I've got a game called "Brick Breaker" on my mobile 'phone.
It's like a squash version of Pong.

If I lose a life I consider too early, I'll start a new game.
( Je suis un vagabond is an unfunny, up your own arse middle class knob, Thu 28 Jul 2011, 15:59, 3 replies)

I once bought a pint of beer...
...in Norway.
( Amish Information Systems hates misplaced, commas, Thu 28 Jul 2011, 15:43, 23 replies)

Jimmyjam cruisin'

A few years ago my brother's rather swish job took him to California for a year. I flew over budget airline style from the UK to visit him, arriving late that evening. The next morning slightly delirious with jetlag, I insisted my brother, ready for work in his expensive European suit and designer shades, drive me around Beverly Hills for an hour in his fancy top of the range company soft-top beamer before he went to work, whilst I sat in the passenger seat attempting to look stylishly cool and nonchalant. In my Primark sunglasses and Snoopy pyjamas.
(DBS, Thu 28 Jul 2011, 15:39, Reply)

Vintage shots
This story takes place in a fairly popular bar in Covent Garden called Navajo Joe (high five to anyone who's drunk there).

They do a decent line in cocktails, but for my money they have one of the finest collections of tequila outside of Mexico. I didn't know that then, but I sure as hell do now.

Some years ago I had a fantastic boss, let's call him Phil. We were great mates and would often drink socially. After a particularly productive month at work, he declared that we should go out and celebrate 'on the company'. Arriving at the aforementioned bar around 7pm, we lined our stomachs for a good three hours with a selection of rum-based cocktails (they do an amazing one with ginger beer, but I digress).

As the evening drew to a close and the last train beckoned, Phil suggested we complete the session with a few shots of tequila. The selection was staggering, so I left it in his capable hands to choose our poison.

Having chosen, the barman lined us up one each, and as is tradition we knocked them back in one.

"Again" shouted Phil. Two more duly dispatched followed sharply by another four.

Having reached my limit I staggered off to the toilet while Phil settled the bill. When I returned, Phil had gone a little pale. Turns out we'd been necking vintage tequila at about £30 a shot, but treating it like that cheap firewater you find in a supermarket.

Phil had no choice but to pay, knowing full well the company would never reimburse him for such a display of reckless abandon.

The pain in the wallet was nothing compared to the pain of knowing we'd barely even tasted it as it charged down our gullets.

Bear in mind that for £30 you can procure a bottle of Patron which in itself is damn fine Tequila.

Still, for about 15 minutes we drank like footballers and bankers without even knowing.
(BinDipper, Thu 28 Jul 2011, 15:38, Reply)

At my father's self-organised "Pre-wake wake", in which he and his two good friends celebrated their 70th birthdays together
He was informing my sister, my nephews, and me that he went to get his cholestrol checked the other day.

"The doctor said I currently have a 15% chance of dying of a heart attack" he informed us. "Well - that's very much how I'd like to go - bang, dead before I hit the floor, no mess, no fuss to clear up, no hospitals and so forth, and for someone of my age? 15%? That's far too low!", he said, helping himself to more cream with his coffee.
( Je suis un vagabond is an unfunny, up your own arse middle class knob, Thu 28 Jul 2011, 15:33, 1 reply)

The Chester Grosvenor.
When I began wooing the soon to be Mrs Bastardo three years ago I took her for a weekend away at the Chester Grosvenor Hotel.

I'd come out of a long term relationship a few months before and due to my previous partners tightfistedness I'd managed to save up a few thousand pounds which I suddenly became eager to spend in a fit of new found freedom. So, I had a look around for good hotels in nice cities in which to do some top class wooing, and I asked the object of my fancies to join me in a weekend of over the top indulgence.

I booked us a suite for two nights and we arrived after work late on the friday evening. I'd arranged flowers, wine, chocolates and loads of Molton Brown products to be waiting in our room for the future Mrs Bastardo, then we had dinner brought up to the room with the full silver service, and did the same for breakfast. We wandered around Chester during the day time, eating, drinking and buying anything we fancied, and then went out for dinner for expensive food and wine. We had breakfast brought to the room again the following morning before checking out. The total bill (not including the suite cost) for the weekend was around £700.

I had explained to the future Mrs Bastardo that this was a one off, as I was more travelodge than Ritz in reality, and I'd never done anything as indulgent as this in my life. She's obviously not the materialistic type though as she's marrying me in two months and I've barely got a penny to my name these days. :)
( Evil Bastardo, Thu 28 Jul 2011, 14:58, Reply)

I once ate
six Mars bars in half an hour.
(Dr Skagra glorious glargzhem, Thu 28 Jul 2011, 14:44, 11 replies)

When I started at my company
which was in the days before the Credit Crunch (as will become apparent), We had a fridge full of booze in the office. It was replenished once a week, and no questions were ever asked about where the booze went.

Come Christmas, I also received a Fortnum and Mason Christmas hamper as a present from a supplier and a Romeo y Julieta cigar from my boss.

Hence scruffy young me, fresh into a graduate job, turning up at a friend's dinner party in North London, already fairly tipsy, smoking a cigar, and brandishing 6 bottles of champagne and a weighty selection of fine condiments, cakes, and wines.

To be fair, I think most of the other guests thought I was a bit of a cunt...
(SnowyTheWereRabbit the Leporid from Hell, Thu 28 Jul 2011, 14:22, 5 replies)

Ostentatious Birthday Tea
This might be a repoast but at my age my memory plays all sorts of tricks...

On my 40th birthday, my boyfriend took my for an afternoon tea at the Lanesborough Hotel in London. For a few sandwiches, cakes, strawberries and a glass of champagne he was charged £72. I have never eaten anything that was as expensive.

Why did we go there? The Lanesborough used to be St George's Hospital at Hyde Park Corner. 40 years to the day before this tea, I was born somewhere in that hospital.
(BearWithLittleBrain, Thu 28 Jul 2011, 14:19, 4 replies)

Roasting peas on an open fire:
So, fresh out of university, I was temping for the Department of Industry, doing general office admin.

Our unit was coordinating a million pound government grant to develop a green, sustainable form of transport for London and the UK.

One of my jobs was to print out, envelope and send the rejection letters - standard letter personally addressed using a mail-merge.

One chap, however, took great umbrage to the rejection, and looking over his file I'm not surprised.

The entries ranged from someone drawing a kite tied to a cart with a sign saying "Green" on it, to designed models, and then this chap's entry, which was a hundred-page study that cost him personally tens of thousands of pounds in the commission of research and materials.

The contact number on the rejection letter was the 'phone at my desk, and a few days later I was called, and the chap on the other end swore and ranted and cajoled, pleaded, begged and then threatened to get me fired over this.

I reported back to my manager, who told me to ignore it, but sure enough round two came, so I said simply "Listen, the matter's out of my hands, I'm sorry I can't help, but that's the way it is."

He went quiet, then apologised sincerely, and rang off.

Three days later, a handwritten letter arrives addressed to me personally, in which the author apologised for his handwriting (his blasted printer is broken at the moment, but rest assured he is investing in a new one!), and also for ranting and raving at me so rudely - he's passionate about the project as it's close to his heart, but that's no excuse for his behaviour.

By way of apology, he enquired, he wondered if I would be so kind as to allow him to buy me lunch at his club, say - next Friday?

I read it.

I re-read it.

I put it in my pocket and kept my gob shut.

I composed a return letter saying that I'd be delighted to join him for lunch next Friday - how kind.

Next Friday came, and I turned up in my cheap whistle to a quiet street in Pimlico.

I find the address - it's lidderally just two massive oak doors and nothing else.

I knock.

I am greeted by a butler.

I am shewn through to the oak-pannelled, gleaming tap'd, classic and detailed, Art Deco bar. This place is straight out of James Bond, Yes Minister, Dickens - all of that. It actually IS the archetypal London Gentleman's club, and not in the rude way.

"Sir, Mr. X sends his sincere apologies, but he is currently running over on a meeting, and will be approximately five minutes late. Can I get Sir anything from the bar at all, and perhaps a paper?"

I order a water - I've got £10 in my wallet and it looks like if I order a beer they'll want a kidney and the rights to my first-born.

Mr X turns up - for one so strong of voice he's an old guy, bordering on the doddery.

"Ah, Mr Vagabond - how good to meet you!" he beams. "I take it you are being attended to in a decent enough manner?"

He's absolutely charming and I feel like the fraud I am. I want to tell him I'm just a temp, there's nothing I can do, and that he'd be far better off taking the head of the department out, as she's got serious leverage. He's a lovely old man, who's done well for himself, and he's just trying to do the good thing, I understand that - he's no saint; just a sinner, and just wants to make the world a little bit better.

But fuck that - I'm poor, young and hungry, he's rich, fat and old.

We're led through to the dining room, which is as you'd expect - full of suits discussing Important Matters, and as we are led to his table by the window, he nods to a few of them, muttering to me that he's the ambassador for Hong Kong, he's the owner of Saatchi's account handlers, that's the Minister Without Portfolio, etc etc.

The menu - of course - has no prices on, and he heartily recommends the fish - it's the best this side of Russia.

We drink - of course - a bottle of the correct wine with each course.

Over lunch he continues to try and butter me up, detailing his plans for the project, and how he's going to seek finance elsewhere, but that the government really could do well out of this on the PR front. I listen attentively, nod encouragingly, and, using my scant knowledge of industry from my GCSE Geography, occasionally drop in a choice phrase or two, such as "Renewable energy resources as part of the GDP". It works.

We retire to the smoking room for coffee and liqueurs at around 2-30, and I stagger back into the office at about 4-30, pissed out of my skull, and am fired on the spot.

Totally worth it.
( Je suis un vagabond is an unfunny, up your own arse middle class knob, Thu 28 Jul 2011, 14:17, 8 replies)

It was sunset
and I was sat on a stunning beach - Anse Source D’Argent in the Seychelles, with a bottle of pink champagne to one side of me.

It was here that I had the best blow job of my life.

Although, I did put my back out and haven't been able to give myself one since.

Happy times.
(Monkey the Chicken Twitter: death_stairs, Thu 28 Jul 2011, 14:15, 4 replies)

Beer Festival Shenanigans
2008. I was at the Cotswold Beer Festival (which is this weekend again, anyone going?) with my b3tan ex-flatmate icezebra. My usual strategy with this particular event is to volunteer to work for the lunch session so that I am guaranteed a ticket for the evening. While this sounds very community minded it really means I turn up at about 11am, check in as a staff member (i.e. jump the queue) and start drinking as soon as I get allocated to a bar area. After three hours of "work" there was a pause before the evening session, during which I made the little trip into Winchcombe for a momentum-maintaining half, or six, before our triumphant return to the festival for another five hours of balls-out ale-pounding. Erm, I mean "civilised quaffing in the sunshine". Meh, who am I kidding?

At any rate, by the time 11pm rolled around, we were, well, rolling around. On the half mile walk back to the car park (which took about an hour) icezebra stole my last pint so of course, forgetting I was in shorts, I wrestled him into a nettle-filled ditch.

And so it was that, sweaty, beery and with vegetation sticking out of our scruffy clothes, we arrived at the pickup area above the campsite. Every so often a Cavalier would show up and somebody's long-suffering wife or Mum would collect another gang of drunken yahoos, plaintively asking as politely as they could if the still-brimming "last" pint could possibly stay behind.

As we approached I can recall people were animatedly talking about a Bentley they'd seen parked up - nobody had spotted anyone who looked posh enough to be a famous millionaire at the festival. And it was not surprising, for the car was not there for Richard Branson but rather me, and my equally ungentlemanly acquaintance.

Yes, I paid £6 for a beer festival ticket and then the thick end of £80 for a cab that just happened to be "Lord" Alan Sugar's old castoff (it still had the 1980's car phone in the rear armrest) purely for that golden moment when, t-shirt and shorted, I elbowed the astonished proles out of the way and sped off in luxurious comfort, waving like a pissed version of the Queen.

Worth every penny.
( pineapplecharm D d M Y, H:i, Thu 28 Jul 2011, 14:07, 4 replies)

I guess I was about 10, which would have made my brother 7.
I don't know why, but I was desperate to own a towelling wrist band. Preferably florescent yellow. It was an obsession, I thought I'd be the coolest kid in school. Eventually the constant whining got too much for my Nan, who gave me a five pound note and said I could treat myself and my brother to one. I ran off with him to Ted Fenton's or whatever the 1984 equivalent of JD Sports was called and found, to my delight, that five pounds was a veritable fortune. I could afford four pairs of wrist bands in Yellow, Blue, Green and Orange AND two towelling head bands. I was positovely overwhelmed. I handed over my money with shaking hands and took my carrier bag of booty outside where I tore open the packages, I put a yellow band on my right wrist, a green on my left, then a blue on my right and the orange on my left. Then I gave the others to my brother to do the same. I put a white headband on him and, finally, trembling with pride, I put the other one on me.

I was the dog's bollocks, I was cooler than school. Between us we were the it boys of Laindon. I walked chest forward, brother by my side, proudly back to where Nan was waiting by the swings. We strode into the play area.

And the big boys pissed themselves laughing.

And I cried.

I never wore them again.
( scarpe We Stole Bikes, Thu 28 Jul 2011, 14:03, 3 replies)

I got lucky with my timing when I graduated as a young geologist
I had a shit degree, 6 years to finish a 3 year course, scraping by on 120 dollars a week from the government. But the industry was going through one of it's periodic upturns and there were jobs a-plenty. I had already settled on one job when I got an offer from another that I had no intention of taking. But, they were going to fly me to Perth for the interview and put me up at the hilton hotel. So I flew out there and immediately rang up a few hundred bucks on roomservice ordering bloody marys and bellinis. I even used the corby trouser press. the day of the interview on the top floor of the hotel, I passed a huge buffet table, so loaded my plate up with smoked salmon, carpaccio, and watermelon until it was like the mashed potato plate from Close Encounters. I spent the interview talking through a full mouth-full of food "gomph, gomph, yessh, it schertainy sheems like a interweshting proposal...sorry, that wassh my fault...here, I'll wipe it off for you"
( cumquat may will not be commenting further on the allegations, Thu 28 Jul 2011, 14:02, 1 reply)

About...
£60 worth of japanese takeaway food and three bottles of champagne, partly consumed in a jacuzzi, in a hotel room overlooking the derelict Brighton west pier.

This might not mean much to many on here, but it was the day after me and the mrs got married and we're not the most wealthy - a £15 takeaway + £6 bottle of plonk is usual level of treat for us - so it felt pretty ace to splash out.



*awaits spelling / grammar corrections*
(Pat_Gash, Thu 28 Jul 2011, 13:53, 2 replies)

You Can Take The Boy Out Of Geordieland

Tropical Island on the Barrier Reef.

Photo in the reply....

Cheers
( Legless Mister Stabby - shanks for the memory, Thu 28 Jul 2011, 13:50, 18 replies)

Yes (cough)
Yours,
John Keats.
(mzungu, Thu 28 Jul 2011, 13:48, 2 replies)

Champagne Bar...
St Pancras. IFIC, £480.
(Odinsdottir wants to tell you about her cats, Thu 28 Jul 2011, 13:47, 2 replies)

Colour indicator
I have my butler see if my bath is hot enough by tossing a live lobster in there.

It should end up a purplish colour - not a true orange, more of an "amber queen".

If it's too far either way I make him drain the bath and begin again.

We burn the lobsers.
(Stiltzkin, Thu 28 Jul 2011, 13:46, Reply)

I went out and bought myself one of those iPhones
so I could access b3ta when out of the office. And so when people would ask me what I was doing, I could say 'I'm looking at the internet. On my iPhone"...
(SonoraAeroClub "OH SWEET HELEN OF BALLS!", Thu 28 Jul 2011, 13:44, 1 reply)

Adult webcam fun....
I got bored of the usual talent on my favourite adult webcam provider, so decided to "splash out" so to speak on the pretty attractive girl-on-girl-on-girl action that was happening that day. Closest ill ever get to a foursome, for a tenner I might add. Normally I set my limit at a fiver...
(Beaverman Opulence, I has it., Thu 28 Jul 2011, 13:39, 1 reply)

I once looked after a chap who'd just returned from a trip to Russia..
..suffering from a persistent cough, weight loss , breathlessness, a roaring temperature, shadowing of the lungs on chest x-ray and pronounced fatigue.

Most obvious case of Tuberculosis ever.
( Amorous Badger NAKED BEA ARTHUR PHOTOS 4U, Thu 28 Jul 2011, 13:39, 6 replies)

Yes!
Next question please.


Edit: Oh, sorry, only read the first bit.
( scarpe We Stole Bikes, Thu 28 Jul 2011, 13:32, 1 reply)

Japan
Luxury? Don't talk to me about bloody luxury...

I used to work abroad a lot, but gave it up after a nasty experience in Africa which you might have heard about. But when they sent me to Japan, that was a completey different experience.

I was based on Okinawa, the accomodation was eight US dollars a night, and I lived like a pauper, having to eke out my own existence from whatever vending machines I could operate. But, once I was done, the office flew me out via Tokyo.

"Problem with the hotel," they said, "We had to put you in the last room we could find."

It was the Westin Tokyo and the bill for one night exceeded my expenses for the whole rest of the trip.

Staff that bowed at you, monstrously-expensive a la carte dinner, room service breakfast, a suite so big you could get lost and a TV the size of an elephant. It made no difference, for that night I was just as asleep as the $8-a-night place.

In the morning, I nicked the dressing gown, a pair of carpet slippers and a copy of "The Teachings of Buddha" and fled for Blighty.
( Scaryduck LIKES EGG, Thu 28 Jul 2011, 13:31, Reply)

I was once photographed sat on a croissant eating a balcony

(TheManWithThePlan cussed your mum on, Thu 28 Jul 2011, 13:31, Reply)

To go instantly off topic (sorry)
I think i saw the ultimate in reverse ostentation in delightful, lovely Basildon town centre, when there was a woman, fag burning in one hand, glass of red wine sloshing round in the other, leaning over her babies pram outside Weatherspoon's in a T-Shirt proudly stating 'Who The Fuck Is Prada?'. At 11.30 in the morning.

Given her clearly alcoholic tendencies and the Essex fascination with appalling children names, I couldn't help but think that 'Prada' may well be the name of the child in the pram and that the bit of the shirt I couldn't see actually said '...'s Dad?'
( scarpe We Stole Bikes, Thu 28 Jul 2011, 13:30, 4 replies)

I once ate some food

( broadsword now that's fresh, Thu 28 Jul 2011, 13:28, 4 replies)

First YAYYY!!!
Bollocks...

And I agree with my fellow B3tan. This one's going to be epic on the fail front.
( His Popiness the Hole Invaded Poland on, Thu 28 Jul 2011, 13:21, 4 replies)

Fucking shit question.
What moron could possibly have thought that was a good idea?
( scarpe We Stole Bikes, Thu 28 Jul 2011, 13:20, 4 replies)