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This is a question Desperate Times

Stranded in a hotel in an African war zone with no internet access for two weeks, I was forced to resort to desperate measures. Possessing only my passport and the clothes I stood up in; and the warning "You can catch it shaking hands with a vicar out there" ringing in my ears, I had to draw my own porn in order to preserve my sanity.

Alas, it all came out looking like Coronation Street's Audrey Roberts, but, as they say, any port in a storm.

What have you done in times of great desperation?

(, Thu 15 Nov 2007, 10:10)
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This question is now closed.

So desperate for alcohol
I actually started making my own cider. And fuck me, it worked!
(, Tue 20 Nov 2007, 17:45, 1 reply)
Riddle Diddle!
There once was this fella called Dave,
who kept a dead whore in a cave,
She was missing one tit,
and smelt quite a bit...
... But think of the money he saved!!!!

LOL!
(, Tue 20 Nov 2007, 17:36, Reply)
Last 4 weeks of term
Tesco value fish fingers and bread for breakfast lunch and dinner.

The year before my final meal of the year was tesco value ham, lemon juice and a sachet of ketchup.
(, Tue 20 Nov 2007, 17:32, Reply)
Airport snacks
For some reason I have failed to learn time and time again to ensure I have money when flying home from somewhere.

Typically as the end of whatever trip I'm on nears I ration the local currency and spend near enough up to the last coins I have.

That is how I came to find myself in Barcelona airport with about 25p of spanish coins.... waiting for my flight 2 hours later.... which ended up being delayed for 12 hours.... when I discovered cheapo student bulk buy flight deal offers me no food voucher goodness for the delay.

After 4 hours the shops closed for the day, leaving 8 hours to kill with nothing to eat but some cinnamon (!?!?!) flavoured tic-tacs and free water from the fountain (needed to take the taste of the tic-tacs away). They may only have 2 calories, but that's nearly 100 cals in a pack!

You think I'd learn but I've also repeated this trend in the following airports;
Manchester
Glasgow
Heathrow
Gatwick
New York (Newark)
Tokyo Narita
Fuerteventura (Canary Islands)
Sydney
Brisbane
Cairns (plus major sunburn)
Geneva
Amsterdam
Dubai

I think I might start leaving some money in my passport or something as last time I found myself reading the menu of Wetherspoons for 3 hours whilst enjoying 2 cups of 59p coffee!

If my rating wasn't so piss poor I'd have a credit card by now to max out.
(, Tue 20 Nov 2007, 17:30, 5 replies)
University
Imagine the time, I'm sure you all can. You see the first years turning up, all fresh-faced with their parents in tow, leaving home for what is in all likelihood for the first time. It's amazing what first years will trade for a bit of cookery knowledge and help with DIY...
(, Tue 20 Nov 2007, 17:26, 2 replies)
Dumbness
I was walking around in the lobby in a ritzy hotel carrying a katana. (Don't ask.) I spotted the security thugs coming my way, so it was time for quick thinking: I shoved it into the grand piano and closed the lid.
When I came back to get it a day later it was still there. I just hope nobody tried to play the piano.
(, Tue 20 Nov 2007, 17:07, 3 replies)
skint bikers
back, in the, er, day
the chrome one (my brother) was living on the outskirts of lunnun (in an unheated caravan in some fucksocked wasteland) and rang me reverse call: 'I'm broke, got nothing, wot can you do?'
So I fired up the trusty triumph-no tax/mot-it was, er, 'in process' piled my pockets with grass, my last 20 quid, some packet soups & a vesta curry (hey, they were the days) i had a last spliff as i set off and wended my way along the A3 from portsmuff.
outside petersfield 2 plod pull me over on nice shiny white BMW's...I can't out run them, so I stop and after a bit of banter, tell em I need a piss & manage to lose the baggie in the trees (whoo hoo = result) they decide to impound me & the trumpet, not whoo hoo, that bit BTW.
So i sit most of the day in the chokey, tho' they did feed me fish fingers n beans, anyways, I set off much later than planned & the feckers wouldn't give me a lift back to where they'd stopped me. cnuts. so I walk.
I find the dope, I stick my thumb out and 5hrs later I make it to lunnun. (its a 1 & 1/2 hrs usually, eh? or 55mins if you break the speed limits) apols. i digress.
i get there and we make soup, croutons of stale bread-no recipe attached....and a garnish of grass. in the a.m. he ses 'were you eating the bread in the night? nope ses I: it were the rats! cos there were holes where they'd nibbled away......we spend 2 days getting stoned, eating soup (or is it drinking?) and thinking of rat avoidance. and then it was time to go home.
I pick up an old train ticket and essentially play big bad ass biker to get (read bully/swagger etc) my way across lunnun. and then after 6 hrs of no feckers giving big ass bikers a ride, i'm fed up & hungry; the stone has left a v. large munch hole in me and its getting dark, so I mooch into the shell garage opposite and talk the young black attendant into a belated recognition that all he needed to make his life complete was to swap his tennies' for my snakeskin cowboy boots (& some chocolate of course) he made the recognition after about ooh, a 1/2 hr. or so. and I slid out of there, back to pompey which i then called home-and thats desperation innit: calling portsmouth home.........?
( BTW I lost ownership of the triumph cos it was 'not mechanically sound; sed plod and I got done fer that & the no tax/MOT thing a little later)

no apologies for lenght as i'm due to get seasons greetings printed on it soon'ish: was thinking of getting merry christmas everbody-but that is a lenght issue.
(, Tue 20 Nov 2007, 16:54, 2 replies)
Welsh Fog
Many years ago I was driving some mates back to Leeds after watching Leeds v Swansea. We'd stopped overnight in Port Talbot and had been told to leave the town by the plod (another story) at around 4am. I was knackered so told my mates we'd have to stop so I could have a bit of a kip. In the middle of nowhere in the thick welsh fog I spotted a sign to a picnic area. I stopped & we all went to sleep. After about an hour I woke and was in dire need of a crap. I tried to wait but it became desperate. I left my sleeping mates about 5.30am and wandered off into the fog to find somewhere to deposit. I came across some picnic benches, you know - the tressle type? I dropped my kegs and sat on the bench with my arse hanging over the edge. "Right, here goes" thought I and released the previous evenings lager & curry in one great cow-pat like explosion. With comedy timing and at that exact time a couple emerged from the fog walking their dog. "Morning" I said. "Morning" they replied, as they disappeared back into the fog. What were the chances of that?! I wonder if they ever tell the tale?
(, Tue 20 Nov 2007, 16:39, Reply)
Microsoft Encarter Porn
When I was about 13 i was baby sitting for an Uncle. The kids were in bed by 7 and there was shit all on the telly so I fired up my uncles new Pc. Which at the time had pretty much nothing but Encarter and PaintBrush. I spent around an hour and a half later I had a Pretty blondes Head on the Naked body of Eve. I had replaced the fig leaf with a badly drawn Fanny and then managed to fill in the twigs covering her titties with a colour I grabbed off her naked chest. I spent my Load and went to grab some lemonade.
Just my luck but at the back of the cupboard was some top class german porn. What a waste of time.
Length?? About 3" back then
(, Tue 20 Nov 2007, 16:34, Reply)
First And Foremost...I'm a Liverpool Supporter
and....I once dated a Manc, who came from a Manc family!

Ugh, I felt so dirty...but so was she, so I suppose it was almost worth it!
(, Tue 20 Nov 2007, 15:47, Reply)
on an educational theme
I took four years to do my A levels. It's because I only did one the first time round and needed some more to go to university. Four years doing A levels for Christ's sake!

I did get 4 As though.
(, Tue 20 Nov 2007, 15:37, 13 replies)
necrophilia
I am into necrophillia and flaggelation and some people say I am flogging a dead horse but I had so much fun shagging the dead corpse of a young girl I found tied to a train track, I fucked her in every orifice except her mouth because I havent found her head yet...fnaar fnaar
(, Tue 20 Nov 2007, 15:31, 12 replies)
In 1995 I was desperate to go to university, but I wasn't clever enough for a top uni
so I went to Reading *holds head in shame*

Reading: "Londons underacheiving second cousin"
(, Tue 20 Nov 2007, 15:17, 3 replies)
A Childhood Memory.
I'm not sure if I can do this justice: it's a memory that haunts me to this day: One man's desperation.

*********************************

I think I was 9 or 10, sat in the back of my family's ford Escort: I can still remember the Numberplate. It was a fairly balmy summer's day and we were in an unfamiliar town. Idly gazing out of the window I wasn't looking for anything in particular. A few years later I'd be looking for girls, a few years before it would have been tractors. This time.. Nothing. I was bored.

The car paused in cue for some traffic lights, and looking out of my window I saw a guy come half running, half tripping out of Kwik-Save.

He looked slightly different: a look I'd later discover was caused by Downs Syndrome", but that didn't matter. The thing that struck me so hard was the look of pure determination on his face, clutched lovingly in both of his hand was a single packet of Penguin chocolate bars. 7 individually wrapped bars wrapped in one long pack. The moment he was out of the store he started to tear at the cellophane wrapper.

It was clear to me that he'd been desperate for these. Sure, they're not the cornerstone of a healthy diet, but the air of sheer determination that was around him showed that this moment was what he'd been looking forward to all day. He'd been and got them, they were all his, and now... Now it was all going wrong.

The plastic packaging seemed to be impervious to his efforts. He was a strong looking guy, but he simply didn't seem to have the knack of opening them. He must have only tried for 10 or 15 seconds with the package skittering around in his fingers as he pulled at it, searched for an opening, tried to open it like a packet of crisps but the material offered no purchase....

During this time his determined expression went though simple yet marked changes, Joy, to desperation, to utter panic, and then - horribly, as tears welled up in his eyes - to total and utter crushing defeat. He sat on the pavement not 3 meters from the car and - clutching the penguins to his chest - started to sob and cry. Passers-by ignored him, but they didn't know the story. All he wanted was to have his penguin biscuits open. All he wanted to do was taste his chocolate, and the dream had been torn from him. He'd lost.


I looked out of the window, hands pressed against it and completely powerless to help. My dad dropped the clutch and we began to move again. I begged him to stop: I wanted to show him I cared and open his penguins for him, but dad said we had no time.

*****************************

Sat here, 20 years on, I can still see his face in every detail, and the frustration of it all makes tears well up and puts a lump in my throat.

If you see someone who needs help, help them: You might just be their sunshine for that day.
(, Tue 20 Nov 2007, 15:13, 12 replies)
How I discovered tequila
Noctu's post, below, reminds me of my first encounter with the boozy cactus juice.

I was an undergrad and at a party. By around about drunk o'clock, I was thirsty, and uncomfortably so at that. But there was nothing to hand to slake my thirst. I wandered off around the house to see what I could find, and found myself in the kitchen.

My eye settled on a bottle next to the sink. I picked it up - it was almost full - and necked just about the whole lot in one go. Spluttering, only then did it dawn on me that above the sink was a device known as a tap, and that that offered a reliable means of achieving liquid refreshment.

And that is how I discovered tequila.
(, Tue 20 Nov 2007, 15:10, Reply)
fag ends
When I taught a class in a prison, the inmates used to ask me to collect fag ends from the street and bring them in - they offered to provide me with a paper bag.
(, Tue 20 Nov 2007, 14:49, 1 reply)
For the cookery b3tans out there asking about a b3ta cookbook...
awesomeb3tarecipes.blogspot.com/

It's been there a while. Go go go.

-

Anyway. I have vague memories of drinking cheap aftershave (Lynx Africa, if my flaky memory is correct) after a heavy night had resulted in the house running dry.

I really wouldn't suggest you try it.
(, Tue 20 Nov 2007, 14:36, 3 replies)
I have been single
for four months. I sometimes knock tables over when I stand up. I will let your imaginations dictate the rest.
(, Tue 20 Nov 2007, 14:11, 13 replies)
Chopping onions
You should leave the tail on the onion while you peel it and slice it horizontally, otherwise your onion falls apart and you slice your fingers. If your feeling really clever put in a couple of slices parralel to the plane of your chopping board for extra fine-ness (sic).

Recipe sounds great, not sure why QOTW has come to this though.

Okay, once I was so miserable I consumed a braodsheet newspaper in its entirety.

(in) despair I ate Times.

Sorry
(, Tue 20 Nov 2007, 14:08, 1 reply)
B3TA Chilli cookbook eh?
Well, seen as everyone is having a go, I thought I would drop my recipie in..

Ingredients: For 4 people

4x Red Peppers.
4x Red Chillis.
4x Green Chillis.
2x Large spanish onions.
1x Red onion.
4x Cloves garlic.
1 Kg Mince meat (I like it meaty).
2 Tins kidney beans.
3 Tins skinned tomatoes.
2 Glasses red wine (try get a dark really fruity flavour).
1 Bundle fresh coriander.
Shitloads of Black pepper.
Crushed chillis (to taste).
Olive oil.

Ok, now for starters, book a day off work, this should be cooked for at least 1/2 a day, or have someone in to stir it.

First you need access to fire, either a blowtorch, a hob thats gas/fire, or if your posh a chefs cooking torch.

Now skin the peppers and chillies by blowtorching the skin until fully blackened, or just by placing them on the hob rings and let them get burnt (don't worry, this is fine!) Wait until there all nicely burn't all the way around, now wash them under the tap, hey presto! All the skin comes off and your left with the fresh juicy pepper/chilli, ok now, put these on a baking tray, cover them in olive oil, black pepper and then seal the tray with tin foil, whack in the oven at about 170 (doesn't really matter though).

Ok, whilst there in, get the biggest pan you can find for all this, and add a little bit of olive oil to the bottom, add your meat and the glasses of red wine (always reduce & add wine at the beginning of cooking) leave it on the hob on the lowest heat you can get (this is not going to be turned up at any point, don't let anyone turn it up!)

Now keep turning the meat, it will slowly brown over time, and whilst your doing this, get those peppers out, its been 1/2 an hour! Grab them out and then pull out the stalks in them all (leave all the rest in) the stalks will easily slide out of the cooked peppers.

Now find yourself a blender, or a masher or just anything to bash the crap out of the peppers, then blend the peppers, chilli's and add more black pepper, add about 1 or 2 teaspoons of crushed chillis also and a handful of the fresh coriander, make sure any juice/olive oil from the pan is poured into this too, and blend until it is a smooth paste.

Add this then to the meat that will be browning off by now, drop it all in, give it a good stir, and wash your hands.

Chillis and the handling of them...If you touch anything with the chilli'd hands, you/they are going to scream ALWAYS REMEMBER, IF YOUR USING CHILLIS, srub your hands with a brillo pad/belt sander before going for a piss, else you will be in tears for the rest of the day.

Ok carrying on, now its been about an hour that your meat and the pureed peppers/chillis & wine have been cooking for, time to add your beans, lob the kidney beans in, and the tins of skinned tomatoes, give it a good stir, add yet more black pepper to it, and a small handful of rock salt if you have any, hell why not throw in some more chilli flakes while your at it too, your a hardass..

Now dice your onions (2xspanish 1xred) Make sure 1 spanish and the red is diced finely, if your not sure how to do this, first top and tail the onion, then cut it in half, then peel off the old skin, place it on choppingboard with the top vertical, now cut it into about 5 horizontally, then hold the pieces and chop finely vertically, there small diced onion..

Then chop the other onion coarsly into strips (for some texture, get another pan out, and get these frying on a low heat in some oil for about 40 minutes until golden brown, lob these in the chilli, hell whilst throwing these in, why not a bit more crushed chilli's?

Now add anything you want to put in it, I like to add some mixed spice, a tiny bit of chinese 5 spice, and a load of cajun chicken spices (don't ask me why, I just think they go well)

Ok, now leave it to cook, its been about 2 hours now maybe, you want about another 8-12 hours more (this will make everything break down in a low heat, with all the flavours coming out slowly, and the chillis gradually intensifying).

Stir every so often, and watch tv, make sure its on the lowest of the low settings, throw in a cup of water every so often if its starting to dry off too, or move it so only one edge is over the hob and keep stirring, STIRRING, STIRRING.

Now its been say 10 hours, its ready to serve, and ready to eat, but be warned, this stuff will now be nuclear, (aromatic and tasty too, but that won't matter after the first mouthful as your tastebuds will have fucked off by then).

To keep it hot, but lessen the bite of the chilli, add some puree'd apples, don't ask me why this works, I haven't got a clue but by trial and error it seems to calm the effects. Add these near the end though, else they will effect the flavour of the meat.


There you go, nuclear chilli, have fun, AND WASH YOUR HANDS BEFORE TOUCHING YOURSELF..
(, Tue 20 Nov 2007, 13:41, 6 replies)
Not so desperate times!
I've just spent £6 on a bottle of wine that only I will drink. WTF was I thinking - I'm usually a £3 a bottle girl.

Bloody M&S - maybe I'm just getting sophisticated in my old age.

*Could never drink cheap vodka though, ugh!*
(, Tue 20 Nov 2007, 13:07, 16 replies)
Not me but the ex's father...
When the ex-mrs-pmsc's father was first courting the ex-mrs-pmsc's mother he was in the Navy and stationed at Portland. At the tender age of 19 (she was 16, the filthy bugger) he'd got on his best suit to go to and meet the family for the first time over dinner in Bournemouth.

Of course, being 19 he was running very late, having decided to go to the pub beforehand for a bit of courage. To make matters worse, his car was a rusty old bucket, barely roadworthy and so full of holes in the bodywork that driving at any kind of speed threatened to tear the chassis in two. So he's bombing down the dual carriageway as fast as his poor car will carry him when his bladder demands to be emptied. There's nowhere to pull over. Turning off would only make him even later and he's desperate to make a good impression. What to do?

As I mentioned, the car was pretty much only held together by rust and the bodywork was full of holes, including a particularly impressive one in the driver's footwell. So, keeping one hand on the steering wheel at all times* he managed to unzip his fly and contort himself into a position from which he was able to relieve himself through the hole in the floor onto the road below. He claims to have managed this with no unsightly drops on his trousers, nor any splashback on his shoes.



*Probably. We'll also gloss over the fact that he had consumed an unspecified amount of lager before driving a long distance, at speed, in the dark. This was the 70's after all
(, Tue 20 Nov 2007, 13:00, Reply)
This isn't funny actually...
But it certainly qualifies as desperate.

As I may have mentioned once or twice before, my step-dad was a bit of an evil bastard, and in his eyes I could do no right.

He was an old-school "kids should be seen and not heard, why use a computer when you can go outside and play" type of bloke, and generally didn't do that much to brighten up my early years.

Anyway, one day he and my mum were at work, and I was at home, watching TV I think. He decided that just because I was "too lazy" to go out and play he wasn't going to spend any money because of it, so refused to alter the central heating timer, which meant that the house was unheated. It was winter, and I got colder and colder and colder.

In the end I was so cold I turned a lamp on in the lounge and held my hands near the bulb for warmth.

And before you all reply saying "why didn't you just get into bed?", note the statement about laziness above - he would have gone ballistic to come home and find me in bed. I even turned the light off before he was due home because I didn't want him to know I'd turned it on O_o

Anyway, that's me. Sorry to bring you all down, most of these stories are quite amusing...
(, Tue 20 Nov 2007, 12:59, 6 replies)
roses
when the dust settled from my birthday party this weekend, amongst other items i was left with a huge tin of roses. i don't want them in my flat or i'll eat them. so i bring them to work, thinking this way i will just be able to have one or two of the nicer ones.

humph, i reckoned without the gannets in this building.

yesterday i was happily rejecting everything except the caramel squares and those nice solid chocolates ones with the hazelnut in the middle.

today i am forced to suck my way desperately through sickly strawberry and sickening orange cremes because that is all that is left. from a giant tin.

nobody likes the cremes. why are there so many of them? why? still, could be worse, could be coffee revels...
(, Tue 20 Nov 2007, 12:57, 32 replies)
Looooong teenage Summer at home,
Parents on holiday, mates staying over.

All the housekeeping gone on cigs and weed, all food eaten, all drink drunk. No credit anywhere. We were starving to death.

We were on the point of pawning the video when, like manna from heaven a list of products the milkman could deliver (in addition to milk, obviously) drops through the letterbox.

We ate like kings from then on (sort of).

Sorry Mum and Dad!
(, Tue 20 Nov 2007, 12:55, Reply)
Desperate is...........
Living on potatoes for two weeks when money ran out.
Fishing down the back of the sofa to find busfare to go sign on.
Selling my cello to pay rent.
Buying a decaying transit van so I would have somewhere to live when I went bankrupt.
Ah.. Happy days!
(, Tue 20 Nov 2007, 12:44, 3 replies)

This question is now closed.

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