Tranny mag Mike
Our friend was one of the first of us to land a job. Mike managed to swing a job in a game shop in town (back in late 90's which was pretty sweet). Well anyway to of the lads went in one day to have a nosy. Frank and Peter were browsing round the shop and Pete being as chatty as ever talks the ear of the young guy behind the desk explaining who they are and how they know Mike.

Now Frank see's a game he likes asks the guy to hold it and runs to an ATM. Soon as he's out the door Shop guy swings to Pete and says "So thats tranny mag Frank". Eh, what? Well turns out shop used to be a porn shop and all the old mags had just been left. The only items that had been left unclaimed was a huge pile of Tranny Porn, which was claimed by Mike in the name of Frank.

Well, Frank gets back and is suitably shocked to learn of his new fetish. But the lads explain and no more is said. Til, Mike calls over a few days later with a new Dreamcast game (dead or alive 2). Now in that game theres a fairly fem black fella and Pete immediatly started picking him all the time. Comments ensued "Ooooo he looks nice in that top" etc... Now being young there was a fair bit of sniggering but no way was anyone calling Mike out on it.

Fun and games over we headed out to the chippy and all was forgotten. Chatting away outside and eating chips we saw Pete's twin Joe stride across the local green, walk straight up to Mick and say "what's all this about your Tranny mags". Conversation was killed at that stage.
( dazbrilliantwhites has been meaning to change this..., Fri 13 May 2011, 9:43, 10 replies)

Talking to the Christians...
I walked into an office at work one day and my deeply religious Christian colleagues were mid conversation. "You know it's such a shame about Mohammed. He's such a nice guy". I hadn't been party to the chatter that preceded this, but my interest was piqued so I was compelled to ask, "Eh, Stacy. What are you on about?".

"Oh, you know Mohammed in accounts. He's such a nice guy, but he's a Muslim so he won't go to heaven. It really is a shame". The world stopped turning for a brief second as the gravity of her utterance sunk in.For a split second I weighed up whether she was being serious or not and half expected her to laugh and say "Just kidding!". But, she didn't. And when Clive, who had the plum spot next to the window, nodded in agreement and chimed in with, "Yes, yes...it's such a shame" I knew they were both being deadly serious.

What I did next surprised even me. From somewhere within my subconsciousness a voice eked it's way to my mouth and let out a hearty laugh that came from deep within my belly. Then it said, with great authority and little respect for the consequences, "You do know that God isn't real. It's all a made up story".

Somehow what little superficial friendship I had with customer returns department died an awkward and speedy death that day. And now there are two more people in the world who believe I will see out my final days in hell.
(The Archduke of South London I'm in your Girlfriend eating her organs, Fri 13 May 2011, 9:31, 6 replies)

I finally get to wheel this one out in a QOTW.
My Mrs was having a house warming party at her new place (obviously) and had invited friends from across the country to come along. In all there were about 40 people crammed into one front room of a pretty modest bungalow. Inevitably conversation started to dry up a little, so a round of guitar hero was suggested.

My friend and I decide to take the first turn as everyone is a little shy (most have driven, only 3 are staying over and drinking).

The song selection comes up, I choose 'Beat it' by Michael jackson.

Friend, (jokingly) "Why are you putting that on, it's a kiddy fiddler tune?!"

Me, "The joke's on you, I LIKE fucking kids!!"

Stunned silence in the room.

We collapse in laughter. Nobody else does.

By the time that song has finished all but the 3 poor sods who are sleeping over have left. Those three people went to bed early.

OOPS.
( Victor Meldrew, Fri 13 May 2011, 9:16, 2 replies)

Oh dear. I dun a woopsie...
I was doing a software pitch to a room full of around 20 senior execs from Legal and General. It was in their conference suite, and there was a sliding partition wall between us and the next room, where I could hear a computerised voice which was putting me off my stride. Sounded like they were playing around with some software. It put me off a bit mid sentence and I said, "sorry, I'm getting distracted, sounds like we've got a Dalek next door hahaha"

Long stony silence...

"Actually that is our Chairman, he has had throat cancer and uses a voice box"

We didn't win the contract.
( Three Dog Man, Fri 13 May 2011, 8:59, 9 replies)

We like to throw these curveballs at the office
Example: Yesterday, technical discussion.

Colleague A: (explains some concept related to webservice deployment within our project)
Colleague B: So what are you thinking about?
Colleague A (deadpans): Well, I'm thinking about sex.

Two seconds of silence as everyone else fails to return the ball ..
(spinoza, Fri 13 May 2011, 7:36, Reply)

Some top-end company bigwig....
...decides to attend our workplace unannounced and wanted to see exactly what we were all doing with the companies money. He turns up in the building, has a chat to HR and then walks about, randomly spying on what people were doing at their computers. None of us had seen the cunt before so the majority of us ignored him while we got on with our work, but this cunt wanted to "get involved" and monitor a few of us.

He approaches one worker, taps him on the shoulder and asks politely what he was doing on one database. Unfortunately this worker was in the same boat as the rest of us, and bluntly asked what we were all thinking.

"Who in the FUCK are you?"

That didn't go down well, although he did win a P45 and the respect of the other lackies, not that we ever saw him again to tell him as he landed on his ass in the car park.
( Jeccius Steam Borderlands 2 junkie, Fri 13 May 2011, 7:24, Reply)

Curly said WATTS???
[To avoid yet another shit Q.O.T.W. answer from yours truly, just skip to the end for the conversation killer. There's no need for you to suffer my raving lunacy if you don't want to, but if you're a nutter as well, you might like it...well, slightly like it. O.K., there's a small chance that you might tolerate it.]

Between the ages of 17 and 19, I went to something that laughably called itself a college - it used to be a banana storage facility, before being bought and converted into an institution that taught students the absolute bare minimum so that they'd achieve their qualifications and therefore earn the college £500 a time - and one thing in particular stands out from my time there.

This was the kind of college that attracts mostly retards and losers - hence my presence there. People of all ages from 16 and over; high-school drop-outs (not the kind that succeed against all odds), people who'd been unemployed for fucking ages because they barely had the intelligence to recall their own names and the fact that they needed to keep breathing. Hence my presence there. Don't get me wrong - there were some very intelligent people there, too, and being unemployed for a long time doesn't necessarily correlate with being unemployable, but they really should've renamed the place Loserville College For The Hopelessly Fucked. Hence my presence there.

We were on a break in the common room, and one particular arsehole there commented that the bunch of people sitting over the other side of the room were basically a cast of rejected characters from The Simpsons. Hence my presence there. As much as I disliked this particular guy, I couldn't help but agree with him.

There was one particular fella called Roy, who I tagged Curly Watts behind his back...well, because he looked like Curly Watts. He also looked shifty and incredibly evil, and he was very stupid; among other things, he once declared that Tottenham were actually a better team than Arsenal. Not that I support either team (though I do like football), but it was the timing of him saying this that made it ludicrous - Arsenal had won the Double that season, and half their squad had won the World Cup for France just a few days before he came out with his pearl of wisdom. Tottenham, as I remember, only narrowly avoided relegation that season.

Anyway, I digress. The conversation killer came when the group of Simpsons characters in question were discussing their mums - I'm very good at not paying attention to other people's conversations, and all I really remember is that mothers were the subject matter for some reason.

Curly silenced the whole room with this gem, which seemingly came out of nowhere: "My mum's a babe!"

Cue the rest of us leaning over to each other and whispering: "Did he just say what I THINK he just said?" I'd once referred to Curly as a motherfucker, but I didn't expect him to be Oedipus reincarnated.
(TheAmazingMeatMan ™ can't sing, but he's got soul, Fri 13 May 2011, 5:55, 1 reply)

Hi, I read QOTW on B3TA

( broadsword now that's fresh, Fri 13 May 2011, 2:27, 6 replies)

Nice
A couple of weeks ago I was at a BBQ.
Sitting at the table having some convivial chat over plates of burnt things, one of our friends minced over, sat down gingerly and announced with a groan.
I'd avoid the bathroom for a while guys, Ive just shat through the eye of a needle without splashing the sides.
The brief silence that followed was only broken by the sound of plates being hurriedly put down and the odd boke.
(insomniac-surfer oh go on then, just this once, Fri 13 May 2011, 1:50, 2 replies)

Freudian Slip
My husband and I had been invited to attend a wedding of a then-friend - it was to be a wiccan ceremony which i thought was pretty cool as i've never been to one and was quite curious as to what goes on. Then the actual invite came and it read the guests were to attend in medieval dress - i'm not too keen on fancy dress at the best of times, but since it was a wedding i was certainly not going to be a wet blanket. So hubby got it together as a knight, myself as a generic princess-type with the big upturned cone on my head (all very stylish, visited the costume shop etc).

Come the day of the wedding, i'm standing in the front yard talking to other mates whiles waiting for the bride and bridesmaids to arrive (yes, the wedding was held in their backyard, but in an attempt to fancy it up the bride had insisted on a horse and carriage to drive around the block in before turning up at her own front door again).

The guests are still arriving, and one of them appears in a vision of lace and mantilla. Now, this girl is *quite* huge so i can only imagine it was quite an effort for her to find something appropriate to wear for the day and, to be fair, she sort of pulled it off as an old-timey spanish senorita. As my eyes fell on her i commented to the bloke i was chatting to 'Doesn't she look lovely?' Then promptly, in full hearing of everybody there, i greeted her with 'Marie, you look absolutely awful!' Meant to say awesome not awful dammit!

Silence. Shocked silence as a matter of fact as everyone is wondering how i can be so horrid to this poor girl... Thankfully the guy i made my 'Doesn't she look lovely' remark to mere seconds ago was able to back me up that i must have had a slip of the tongue, but the damage was done. No matter how much i apologised and tried to explain my word salad, my protestations seemed unconvincing even to my own ears.
( Tiffany Aching 's bowl of oatmeal tried to stare her down and won, Fri 13 May 2011, 1:46, 3 replies)

Only today...
(Well yesterday now - but I haven't been to bed so it still counts...)

Talking to the prettiest girl at work (which considering that the department has over 200 staff, means she's quite the looker) when somehow I found myself talking about the only male marsupial animal who has a pouch. Not sure why as we don't work in anything related to zoology.

Anyhow, somehow the info that the male Yapok (a south american aquatic marsupial) uses it's pouch to hold it's genitalia to avoid getting it entangled in aquatic vegetation failed to impress her.

And since I'd just been speaking at length about the cloacae of monotremes meant she now thought I had some weird obsession about non-mammalian reproductive organs and backed away looking scared.

(which as I type this strikes me as odd - as she is clearly a mammal, and so wouldn't be part of my supposed special "interest"...)

no apologies for length - just the lack of holes...
(jugglinbob Not giving a damn since:, Fri 13 May 2011, 1:44, 5 replies)

Still makes me cry a little, even now
The scene: University first year, about ten people, all very drunk, all very stoned, all sat in my tiny kitchen. For some reason, we'd decided to play a game of "Eat as many Jacobs Cream Crackers as you can without drinking anything".

This is a difficult game at the best of times but, in these circumstances, it is near impossible. A girl that I had faint hopes of playing smuggle the sausage with later was up and she was struggling. Struggling bad. Gagging on a mouth full of cracker crumbs she spluttered "I can't swallow, I can't swallow".

In a line that immediately leveled the room into incoherent hysterical laughter for literally 20 minutes my lovely flatmate Jo then uttered the immortal words "Just gob it out in the tray by the bed".

Eleven years later it still makes me chuckle to myself like a loon everytime I think of it. Didn't help much with the sausage smuggling though.
(Robin of the Hood isn't into the whole brevity thing, Fri 13 May 2011, 1:37, 4 replies)

kidney woes
quite a few years ago id managed to pull the local tree hugging hippy chick..all was good, untill one post shag sunday morning chat didnt quite go as well as it might have.....i was recouning an amusing tale that had recently happend at work..a guy called mac had some kidney problem, and was finally due to go into hospital for a transplant. mac was ok but a bit dull and not really one of the lads.....anyway chris the factory twat got an oxes kidney from the butcher's, tied the tubes coming from it up bar one, filled it with water to swell it into a massive comedy kidney and gift wraped it in a shoe box..
so its macs last night at work, we call him into the canteen and give him his good luck card and prezzie. first he reads the card, and we can see hes quite touched. so chris the twat makes him stand on the table for a speech. macs welling up saying what a great bunch we all are ect.... then opens his prezzie....much laughter and thankfully mac seeing the funny side..
hippy chick just says.....ive only got one kidney, in a very unamused little voice

length .... that was about the end of it..
(factoryrat, Fri 13 May 2011, 1:34, Reply)

When I first met one of my friends
The reason we got on so well was because she was so used to the conversation dying, and it didn't. It was in one of those interminable university fresher things at a bar, where you say where you grew up, your schools etc.

Her, "Well, I never really went to school because I was in hospital for most of my childhood."
Dead silence, apart from me, who in a tone of delight went, "Ooo, me too! Did yours have a Nintendo? We used to go on missions to liberate it from the infectious disease kids, it was like a Bond film..."

Apparently it wasn't so much that the conversation kept alive after that, it was the fact that I sounded so "disturbingly happy" about the whole thing.
(Sivvus trolley collision in the fruit aisle led to a jam, Fri 13 May 2011, 0:53, Reply)

Standing at a bar with a group of female grad students last night
the subject of Jon Stewart came up, specifically the episode of the Daily Show from the other night with Kiera Knightly came up in conversation.

"What is santorum, anyway?" one pretty young blonde asked, eyes wide and innocent.

So I told her.

I didn't think her face could turn that color.

(A few moments later she was crying with laughter, along with the rest of them.)
( The Resident Loon Not a demographic. Do not measure., Fri 13 May 2011, 0:53, 7 replies)

Probably bindun, but I'll add it to the pot...
Was working in (the now no longer with us) Time nightclub in Bangor, and this lad Adrian (for that was his name) came up to the bar, sporting a bleach blond crew cut. Bear in mind that he used to work with me, and was a good laugh, I ribbed him immediately, and he responded with a word that will stay with me to my grave.

Me: "Ello mate, fuck, haven't seen you in ages!! What's with the Eminem haircut?"

Adrian: "Cancer."
(iamjthearmeroar, Fri 13 May 2011, 0:41, Reply)

Open mouth, insert foot.
It was an afternoon Physics lesson, and everyone was sitting quietly at the lab benches when I walked in. I piped up with, "Why's everyone so quiet? Someone died?"

Yes, someone had: a close relative of one of the most popular kids in the classroom.

I wasn't very popular for a while after that.
( flake has nothing against your right leg, Fri 13 May 2011, 0:41, 2 replies)

Lulworth Cove, drinking, and spastics

I was on a jolly day out many, many years ago to Lulworth Cove. A few drinks were drunk, and as we were walking past the gift shops one of our gang decided to playfully kick one of those Plastic Spastic Society Money boxes - the little girl in leg-irons with the box that you're meant to drop coins in.

The kick was a little harder than anticipated and to his shock the little girl started to fall over. As the rest of us looked on horrified, my mate made a flailing, valiant grab and prevented the whole thing from toppling to the ground.
Now feeling relieved but greatly ashamed of our yobbish behavior, we slunk off for another pint.

An hour or two later, sitting in a lovely sunny, beer garden, we'd got over our shame and were laughing about the incident.

"I can't believe I kicked that spacka in the head!" our friend cried out jovially!

*Silence*

From the entire garden....

....Including the crowd of helmet wearing, wheelchair bound, severely disabled teenagers and their volunteers out for a day of sun and ice-cream.
( gp_guineapig, Fri 13 May 2011, 0:27, Reply)

Not so much of a conversation killer but still very awkward...
Once upon a time I was working as the store manager for a travel/tour company in sunny Cairns, Australia.

As the backpacker hub of the east coast there was always some pub crawl or bar hop happening filled with sun kissed Swedish, Rather burnt Irish and of course pissed up brits.

One of these such cretin laden tours was the apt name "The Ultimate Party Bus" which was basically a red London double-decker which would drive around the same four streets playing out Black Eyed Peas "Ive got a feeling",plying them with drink and for some reason had those participating dressed in togas.............every night of the week.

Needless to say when starting my day the sight of half naked women with a loose boob or two at nine in the morning was a usual occurrence all of which walking around with a "Ultimate party t-shit" and a group photo of the fuckwits who took part the night before.

I digress as now the scene has been set.

I opened my store as always and sat back in my air conditioned office listening to Idlewild, checking my facebook and bumming around awaiting the backpacker horde to arrive after checking out of their hostels when in walks a toga wearing Swedish guy with fig leaves around his head and Ultimate Party Bus paraphernalia in hand.

I wasn't totally apathetic back then so i enquired about his night, how good the party bus was, How wrecked him and his buddies got, how big he thought Cairns was (yep those four streets are massive)and how he had a wicked photo of everybody who was on the bus that night.

I was a little bored so thought id scour the photo for any half naked boobies and came across a lad who decided that dressing up in a toga wasn't enough.

Conversation as follows:

Me: Wow there's a lot of people out last night then?
Swede: Jah, It was awesome
Me: Haha even some guys dressed up drag!!
Swede: (looks at me quizzically)
Me: (Noticing said confusion points at photo to a rather square chined guy with long hair and loads of make up)

Swede: That's my girlfriend
Me: hahaha
Swede: No, it is, we get that a lot.
Me: Oh....(red face)

Needless to say he left very swiftly and i closed up for ten minutes while i pissed myself.
(Devonda, Fri 13 May 2011, 0:12, Reply)

Dad, bless him
I'd just moved into my second year house at uni and pops had given me a hand shifting my stuff.

We said hello to my new housemates and their associated folks, and were having a look round the new digs.

"I see there's a Mosque at the end of the garden," said my dad, looking at a vaguely religious building adjacent to the property. Now my dad loves cracking jokes in awkward situations, so this was rapidly followed with: "The bad news is that it's going to be firebombed next week."

In the uncomfortable silence that followed dad just left and went and sat in my new room, alone. At the time I was a bit pissed off with his crudity, but looking back I genuinely feel for him.
( krang, Thu 12 May 2011, 22:54, 1 reply)

Monged out after party
We were having a late night conversation about our favourite DJ's, and those we had seen the most. Around 5am, and the usual out of body experiences happening all round.

Problem was, when it got round to me, I didn't really think too hard and said out loud - 'I've seen a lot of Cox'. Carl Cox.

Not so much kill the conversation, but people did find it hard to speak without giggling fits for a good 20 minutes.
( DeadEyeDick, Thu 12 May 2011, 22:32, 1 reply)

Back when I was in my early 20's
I used to hang around with a big group of people. Not all of them, all the time, but most nights there were a dozen of about 20 semi-regulars in "our" pub. And a lot of the time people were in entirely different states of sobriety - some were on a serious session, some were just getting drunk, and some were just hanging out.

On this particular occasion about 10 of us had taken over 3 tables and the hardcore drinkers, me included, were at one end. We'd been playing drinking games and I was pretty much into "I'm just going to rest my head on the table for a bit" stage.

Somehow the conversation at the other end of the table filtered into my brain over the noise of the jukebox and various too-loud people surrounding me, and I realised that E, a lovely young lass, was bemoaning her latest breakup by enumerating the guy's many flaws, obvious only in hindsight. Plaintively she cried, "Why can I only get shit boyfriends?"

Aha! I felt confident I knew the answer to this one! Into the silence as the jukebox switched tracks and those around her looked for a supportive comment, I raised my head from the pillow of my arms and loudly declared,

"It's because you're fat."

Satisfied I'd solved the problem, I put my head back down again and went back to resting my eyes.
( The Light in Chains don't touch the Pope's boner, Thu 12 May 2011, 22:27, 2 replies)

Spunky!
For 6 months of my life, I lived in Somerset, due to a last ditch attempt by my parents to save their marriage (it failed and we moved back to Dorset)
While there I had to go to Ansford school, which was okay..anyway getting sidetracked, sorry!
One day in a science class (they did combined science there, very confusing when you'd had 3 years of biology/chemistry/physics as seperate classes) we were doing some group work. I was grouped with 2 others, one called Jason, the other called Keith (I think, could have been Kevin or something..began with a K anyway) and we were talking about girls and sex, as 14yr olds are wont to do..when for some odd reason Keith pipes up "I wonder what colour a black mans spunk is?"

Every conversation in the class stopped dead. Every single one.
Then everyone laughed at Keith. Poor chap.
(Asharin Stabby stab stab, Thu 12 May 2011, 22:17, 1 reply)

Didn't stop our conversation...
...but did cause the family at the next table to leave shortly afterwards when my mate said "Yeah my GF's fucked me with a strapon, made me bleed and everything".

Pass the pork scratchings.
(fridgefreezer inserted a topical reference into his sig on, Thu 12 May 2011, 22:02, Reply)

King Kenny
Many moons ago, my cousin who isn't really my cousin played football for a youth team in Southport (Merseyside). We all went to watch him play one Sunday.

Now, it had been mentioned previously that one Paul Dalglish, son of then (and now) Liverpool manager played on the same team as my cousin who's not really my cousin and there was a change that his dad would be watching him play. I was quite excited about this.

As we're stood watching the game, my dad nudges me and points to a bloke stood about 10 feet away. It's him. Kenny fucking Dalglish. So my dad says "go and get his autograph!" I say "how? I can't just walk up and ask him". "Start a conversation and then do it" says my dad.

So I wander over and stand next to King fucking Kenny fucking Dalglish. I did a little wee, I was that excited.

I stand there and wait for something signifigant to happen in the game, so I ca pass comment and start a conversation.

And then it happens. A dreadful challenge. One of the worst I've seen. The victim of the tackle lost teeth, for fuck's sake (I'm not kidding).

So here's my chance, a conversation starter. I say "Jesus Christ, that's the worst tackle I've evr seen! That has no place in the game, he should be banned for life! Don't you think..."

To which Kenny Dalglish replies "that's my son!"

No more conversation, no autograph.
(ScousersPet, Thu 12 May 2011, 21:52, 1 reply)

It's all about timing
I worked in a camera shop until the late-1980s recession came along and the bloke who owned it had to make me redundant or lose his business.

Fast forward many years and I'd remained friends with the guy and his wife, popping into their shop for a chat whenever I was passing.

It was my habit to start with a joke so, on this particular day, I waltzed into the shop and promptly told the following:

A little old man walked into the office of his local newspaper and asked the price of classified announcements.
"£10 per word," the assistant tells him.
The old man then takes an ad form and goes off to fill it in.
Returning to the desk, he hands over £30 and the form, on which is written "Doris is dead."
"Is this all you want to say?" asked the assistant.
"It's all I can afford," he replied.
"Wait here," said the assistant and disappeared into the back of the office. She returned a few minutes later and said, "I've spoken to the advertising manager and he's agreed that you can have double the number of words for the same amount."
She handed the man a new ad form and he thanked her profusely.
Shortly thereafter, he returned and handed over the completed form, which now read "Doris is dead. Metro for sale."

I stepped back to drink in the applause of my audience, and Sylvia said, "My mum died last weekend."

Cue tumbleweed.
( Snappyuk gets BIGGER with free sample., Thu 12 May 2011, 21:06, 4 replies)

my dad
Dad was English but lived in Amsterdam for 11 or so years before he died of cancer at the young age of 52. He undertook most of the chemo and radiotherapy treatment in a hospital just outside Amsterdam near Schiphol airport if I remember correctly.

For the first few weeks at the start of his treatment all the staff and other patients on the ward, assuming dad could only speak English, only spoke English to him. They never spoke in Dutch to him and more or less assumed he was an ignorant English man with no grasp of their language.

Nothing odd about that except my dad was a quite a bit of a character and had shaved all his hair off (his response to being told he will lose his hair due to the treatments), was drawing erotic and dirty bondage pictures for the nurses and smoking skunk out on the balcony. The other cancer patients basically thought he was a complete oddball acting inappropriately through to disgracefully. A couple of weeks pass:

Nurse: Hello Mr Sutit Senior Ive been told that you speak fluent Dutch
Dad: Um well yes, I do.
Nurse: In that case would you rather we spoke to you in Dutch or English?
Dad: Dutch would be fine...

As my dad tells it there first was an audible gasp from some of the patients as the realisation dawned on them that he had understood ever single bloody word they had said in the last two weeks and then it was so quiet you could of heard a pin drop...

still miss him
( sutit only the crumbliest, flakiest posts, Thu 12 May 2011, 21:02, 2 replies)

Not drowned out by the engine.
50 years ago (is it that long ago already?) the Scarsparents were stationed at RAF Cranwell, where Dad was being taught how to use a knife and fork and when not to shit on the carpet.

One summer's eve, they were in the mess, which is bang on the edge on the airfield. The gliding club were still flying, and every 10 minutes there'd be a swoosh as one came into land. On one occasion, the swoosh was accompanied by a faint but clear "GET THE FUCKING NOSE UP!".

Silence, followed by the CO murmuring to his Flight Lieutenant: "Whoever said that is to report to me in 20 minutes in full uniform".

Off-topic: while they were there, they met Douglas Bader. My Mum remarked much later that she thought him a frightful little shit.
(all my scars face forward possesses 2.5% of a hyperalloy combat chassis, Thu 12 May 2011, 21:00, 6 replies)

Pinecones
Now my very good friend and fellow B3tan Ogwen if a wonderful chap with many a redeeming qualities, however an ability to stay focussed is sadly not one of these.

Now sit back and let me tell you a tale…

It is the summer of a several of years ago (specifics evade me) and the young and at this point carefree Ogwen is on holiday with his good friends Herr Truman (not in the least bit Germanic) and myself. We have just had the pleasure of a week at Le man indulging in booze, BBQ and occasionally pretending to look at cars.

In a feat of amazing forethought we had arranged a later return to Blighty allowing for a little enjoyment along the coast of France as part of a leisurely return to Calais and these details are important in an effort to pad out the story.

Tis a balmy afternoon and after much mucking about we have settled on a coastal walk as a pleasant way to while away a few hours before we fall back to eating cheese, drinking wine and punching Ogwen in the face (a story for another time i fear)

After a little while two separate groups have emerged upon said stroll, Herr Truman and myself who are forging a trail and talking of many things of little import and Ogwen, who for want of a better phrase is buggering about.

At this point Herr Truman and I are as we are often want to do engaged in some cod philosophy. Ogwen in his distracted state has however discovered something of import upon the French soil and pausing to recover said item engages in serious cogitation. A short while later mid conversational flow (iirc correctly we were discussing Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle and how it explains the ladle that always jams a kitchen drawer) we are interrupted by an urgent and forceful declaration

"I like pine cones" quoth Ogwen displaying said item for all to see.

This utterance had a similar effect on the conversation as changing down from 4th to 1st at 90mph would have on an engine and we watched in awe as said metaphorical engine left through the bonnet of our discussion and spiralled off down the theoretical carriageway (I think I’ve lost myself with this comparison now)
Needless to say we were stunned by the wisdom of his words (or something) and thus hilarity ensued, henceforth whenever Ogwen wonders off the point he is to be rebuked with a hearty cry of "I like pinecones!"
( Rhubarb_Triangle, Thu 12 May 2011, 20:54, 2 replies)