Home-made fireworks.
A wineglass full of petrol with a banger in it is surprisingly lively.
(richardm, Mon 16 Feb 2009, 14:29, 1 reply)

Cutting Tree branches
One day my mate came into school, with a broken arm and a broken nose.

Upon questioning him, he said he got attacked on the way home, and managed to "kick the shit out of the other lad"

for several lunchtimes i remember him retelling the same story - each time ever so slightly more dangerous than the last.

That was that.

Until about 2 years later when we were drunk at his house. He then confessed that he had infact been cutting down his mums Tree in the back garden. In a testement to Darwin himself, decided to cut the branch he was sitting on. Landing with his face ontop of his arm causing a double break.
(Dan dan dan They tik urh jerbs!!!, Mon 16 Feb 2009, 14:27, 1 reply)

Oh yeah, oh baby yeah....
It was unexpected, but pleasant. The kids where at their grandparents and we had the house to ourselves. It was a rare thing for us, so we wasted no time at all.

Clothes were ripped off in the passion. No regard was shown for buttons or zips, we simply didn't care. We felt like two young lovers, eagerly and excitedly exploring each other for the first time. We both knew that it would be great, which made it feel even better.

It was energetic, passionate, fierce, hot, sweaty and any other words you can think of. It wasn't long before the inevitable though, I knew it was my moment to send a few million potential children to a guys only party. I lay back, and then, at the precise moment I was due to do my thing......

The only way I can think to describe it would be to say it's the only time in my life where I actually wished I was dead. The pain that went surging through my brain and my neck, followed by the debilitating numbness which left me unable to speak, unable to move almost, and unable to focus on anything was quite possibly the most awful feeling I have ever experienced.

It didn't get any better either. My wife was in a panic, the man who was, seconds before, energetically 'sorting her out' was now a mass of trembling incoherent flesh.

Later, at the hospital, they were taking no chances. I was strapped to a stretcher and subjected to a CAT scan. They put me on a drip and they monitored my every move. I was subjected to a flock of tests, they checked my vision, my senses, my reflexes, my responses, my blood, my urine...everything. In the end they subjected me to a lumbar puncture which is quite unpleasant (large needle in your spine so as to asses the fluid content from the area within the vertebra). In the end they found nothing, but made me come back frequently for check ups as there were fears, initially at least, that I might have suffered a brain embolism. I still have to take it easy now, when, you know, on the job.

So there you have it, for a moment, I thought I was going to be killed by the one and only thing I like doing: Sex. Still, if that does happen it'll be a hell of a story for the lads down the pub!
( The Pollitt chooses to listen to Enya on, Mon 16 Feb 2009, 14:23, 3 replies)

Also...
...I did a 'Brian Harvey' once and nearly ran myself over with my own car.

I realised I hadn't left the hand brake on when I heard it scraping down the driveway wall. I jumped out of the way and it went into the garage...taking the garage door with it!

I really should stop owning cars.
( The Pollitt chooses to listen to Enya on, Mon 16 Feb 2009, 14:07, Reply)

Oh, and I used to...
....work in a scrap yard when I was younger.

Chatting to the boss one day and there was an almighty screech, then a battered old Saab 90 landed about 3 feet away from me, having fallen off two other cars!
( The Pollitt chooses to listen to Enya on, Mon 16 Feb 2009, 14:01, 1 reply)

Slightly O/T as it's a bit lacking in humour, but...
Sat in the passenger seat of my Mum's car, as we're hurtling up the A38.

By this point, I'm asleep. My head filled with whimsical dreams and a faint ringing noise as a by product of a heavy night 12 hours before.

As I come around, I open my eyes to see we've gone slightly off-angle, resulting into us heading right for a bridge parapet at roughly 60mph.

I glanced at my mum, she'd fallen asleep. I screamed and quickly grabbed the wheel, putting the car back on path via a sharp and sudden alteration.

My mum came round, looked at me, unaware of the near miss and asked why I looked so shocked. I said I'd tell her when we got home.

When I told her, she cried.

It was a newish car, with air bags and crumple zones and the like, but at 60mph into concrete none of that would matter.

I think that's the closest I have been to death without having been injured.
( The Pollitt chooses to listen to Enya on, Mon 16 Feb 2009, 13:59, 6 replies)

"I've got a knife"
The thing about the weather in Manchester is that it is just so changable. From howling wind and rain to bright sunshine in a matter of minutes; it's never predictable.
The rain had just stopped and I'd furled my umbrella as I walked along the side of Platt fields. When I'd left the house it'd been tipping it down. Suddenly it had stopped, and the sun was warm and bright. It lifted my mood considerably and I walked on looking around at the world and generally beaming at how life wasn't all that bad.

He rode up alongside me and slowed down, the wheels of his bike going tictictictic tic as he coasted.
"What'd you look at me like that for?" He asked.
I was confused, because I'd been in a bit of a reverie and I hadn't even really noticed him, and I said so. "Like what? Sorry, mate, I didn't even see you."
This appeared to be the wrong answer. "you looked at me like I were a cunt", he said. "You fuck."
"I did? I was miles away. I didn't even know I'd looked at you." I gave my best harmless smile.
"You what? You think you're some kind of hard man? You cunt." He spat.
"Nope", I said, as cheerfully as I could muster. I really wished he'd just go away.
"I'll fuck you up", he said. "I've got a knife."

Time slowed down. There are certain things that people can say which makes time do that. "I'm pregnant and you're the father" is one. So is "Perhaps you could accompany me to the station, sir", is another. He reached a hand into his tracksuit pocket and pulled a knife out, flicking it open. The blade was about six inches long and it glittered as it caught the sun. He waved it with one hand at me as he held onto the handlebars with the other.
Shit. I thought. He's going to stab me, and I've no idea why. I couldn't even run away, because there's no way I could outpace someone on a bike. Instead, I did the only thing I could think of.
I stuck my umbrella in the spokes of the front wheel of his bike and ran like hell. I didn't look back, but I like to think he executed a neat trajectory over the handlebars and landed on his face. The shouting certainly made it sound like he had, anyway.
(davywavy, Mon 16 Feb 2009, 13:57, 7 replies)

Look no hands!
As a kid, living on an Army camp was probably the best, and most dangerous place to be.

During the school holidays we used to get dragged off to take part in activities like rock climbing, canoe camping and shooting... all that kind of stuff.

While rock climbing, and perched on a millimeter wide ledge, our instructor informed us that under no circumstances should we let go of the rope around the caribiner thingy when we descended, as we would fall to a certain death.

I let go of mine to see what would happen. Actually nothing at all happened at all, except the instructor said I was possibly the stupidest kid he'd ever met. For some reason, I felt quite proud.
(Cadmire, Mon 16 Feb 2009, 13:21, Reply)

Stop, look, listen Pt. II
My brother's approach.

Running late, as was all too often the case, we made our way homeward and had naught but a busy road to clear before we were able to run unencumbered all the way back to my Dad's front door. Dad wouldn't bollock us for tardiness, but we'd go hungry if we didn't hurry, so hurry we did.

"This is my approach to crossing the road" stupidly boasted the younger sibling, before sprinting directly into the path of an oncoming car.

Time seemed to slow almost to the point of stopping as the car struck his trailing leg and sent him spinning into the curb. A single shoe made a sky bound bid for freedom, before gently returning with too loud a bang on the roof of the next car.

The young driver was in a terrible state; I suppose the last thing you want on your first voyage after passing your driving test is a mindless young boy throwing himself under your wheels. Her Mum took the controls for the remainder of that journey, and I sometimes wonder whether the new driver ever took them back again.
( Moey, Mon 16 Feb 2009, 13:19, Reply)

Keep close to me........
.....I always survive!

So far: one war, one hurricane and a few earthquakes and not a single scratch!
(Pork2311, Mon 16 Feb 2009, 12:55, 5 replies)

Stop, look, listen... or something like that.
We'd been down the rec. messing about on our bikes; probably doing gert skids and mega wheelies and jumps that were massive enough to make Evel Knievel green with envy, but tea time was imminent and we had to race home to avoid the wrath of Mum.

The exit sloped down to the road, and the road was mostly quiet, as were all the roads in our humble little village. I followed the others out of the park and watched them pedal straight onto the road ahead, so didn't even consider that it wasn't safe to do likewise.

In my memory the distance between me and the front grill of the tatty old Land Rover was a matter of millimetres. It was most definitely only a matter of seconds between me only being shouted at a bit by an irate farmer, and me becoming a twitching, bloodied hood ornament for his decrepit old motor.

I'm pretty sure I always adopted the stop, look, listen approach to crossing roads from there on.
( Moey, Mon 16 Feb 2009, 12:45, 2 replies)

Vlad's sisters and my near-impalation
I don't have a habit of endangering my life in stupid ways. I'll freely admit that I've said and done a wide variety of very stupid things in the past, but I'd like to think I'm doing reasonably well as far as natural selection is concerned.

Nevertheless: it was a Friday evening, the week after my third-year exams had finished. My guitarist and I decided to spend an evening in the Blues Bar just off Regent Street.

Turns out we made a good choice - they had a fine pint of Arran Fireside on the pumps, and Ian Siegal* was playing at the back of the bar.

It also became very convenient at this point that my guitarist is Russian. During a quiet point in conversation, he gestured over to three women stood behind us and said "sounds like they're Russian." So I went to the gents a little later, and, when he came back - well, bugger me, he'd only gone and struck up conversation with them.

In short, we had a superb evening drinking a large amount of beer and trying (unsuccessfully) to chat up three Russian sisters to the backdrop of some of the best modern blues in the UK. In fact, I'd had such a good evening, I decided to walk home. Walk, that is, from Regent Street to Barons Court.

A bit of a long trek it was, so by the time I'd got to Park Lane, I thought it would shave some time off the journey to cut through Hyde Park. I knew of a fence at the far end which is able to climb over, so as long as I could find an open gate on the Park Lane side, I'd be fine. Granted, this was 2 or 3am, but someone had forgotten to close one of the side gates. Bingo!

Well, almost. I'd forgotten about the fence which runs up the middle of the park. I got this far, in the middle of the park, in the pitch darkness, and decided it was too late to turn back.

So how to get over this fence? I tried to lift myself up to climb over it, and realised that if I wasn't careful, I'd put the (very pointy) railings into my abdomen.

So I decided to take my chances and jump over it. I took a few steps back and prepared to run up.

Then I took a few more steps back.

Then I tried a different angle.

Then I dawdled a bit.

And then I jumped.

I've made it!
Oh, almost...seems my jeans are snagged on the railing...
Hmm...okay, they're snagged quite firmly. Let's have a look...
Oh, crap.

It wasn't so much my jeans that were snagged as my thigh. I was halfway over a fence in a deserted Hyde Park, in the small hours of the morning, with a fence in my leg.

I'd like to think that the beer kept me level-headed, because I'm normally quite squeamish. Cursing and grunting enough to make a BNP rally seem family-friendly, I lifted myself off the railing and hobbled off to find a bench.

There, in the middle of the park, I tried to administer first aid. The position of the wound required me to pull my trousers down, and as I tried to wrap a handkerchief round it, I realised that my thigh was, in fact, far too large for the handkerchief to encompass.

I pulled my trousers up and decided the best course of action was to get home. I got to the fence I knew I could scale and left the park, to hobble the last half-hour to Barons Court.

I thought I was doing alright at the time, though in hindsight, I must have been in some sort of shock as I remember being convinced that the couple walking 100yds or so behind me were, in fact, following me home.

The following day I woke up with very little memory and a splitting headache.
Fuck...I didn't have that much to drink last night...
I pulled back the sheets to find a broad smear of blood all over them.

I've never been so grateful to live with a medical student. V, you're a legend. (And I'm an idiot)

*_{If he's not a legend yet, he bloody well ought to be.}
(LongJohnBaldry, Mon 16 Feb 2009, 12:26, 2 replies)

Train track Chicken without a vechile.......
A guy I knew from school used to walk down the tracks from Old Street to Angel tube, if the train was delayed at all......... he's still alive as far as I am aware.
(Randyqueen Hangin' out the back of Lady Boys, Mon 16 Feb 2009, 12:20, Reply)

Country life
I had a mate who could probably have filled this QOTW single handed. Born to hang, we used to say, because nothing else seemed to be able to kill him!

So on school holidays we used to go up to his late uncle's farm, and be left alone up there for a week, with as much booze as we could smuggle past his father. And when that ran out on the second or third day, we'd 'borrow' the neighbour's motorbike and nip into the town of Poowong for more.

Everybody said country life was good for my health. I'd get to experience all sorts of things.

Having a beer can shot off my head by a drunken mate. Having a full beer can shot off my head by a drunken mate. It exploded, showering both of us in beer, leaving a can split right down the side with a tiny nick where the bullet hit. (We kept the can, we didn't tell anyone it was on my head at the time!)

Hiding in the old water tank to hunt rabbits at dusk. By the time the rabbits finally showed up, we were so plastered we could barely point the bloody gun out the holes in the tank! Discovering that bullets will go through the tank walls anyway, deafening us. Discovering that bullets will ricochet off the seam in the tank, hurting us!

The thrill of tractor racing, and being drunk enough to fall off the seat, barely managing to fall far enough to avoid being crushed by those huge back wheels.

That moment of utter fear, when you're cutting down a huge tree, and it starts falling straight at you.

That thrill of walking out in the morning with breakfast, and scaring the piss out of a poacher who thought the place was empty. His first shot hit the house, sending a brick chip into my breakfast. I hit the ground while my mate grabbed the gun and shot back!

Oh yes, I learned a lot about country life up there. That's why I stay in the city now where it's safe!
(ShowPony, Mon 16 Feb 2009, 12:15, Reply)

Stupid cleaning!
Back when I was a younger, more athletic and somewhat stupider version of myself I decided to join the Air Training Corps so I could meet girls.
This plan started off OK but went slightly wrong when we went to an all boys camp at RAF Cosford...

While there we did a number of fun activities including flying, shooting, going up the Wrekin and going to Jodrill Bank.

We also had to do a number of not so fun activities including drill and ensuring that our rooms were clean.

Every morning we had to get up at around 6 in the morning to ensure that the room was tidy enough to pass inspection from the twatty warrant officer who always found a spot where you'd missed/forgotten/couldn't reach.

However, one day I knew I could outwit him and cleaned everywhere, including the bedside lamp (that had no bulb) and inside there too. I knew I'd show him! Suddenly there is this weird buzzing feeling in my thumb...

This can't be good thinks I and I then attempt to prise my thumb out of this socket, fianlly manage to and find it covered in weird tiny hard bits of skin and blisters and actually wonder why this has happened...

How have I not died yet?
(Fuckarma was masturbating into your handbag, Mon 16 Feb 2009, 12:08, 3 replies)

On using one's face as an airbag
I've mentioned my grandfather and his large garden before.

One of the lawns was on a slope. At the top end, there were some trees. Towards the bottom, there was a telegraph pole. During summer holidays at his house, we would occasionally rig a rope and pulley system between one of the trees and the telegraph pole. (He'd make the pulley himself using his lathe.) We - my brother and I, and whatever cousins and (on occasion) parents were about - would then use this as a death-slide, and spend hours happily hurtling down the line.

Usually, I remembered to let go of the pulley to land roughly but safely on the grass at the end of the ride.

Usually.

Except for that one occasion when I decided to try an innovative braking system that relied on the interaction of the telegraph pole and my cherubic little face.

In fairness, the brake worked. I stopped very suddenly.
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Mon 16 Feb 2009, 11:48, Reply)

tumble dryer delivery men
our previous one had broken down, they were here to take it away and connect up the new one. problem was it sat on top of our washing machine and they was able to reach behind to unplug the defective appliance.

''do you have a pair of scissors or a knife or somefink'' said one of the two extremely inbred looking delievery men.

it being 7 in the morning and i still being in quite a state having just gotten home half an hour earlier following a heavy night at turnmills, i said ''yeah sure'', and handed the man a pair of brass scissors. it not occuring to me that he might want them to actually cut the live cable. which he did.

que loud bang and all the lights in the house shorting out. i recall him apologising to me afterwards as i stared at him in utter disbelief, ears still ringing.

he was okay btw, luckily. i still have the brass scissors though with the the scorch marks still visible and a small area on the blade actually disintegrated/melted!
(TheManWithThePlan cussed your mum on, Mon 16 Feb 2009, 11:48, Reply)

Skinheads vs. the drunk guy
It was in '02 and my one year stint of living in London was coming to a close so me and my mate decided to go out on a friday night and get plastered. Since we just got payed, we thought Soho was a great idea (It's not).

We went to this bar that I cannot remember, drunk a lot of beer and other beverages, had a good time and left the bar in a great mood. In fact my mood was so blissfully awesome and philanthropical (is that even a word?) that when I see 2 guys shoving each other on the street I stepped in between them and proclaimed:

"Awww, come on guys, you gain nothing out of fighting.."

And that's the last thing I remembered.

Things I should have noticed before going all Ghandi on them:
a. Steel-toed army boots
b. shaved heads
c. swastika tattoos on said heads
d. general look of social hatred in their beady eyes

I woke up the next morning and my face was stuck to my pillow due to dried blood and pus pouring out of my black,swollen eyes. Apparently one of them headbutted me resulting in my dropping like a sack of peace loving potatoes, at which time they both started kicking my head, stomach, back, legs...just about everywhere I was exposed.

Stupid of me, yes. But lest we forget: I did break up their fight.
(snordfjord Cranky...like a crank!, Mon 16 Feb 2009, 11:42, Reply)

Back when I was a young 'un
Pearoast but you know how it is:

I used to love going out on my bike. Now as I'm sure you've all done when you were younger the best thing to do on a bike was try to get it to do a skid, the longer the better!

Now, where I lived we discovered a way to make them even easier to do, this technique was known as the 'backheel' and essentially all you did was cycle as fast as you can and then place your heel in the gap between the wheel and the arch, this would have the effect of stopping the wheel, thus making the bike skid.

I used to be one of those kids who loved to experiment but had little in the way of common sense (In fact, the used to be is superfluous I guess) so this goes some way to explaining the following:

I decided to take this 'backheeling' to the next level.

I shouted to my mates 'watch this!' and so I jumped on my trusty bike and started to pedal as fast as my legs would go (to make the skid as big as possible) and when I judged I had reached optimum speed a jammed my foot into the gap between the wheel and the arch.

At the front of the fucking bike...

The next thing I experience if a feeling of flying 'fucking hell thinks I, this is ace! Who knew you could do this?'

I then landed face first on the road and skidded a little bit along the road...

I raised my head from the road to assess the situation and see if my mates were suitably impressed with my first foray into flight

Then the bike hits the back of my head, making my head butt the road again...

I manage to get up, pick up my bike, my mates are:
pointing and laughing and those who aren't are retching.

'This can't be good' thinks I so I do what any action hero does in such a situation and wandered home to chat to mum about it.

This then results with my dad being called home from work to take me to hospital and for then to check that I've not lost my eye...

This left me with a beautiful scab all over the left of my face making my look like the phantom of the opera and a lovely scar over my eyebrow.

Fun times...

Slightly less interesting is that fact that I've probably already removed myself from the gene pool cos I shove my phone down my pants to try to impress girls with the size of my fake cock
(Fuckarma was masturbating into your handbag, Mon 16 Feb 2009, 11:22, 1 reply)

Chopping wood
When I was a kid we had an open fire. It was my job to chop the logs, which I quite liked. As a 12 year old I was in awe of the power of a long handled axe.

So there I was swinging the axe, chopping the logs, only a little bit too close to the bit of rope hung across the garden between 2 smallish trees that my mum used as a washing line.

Last log. Extra big swing of the axe. Axe gets caught on the rope. The trees flex until they can't flex any more, then (a la Tom and Jerry catapult) spring back firing the back of the axe into my forehead. I woke up in the garden with a concerned neighbour stood over me and a big dent in my forehead.

I still (19 years later) have the dent in my forehead, which really hurts the morning after drinking too much Stella. Other beers are fine.
(ralphseviltwin, Mon 16 Feb 2009, 11:09, Reply)

Butterfly
My baby brother desperately wanted to be a butterfly when he was a kid. I told him he had to be a caterpillar first.

That’s how they found him, wrapped in sheeting in the shed. Asphyxiated they said.

Maybe he’s flying now.

BB RIP

You silly sausage.
(powervator and NONE SHALL PASS, Mon 16 Feb 2009, 11:02, 5 replies)

very near miss this morning
i was waiting to cross the a4 on the way to the tube, which for non-londoners and merkins is a very very busy 6 lane duel carriageway. at 7.30am in kensington, it's busy but still fast moving; people belt along there.

i was literally miles away at the pedestrian crossing, ipod on full blast, daydreaming about some rubbish or other. the guy in front of me started to cross, and i didn't think, just followed him.

suddenly even over the music, i became aware of a loud, angry honking, getting louder and angrier. in one split second, i realised the following:

(i) the guy in front of me had in fact just been running through a gap in the traffic. not ok if you are walking slowly, head in the clouds.

(ii) the red man was still very very red.

(iii) there was a huge white truck coming at me at about 40mph.

(iv) i was totally fucked.

fortunately, and most uniquely for that time in the morning, there was noone in the adjacent lane, and the driver was able to lurch into it and miss me by what felt like millimetres - the gust of air as he shot past me still nearly knocked me off my feet.

very very very stupid. ipods, daydreams and the a4 are not a good combination.
( rachelswipe with a fork, Mon 16 Feb 2009, 10:49, 18 replies)

I wanted to be Kung Fu
When I was about 10 or 11, I was addicted to the escapades of Kwai Chang Cain (bad spelling, I know) on Saturday evening's Kung Fu. This was when Saturday TV was all about family viewing and violence where no-one got hurt, think Dukes of Hazard and The A Team. Halcyon days.
Anyway the opening sequence to Kung Fu, had our hero going through various painful trials as an acolyte before moving on to become a master. I was always inspired by this as any pre-teenage boy should be in the Seventies, and needed to show my mates how cool I was. Riding around on a Grifter, when a Chopper was de riguer, fueled my feelings of inadequacy.
Anyway, one afternoon, we were down messing about by the stream, looking for rats or something, I can't remember, when I found a perfectly straight stick. An idea quickly formed in my impressionable mind, and quick as a flash, I pulled out my penknife. This was at a time when any youngster could carry a knife without fear of police harassment. I sharpened a point on the stick, and hefted it in my young hands.
"Paul", I shouted, "Can you throw this at me?"
Paul, ever eager to be some sort of cro-magnon hunter, readily agreed.
He took up position on one side of the stream, I on the other. I did various Kung Fu style warm ups, adding the odd jump kick in for good measure, whilst all my mates milled about looking interested rather than impressed.
When I was ready, I stood in a pose I hoped was one Cain would have used, and a bit nervous now, called "Ready!".
The spear - for now that was what it was - sped through the air, with unerring accuracy straight at my head. At this point my Kung Fu skills failed me, and I felt an explosion in my face.
Supposedly all my so-called friends pissed themselves laughing before running over to help me. Writhing on the floor, I thought I had lost an eye, and it was only through repeated assurances that I calmed down enough to examine the wound. The spear had hit my cheekbone and the swelling had already closed my left eye. The skin had been punctured, but for some reason it wasn't bleeding too badly.
Thinking back on the episode, I reckon that had it hit my eye, it would have carried on through the eye socket into the brain and killed me.
I am sure that if YouTube had existed I would have been an internet sensation, oh well.
(leancranker, Mon 16 Feb 2009, 10:29, 3 replies)

Thermite
I have already documented my first chemistry induced brush with death here.

b3ta.isbaronessonheat.com/questions/darwin/post367481

Here is the second one.

In my fourth year at university I shared with 6 other people in university accommodation. They were for postgrads and relatively luxurious compared to the pre-hercules Augean stables that the undergrads were in.

We had a double kitchen, satellite television, a fridge each etc. It was quite nice. I knew all the 6 people that were moving in and we were all friends and unfortunately rather mischevious.

Anyway, we were looking for japes and one of my friends was watching some mad science documentary on a random tv channel and came across the thermite reaction. As I am sure that many of you will be aware, the thermite reaction is a type of violent high temperature exothermic reaction that can be done quite easily as it only involves basically mixing and heating some metals and supplying a catalyst. It can easily reach about 2500 degrees C (4500 degrees F for merkins).

So my friends rallied around this idea and I said it was a bit dangerous but I had always wanted to do it. As the only chemist, I was the one to sort out the details. So we decided to do it. We needed a heat source. Hey! Why not use the gas cooker in the empty kitchen downstairs? Excellent. So I obtained the necessary ingredients from the lab and we set up shop.

All 6 of us were in a kitchen with the ingredients in a saucepan heating away. It was all going swimmingly. I wasn’t totally stupid (!) so I had calculated the stoichiometric ratio to use the smallest amount of reactants, thereby limiting the reaction. Sadly this didn’t help me much.

I was wearing my lab coat and safety glasses (for some reason I can’t do chemistry without wearing them). The reaction kicked off, and suddenly it got rather hot. The two people next to me (stupidly wearing t shirts) managed to get 3rd degree burns on their faces, arms and hands. I got 3rd degree burns on my hands and jaw. My plastic safety glasses melted to my face. The cooker melted. The surrounding worktop (MFI job) charred. The plastic bin in the corner of the room melted. The curtains caught on fire and then charred.

All 6 of us ended up in hospital with varying burns. Then we got the bill for the kitchen from the university. Our explanation that we were merely enthusiastically cooking spaghetti Bolognese rightly went unbelieved and unheeded.

What stupid idiots we were. We weren’t even drunk.
(powervator and NONE SHALL PASS, Mon 16 Feb 2009, 10:22, 6 replies)

Junior Stunt Man
I must have been around 3 or 4 when my mother on an idle weekend decided to clean her display shelves full of priceless antiques (or otherwise known as useless tat).

A part of this process was to lay a sheet of paper on the carpet in front of said display shelf to catch whatever dust was evacuated during the cleaning phase.

My mother had gone to attend something else leaving the glass shelf doors wide open and me curious as to what was going on.

Straight away my young pattern matching mind saw the piece of newspaper on the floor clashing against the dark carpet and thought "Cool! Hopscotch"

I then proceeded to jump, head first through the first of the two open glass doors.

There was a lot of fuss and attention on me after a loud shattering sound and I noticed that the first door was missing - and me without a scratch on me.

Well at least I cleared the paper! Hopscotch master!

*Edit: Ok, not technically hopscotch but 'jumping master' just don't have the same ring to it*
(ldwater otherwise known as a 'jive turkey', Mon 16 Feb 2009, 10:00, Reply)

In a famous squat house in new york
where i stayed for a couple of weeks while i was travelling round the states in 2002.

After a paricularly heavy night I stumbled 6 floors up to the room I had been staying in only to find a short aggressive french dude and his girlfriend who told me that their friend had offered them the room and I had to find somewhere else to sleep. Fine I thought and wrapped my sleeping bag around me and wandered off to go sleep on the skate ramp in the basement, as I approached the stairs very drunk and just wanting to go to sleep, I slipped on a loose bit of cardboard box and proceed to bounce rattle and thud my way down the stairs, all 6 flights of them and straight into the bike room at the bottom of the stairs. It was pitch black in there having no windows and the light had apparently been broken for weeks so after stumbling around crashing into bikes tables mattresses and anything else in that room for a good ten minutes I finally found my way out, only to walk straight off the wrong side of the stairs that lead down to the basement.. I woke up at the bottom of the stairs an unspecified ammount of time later, a huge gash in my arm and my hoodie soaked in blood, I must have looked a right state.. and to this day I still believe that my sleeping bag (which I somehow kept wrapped around me through the whole episode) is what saved me (at least from breaking something).
(skippy the ratboy doesnt want to write something funny here!, Mon 16 Feb 2009, 8:29, Reply)

So there's my brother, trying to be Michael Jordan
bouncing his basketball around the yard. He fails epically - but it's still cute to watch. I grow bored and go inside.

Three minutes later I hear screaming.
Turns out my brother had picked up a hefty chunk of concrete and had attempted to throw it up in the air and over his head in the latest Michael Jordan style of backwards goals.
Only it didn't go over his head. It went straight up then landed on his forehead.
Queue blood everywhere and a trip to the hospital for stitches.

That was one of my brother's brushes with the grim reaper.

Size? Too bloody big for a 7 year old.
(Poppet some assembly required., Mon 16 Feb 2009, 6:43, Reply)

I followed the link
to the supposed 'cat torture' video.

It turns out to just be someone torturing Rick Astley.
(apeloverage committed the vile act of onanism on, Mon 16 Feb 2009, 1:09, Reply)

when i was about 9
i was at my friend evie's big old victorian house one saturday afternoon. usually we played outside, but that particular saturday, her parents were having a dinner party and we were banned from the dining room. which of course made this previously boring room filled with hard satin chairs and china shepherdesses a sudden bordello of secret delights.

so we were sneakily playing in there when we noticed that the brass lightswitch had slipped and was hanging on by only one screw. fuck alone knows why we decided to be "helpful" and to "fix" it, but we did.

we crawled over to it. essential because the dining room had a serving hatch leading into the kitchen, and evie's mum was in there. however, when standing by the light fitting, we were just out of view of the hatch. evie held the brass switch in place and i tried to push the screw back into the wall.

the next thing we knew, we were flat on our backs a couple of feet away. there had been an audible zaaaaaaaaaap sound, and my right arm was tingling and numb from the finger to the shoulder. i could hardly move it. (neither could evie, but that was more likely because my ballast had landed on top of her).

however, painful lesson though it was, the electric shock was only small, and was not what nearly killed us with stupidity. no, that would be evie's mother, standing in the doorway and breathing fire like a dragon with PMT as she'd looked up to see us flying past the hatch and screaming...
( rachelswipe with a fork, Sun 15 Feb 2009, 19:56, Reply)

there was the bloke
on upper street last night who thought it would be funny to grab my friend *****'s admittedly rather enormous tits and yell HONK! as she walked past him.

if we'd all gotten hold of him once the shock wore off, it would have been death by 10 very drunk and disorderly "ladies". or ***** might have raped him to death, come to think of it.

either way he'd have been in the Q for a darwin, definitely.

***** name changed because she just found this website and i am in a LOT of trouble, sorry sweetie darling.......
( rachelswipe with a fork, Sun 15 Feb 2009, 19:48, 7 replies)