do a little vom. So that's why I spent many, many years drinking cider when out on the razz instead. But is this a bad thing? I can get 3 litres of strong cider from a supermarket for £2.78, the same amount of lager would be £5.

Apologies for length but- well, it all happened.
( Rotating Wobbly Hat That's not a banana. THIS is a banana., Fri 22 Jun 2012, 20:48, 11 replies)

I once almost joined a club
that used to dress up in giant penis costumes every Saturday, but I didn't.

I wouldn't want to join any club that would have someone like me for a mem-OH FOR FUCK'S SAKE.
(Ellinikos contains a source of phenylalanine, Fri 22 Jun 2012, 2:34, 1 reply)

The Homeguard.



About 10 years ago – being in my early 20’s and fancying a change from the pub, I joined some friends who were already members of the Homeguard. It was a Mens club, cost about £13 a year for membership and had the best snooker tables for miles around, fruit machines that were 10p a go and paid out up to £100 and a handy rule that states that ‘the last person to leave, locks up’ so that will be 6 pints at last orders please and I’ll stay till 2am playing snooker and lock the door behind me when I’m done.


It was a good/bad place. Mainly occupied by pensioners who drank more whiskey than most, but it also had some diverse characters:

The bloke who repeats his stories daily
The reformed alcoholic
The heaviest smoker in the world
The bloke who clearly had a job but never attended i
The Porn dealer
The lorry driver/tobacco seller
The bloke who you could barely understand – you would just nod and agree with

And my favourite – the bloke who lived a few doors away – so would turn up in his slippers.


One bloke was a compulsive fruit machine addict. He would put at least £50-£60 in it a night and play it until it was switched off. If he didn’t win the jackpot or get his money back – he would be outside the bar at 10:45 the next morning waiting for it to open so he could continue playing and get his money back.


One of its rules was ‘No Women Allowed’ – this ensured that its patrons were protected from their wives. I remember being there one day when a woman came in to the bar. It was just like a black guy walking into a Ku Klux Clan meeting. The blokes were dumb struck – The enemy had blatantly encroached on sacred soil. The collective sigh of relief when she walked up to the bar, left a yellow pages on the bar and walked out was like a zeppelin being deflated.


Which leads me onto the next one – I imagine some of the people left alive that drink there still talk about the day ‘the black man’ came in for a drink. He’d been signed in as a guest to play a game of snooker – some of the old blokes faces were frankly brilliant – like they were witnessing a miracle.


Everyday – the same faces at different times, ordering the same drinks. Some blokes would always come after a row with their wives and park their cars out of sight so they wouldn’t be spotted. Others parked their cars at 6pm and promptly got back in them at 11:30 after 10 pints and a few whiskeys. Drink driving was more common place than anywhere I’d ever been – yet they all seemed to get away with it.

It was great while it lasted, not sure what its like there now…

I imagine there’s probably still some heated debate about the smoking ban at the committee meetings and a definitive continuing ban on the presence of women who are still only allowed in on the following days: Xmas Eve, New Years Eve and a funeral wake.
(Pat mustard, Fri 22 Jun 2012, 12:39, 4 replies)

What's in a name...
After several months of forking out considerable sums to attend a sewing class, a few friends and I decided that we'd attempt to go it alone. Every week or two we meet up for a bit of a stich and bitch and swap ideas, skills and patterns. It's cheap and cheerful and makes sure our machines aren't allowed to get too dusty.

I'm not keen on calling our gatherings "sewing club" as it sounds too beige, but over the past few weeks we've all broken needles and had to swap them so often that we're considering calling it "The Needle Exchange".

Might give our image a somewhat more controversial slant...
( e.m.m.y. foxtrot uniform charlie kilo india tango, Thu 21 Jun 2012, 16:29, Reply)

i joined a club once
but it was a bit shit, due to the fact that membership was based entirely on liking a lot of chocolate on your biscuit.
( Smash Monkey lowering the tone of the whole internet, Thu 21 Jun 2012, 15:54, 12 replies)

The Rosy Cross
This is not my story, but it concerns my best friend.

My friend and I met at university. He was a Roman Catholic (as he was quick to inform me), but during the first year he went through a crisis of faith - a sort of long, dark semester of the soul, if you will.

Anyway, after breaking from Rome, he was always searching for something to fill the spiritual void that the church had left. He investigated the Freemasons and the Martinists; he even toyed with the Scientologists for a while. But what really drew him in was the Ancient and Mystical Order of the Rosy Cross - The Rosicrucians.

The Rosicrucians are a theosophical society, dedicated to uncovering the mysteries of the universe through ritual, chanting, meditation, and the reading of long monographs about astral travel. It is completely bonkers but seemed harmless enough, so I let him get on with it, although obviously taking industrial quantities of piss out of him.

There aren't any Rosicrucian lodges where my friend lives, and whenever he come to town for his monthly meeting (or seance, or ritual, or whatever they're called) he stays with me. We cook a curry, listen to music, play Go and get absolutely shitfaced drunk. (Yes, friend is a massive pisshead, in spite of the fact that the Rosicrucians discourage poisoning one's body.) Anyway, he is not a very discreet fellow when he drinks, and one night he started talking about the rituals they'd be doing next day. I was only half listening to him crapping on about the chanting and Ancient Egyptian symbolism, when suddenly I heard the phrase "vestal virgins".

"Are you joking? You don't have vestal virgins do you?"

My friend insisted that they did - 12 year old girls in white robes who assisted at the rituals (with what, he didn't say). "Yeah, these girls are the children of lodge members," said my friend, "so it's not like there's anything dodgy going on. Funny thing was that last month, about two hours into the rituals, one of the girls started crying." He tilted his head to one side and mused for a bit. And then, with a total absence of irony: "Must have been having problems with her homework."

Sure. Not the fact that she was spending all Saturday in a darkened tabernacle among flickering candles, images of eagle-headed Gods and a load of chanting, apron-wearing weirdos.

Well, that was my no means the worst of what he told me. The worst was the ritual of the mooncake. This is a piece of dough that is scattered with menstrual blood, baked and then eaten. It symbolises...oh Jesus Christ, I don't care what it symbolises. But where do they get the menstrual blood from?

The vestal virgins.

Can you imagine being twelve, having your first period, and your parents asking you to collect it in an egg cup because they want to do a bit of baking?

Honestly, this is the sort of thing that makes Christianity and Islam look almost sane.
( Mr Mann I love pigs, best of all the animals, Fri 22 Jun 2012, 17:29, 11 replies)

Started an Apathy Soc at uni. Got the most members of any society.
because you had to sign-up if you DIDN'T want to belong. And nobody could be bothered.

Had to disband as we couldn't get any funds despite our huge membership because the man said that by going to the trouble of asking for the funds we were obviously not living up to our own principles.

So we kinda let it go after that.
(karnuvap, Mon 25 Jun 2012, 16:43, 3 replies)

Amongst my extended circle of friends there are a number of people in same sex female partnerships
who have somehow become the arbiters of acceptability with regard to behaviours and group activities , and woe betide anyone who arranges anything without taking their lesbian sensibilities into account.

We call them the Muffia .
( horace wimp needs more than 49 characters to fully express hi, Sun 24 Jun 2012, 12:20, Reply)

Fuck Namby Pamby Weight Watchers
you want to try something a little more hardcore like Lighter Life - it's where the biggest losers hang out.

4 milkshakes a day and 4 litres of water for 12 weeks, pissing like a brewery shire horse, every hour on the hour right through the night. If you ever shoiuld be unfortunate to lose less than 7lbs a week the angry woman who weighs you and sells you the milkshakes for £70 a week sends you off to wee on a stick so that everyone can see if you've been cheating.

It's a great way to lose weight quickly but when you do actually start eating again you're in for a treat. Your first shit for 12 weeks can only be described as trying to pass a coconut through a drinking straw - it's almost as if your arsehole has healed up, it might as well not be there to be honest
.
( buffet_the_appetite_slayer ٩(●̮̃•)۶ jacked in to the ICE on, Fri 22 Jun 2012, 13:41, 6 replies)

Religious Differences
I used to belong to a group. Then it became apparent that the leader was a committed Christian, and was intent on using his position to push his belief system on the members. I attempted to engage him in reasoned, rational debate, but to no avail, so reluctantly I had to leave.

It was the Cubs. I was seven.
(moon monkey is busy making memories worth repressing, Mon 25 Jun 2012, 14:01, 2 replies)

Back in Primary school in the 70s
we had the forerunners of The Book People, only it was called Chip Club. With it's awful logo that was a beaver. Called Chip.

Someone would come round once a term with a sheet of books you could buy at a modest discount that weren't usually in print at that time or in libraries, but a modest cost per book (maybe 27p each). The form you ticked the box next to what you wanted to order was a bit deficient, as in- you could only guess at what the books would be by the title.

However once one kid found something that was accidentally 'good', the next time Chip Club sent round a form, many other kids would join in. There's only so many times you can lend a book to your classmates for a night each before it falls to pieces.

All well and good. Cheap illustration-heavy books for under 10s about sad lonely princesses and boys who meet gnomes and elephants who have grey skin and paint themselves up like some kind of circus clown.

Amongst those a hidden gem or two festered- a series of booklets containing regurgitation of folklore and bonfire ghost-stories, accompanied by bloody and gruesome watercolours. Volume 1 was simply called 'Ghosts' and was a compendium of shit-you-up tales of Borely Rectory, Glaamis Castle, headless horsemen, phantom coaches etc. with disturbingly on-topic paintings. Later on in no particular order were other volumes about Vampires Around The World, Werewolves and UFOs.

Perfect horror stuff for kids reading these books under the covers by torchlight, when it's not even a graphic tale of TV whimsy that you can turn off, but the power of your own imagination that can make you too scared to cross the dark bedroom to go to the bog in case the monsters GET YOU!. (scuttles in fear)
( Rotating Wobbly Hat That's not a banana. THIS is a banana., Thu 21 Jun 2012, 22:42, 6 replies)

As a kid I was a member of the Dennis the Menace fan club
I had a furry Gnasher badge.
( chickenlady b3ta's very own Elizabeth Taylor, Thu 21 Jun 2012, 17:09, 19 replies)

The Yorkshire/Italian Squirrel Exterminators
As I have mentioned a number of times before I work for a company who has an office in a refurbed manor house and near a nice secluded bit of woodland. I have also mentioned that the woods have a number of squirrels in them (See my last post here where one tricked me into falling into the mud).

Anywhoo enough backstory. I returned from my holidays to find the place in a strange mood.the Italian boss of mine was looking rather jumpy and would keep checking the windows while the other manager was looking more cheerful than usual.

I made a mental note to find out what I had missed and settled down for a few minutes work and maybe the occasional lurk on B3ta when…..WWWWWWWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAIIIIIIIILLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL off went the fire alarm. After peeling myself off the roof I realized that there was something weird as it was the wrong day for the fire alarm test. Before I could do anything else the Italian boss came through whooping with a rifle case under his hand and went off to look for one of the office staff that was next on his rota. I made a mental note to see which would be the best route to contact the police to warn them that a gun toting Italian was shooting his way through lazy staff members and could they send someone before he checked my internet history.

Italian boss seemed to have sensed that there was something wrong with me and got one of my workmates to fill me in on the situation. The squirrels in the local area must have become bored with the wood and decided to spend the first few days of the week sat on the window of Italian Bosses office staring at him. Nothing else just sat there still and staring on the windowsill. Italian Boss is quick to react and after the failure of Plan A (Shout obscenities in both English and Italian at tree rat until you are out of breath) he decided to take a more drastic approach. One squirrel trap, a jar of peanut butter and his own rifle are brought into work and Italian Boss starts plan B, blow the little sods to hell before they move into his office and take over the company.

Day 1: Italian boss manages to catch one and Mr Squirrel is now eating acorns in hell.

Day 2 : Squirrel caught in trap sometime in the morning but the boss is busy and only finds out this in the afternoon.Bang Bang Squirrel kill count 2.

Weekend comes and Italian Boss has to leave the trap empty due to some UK Law about cruelty to animals so boss decides to clean out trap and leave it. Accidentally leaves peanut butter jar outside next to (now closed for weekend) trap.

Someone attempts to break in to our premises at the weekend and nick the IT kit we keep in stock but gets no further than the perimiter fence. Italian boss is the name on the security list and comes down to check premises. He is more pissed off that the squirrels have managed to chew their way through the plastic bottle to get to the peanut butter rather than the small amout of Chav damage done to our fence. Squirrels 1 Italian Boss 2 (Chav sent for community service).

New working week starts and Italian Boss is very busy and decides to get a few people to join him in exterminating the vermin, the people who are in this little club get the chance to fire a rifle at a caged animal(This seemed to appeal to a number of the borderline nutjobs you usually get working in IT) but will also have to check the cage at certain times of the day and inform the building (via fire alarm test) that something has been caught. All of this is done in a very militarised way and my boss has picked up the nickname Mussolini from certain staff members, he also keeps muttering about never letting our guard down (seriously does he think we aregoing to be ambushed and held POW by a crack commando team of squirrels).

I mentioned to my boss that the whole extermination thing may be taking its toll on him and it should be something that a professional exterminator or maybe the handyman we hire should do but I was told that it was something that Italian Boss wanted to see out himself and that my suggestion was weird (but I am allowed to still join if I want to- my guess is I will be forcefully recruited if I refuse). So people of B3ta should I join this little elite club of social misfits or should I hide under my desk and await a fightback from the squirrel army.

Oh and the ones that are shot are (Allegedly) skinned and cooked up by the guy who works here and thinks he is Bear Grylls- the one shot recently is going into a curry- my idea of turning it into a helicopter work of art was shot down immediatley.

Apologies for the length
(mon bison powered by magnets, Wed 27 Jun 2012, 11:11, 3 replies)

The only society I'm a member of
is for people that are fans of thick coatings of a sweetened cocoa product on their cookies.
( Ungersven would support SpankyHanky's patreon, Mon 25 Jun 2012, 14:19, 2 replies)

I'm a member of a pretty exclusive club
We're the few people who aren't actually bothered about, or actively disdain, football.
(The Luggage is haunted..., Sun 24 Jun 2012, 22:44, 2 replies)

B3ta
I have no photoshopping skills , i'm not very talented and i can't say i have much of a comedic presense. I don't post much on b3ta but i enjoy lurking and being judgemental of peoples works i have no hope of recreating at all.
B3ta allows me to be the bastard by secretly not liking things i should just because i can*.
At B3ta i can be the cunt i was born to be.

*Not actually true. i'm nice really, please love me pleeeeease!!
(shake'n'bake Tally Ho, Biatch!, Sat 23 Jun 2012, 4:39, 1 reply)

One place I worked at...
...had a "cricket club".
After work, on Wednesdays, we would meet up for "cricket practice".

In a pub.

And the best thing about it was we never, ever, played cricket - or even spoke about it.
(minimalist ..., Fri 22 Jun 2012, 11:37, 1 reply)

I was the ringleader of
The Furniture Liberation Front

We had an ex-Navy Officer technology teacher at my school who had 'disputes' with the school board after a few weeks into the job. Suffice to say, the head master and other teachers didn't like him and he didn't like them. We heard rumours of his "demands" to the school and they sounded pretty unreasonable to us kids.

Kids sense weakness, and an ostracised teacher isolated in the Technology Block was a sitting duck.

At lunchtimes we used to wait for him to lock up and leave and then break into the lab to rearrange the furniture. We used to pile all the desks and chairs inside the lobby, so that the door wouldn't open properly, and then escape through the window. It was fun watching him try to get back in, and having to pull enough furniture out to get back in through the door.

We used multiple methods of breaking in, getting ever more devious:

The Furniture Liberation Front would hide under workbenches until he left, and then piled the furniture up inside the lobby; He learned to check under the workbenches for pupils before leaving.

The Furniture Liberation Front stuffed the lock hole with paper to stop the door locking behind him, and then piled the furniture up inside the lobby; he learned to check the lock for paper stuffed in it.

The Furniture Liberation Front would leave a window slightly open and throw a smaller kid in through the window, and then piled the furniture up inside the lobby; he learned to check the windows were all locked before leaving.

The Furniture Liberation Front would hide someone under a pile of bin bags to let everyone in, and then piled the furniture up inside the lobby. He learned to dig through the rubbish before leaving for lunch.

Eventually, his lunchtime routine became so paranoid and convoluted, we disbanded; obnoxious gobshites that we were, even we felt guilty.

He survived a whole school year.
( Pope Shax XIII uses Visio for picture editing, does it show?, Fri 22 Jun 2012, 3:45, Reply)

Whisky!
I have about a week left on my Scottish Malt Whisky Society membership. As far as I'm aware there are no rituals apart from sitting around drinking copious amount of cask strength whisky.

I'd visit with a friend and we'd read out the preposterous tasting notes in the most pompous voice we could, then choose a whisky whose tasting notes mentioned leather.

I've had many a happy evening there. I never smelt or tasted leather.
(Rilux might be pregnant and has bum-aids, Thu 21 Jun 2012, 21:01, 4 replies)

"Come see the Universes . . . . across ALL of History!"
I used to be Religious Advisor to a club called the Pan-Dimension Time Explorers.

There was about two and a half thousand of us - we used to thunder across realities seeking out adventure in different eras and planes of existence. It was great fun - cakes every Friday lunchtime - then down the opium dens of Victorian London.

We used to, when we got any free time:

- Pretend to be eunuchs so we could bathe Cleopatra.
- Give Jesus leprosy drugs.
- Have absinthe drinking contests with Van Gough (but we replaced our 'absinthe' with Kiwi flavoured Kia-Ora, we always won!)
- Give disposable lighters to Neanderthals.

One fella even went back and nicked some sort of flippered dinosaur from the Triassic period and left it in 18th century Scotland by accident - it only lived for a few years, but the rumours kept going for AGES! Best running joke ever!

But unfortunately the whole club got cancelled when one bright spark went to Germany in the mid 1940s and shot Hitler, and made it look like a suicide. "Inappropriate use of resources", apparently.
(SigourneysBeaver took off and nuked the entire site from orbit on, Thu 21 Jun 2012, 19:16, 4 replies)

Space Cadet newspaper woe
I was in the Air Cadets

In an effort to get Cadet numbers up, our glorious leaders called in a bloke from the local newspaper to do a puff piece on the FUN FUN FUN we had. He came along, took a few notes, and I was photographed doing a face that could only be described as a "belm", sitting in our Air Force surplus ejector seat which we carted round school fetes for publicity.

Come Thursday, there I was, belming, on the front page of the Henley Standard, alongside another picture story of a severely disabled kid who had just received his first electric wheelchair. It caused quite a stir locally, and I was labelled "an arrogant gun-toting crypto-fascist" by some of the more sensitive readers in the following week's letters page. Stupid Space Cadets.

Let that be a lesson for anybody who thinks it might be a good idea to appear in the local press.
( Scaryduck LIKES EGG, Thu 21 Jun 2012, 17:21, Reply)

Young Conservatives Club
A few years back I attended an awards bash just off of Whitehall.

After the ceremony I popped to a local pub with a few work colleagues.

I was standing at the bar when a young-ish lad said “hello” to me in the plumb-est and squeakiest voice, followed by “So, which way do you swing”?

I was slightly taken aback and told him flatly that I was straight thank you very much.

He then informed me that he meant which party do I vote for…

My mistake, but he was still a snotty little cunt.
(Deskbound You insignificant speck of dust, Tue 26 Jun 2012, 12:17, 5 replies)

Want to experience the thrills of that most exclusive society /talk?
But scared of their bullying?
Try this emulator: all the sophisticated repartee, none of the terrible online bullying.
( Tab Hunter Make this useless process end and so, begin again, Fri 22 Jun 2012, 9:06, 19 replies)

Pagan sex cult
Many many years ago I was rather interested in world religions and specifically those that existed in pre-Christian Europe. I got talking to a group of local pagans as I was fascinated by the philosophies behind the beliefs and the practice of magick (which is apparently how you spell it to differentiate it from pulling bunnies out of hats).

I was invited by some of the group to come join the next meeting of their coven to see a ritual for myself. Quite the honour I thought. Didn't really know what to expect. Had heard a lot about being 'skyclad' (basically dancing round fires in the buff), sex magick and lots of other eyebrow raising stuff, but I went with an open mind.

I arrived at the designated address, at the designated time, was lent robe and told that some of the group liked to be naked underneath to feel more "connected" to the earth. Crivens, I thought, my mind filled with visions of what might unfold. Was I going to be initiated in the group by having to bang the high priestess? Was I going to discover how cold a witch's tit actually is?

Ended up very disappointed. Turns out being a witch largely involves slowly walking round in a circle sprinkling water/ salt on the floor or wafting incense about for protection, then drinking some organic ale from a chalice and eating cake. Didn't even get to sacrifice a goat. Gutted.
( Draconacticus Reject shampoo. Demand real poo!, Thu 21 Jun 2012, 17:33, 2 replies)

Glasgow Rangers' new owners
Have just heard that Syria has been expelled from the Arab League and are looking into how to apply for their place.
( ousgg is not seeking approval, Tue 26 Jun 2012, 20:34, Reply)

I have just started the Imagination Club.
If any of you are interested in joining then all you have to do is imagine that this is the single best response to the QOTW and click the 'I like this' link.

As a reward, you can imagine whatever you like as a reward and imagine that you have received it as part of your membership.
(ParaSitius is an Optimistic Pessimist, Tue 26 Jun 2012, 15:59, Reply)

I joined a club to help me keep focused
I was doing
(ParaSitius is an Optimistic Pessimist, Tue 26 Jun 2012, 14:18, Reply)

Music club
Mrs V and I have an occassional music club. It's a bit like a book club, and is fun. The rules is this:

1. 5 tracks each, none over 7 mins.
2. Each track must be - in your estimation - a good track worthy of note - not just something that reminds you of your holiday, or when you got together with your boy/girlfriend.

And that's it. Take it in turns to play a track - and then discuss - great stuff.

Whoever's hosting provides food/nibbles, bring your own booze.

I've discovered all sorts of interesting stuff through it, from genres I'd never even considered before (my tolerance for free-form jazz, for example, is very low).
( Je suis un vagabond is an unfunny, up your own arse middle class knob, Mon 25 Jun 2012, 13:00, 8 replies)