In the 70's
Back in the 70's I was very young and my dad was in the RAF. We used to live in one of those awful married quarters houses at a base in Yorkshire which has an L-shaped living room. In those days heating was from good old coal fires supplied with coal from the local pits back when Selby et al was still running. Now, on those cold winter days it was traditional to pile the coal on as much as possible so you didn't have to get up as often to put t' coal on. Mum was off owt at bingo one day and me and my dad were playing a board game on the dining table near the door, which is around the corner from the fire. We had recently bought a fab 70's scientific breakthrough which was a "fireproof rug", I think it was spun from glass fibres or asbestos, in a shade of puke green which was placed in front of the fire.

I kept remarking to my dad "there's something burning", to which his reply was "It's just the coal it's a bit damp".
5 mins later.
"No really something is burning"
"I'll check the oven - no the roast looks ok"
...
"Dad, it's really smoky in here"
"I've just put a fag out, get on with your turn."
..."Dad, is the lava lamp on?"
"No, why"
"There's a big glow from around the corner"

At which point I got up to check to see a huge lump of burning coal had rolled out of the fire and was sitting smack in the middle of the "fireproof" rug setting it alight, though in a sluggish manner and had burned a charred mass about 2 foot across, producing the ghastliest fumes.
"Dad, the rug's on fire".
At which point to see my dad throwing a damp teatowel across the burning mass and trying to carry it out the house shouting "Shit, shit,shit" had me crying with laughter.

The thing is he couldn't smell anything, he has no sense of smell and his job in the RAF? Fireman.

Which was a bonus because a few years later in Cyprus, while torturing insects with a magnifying glass and matches in some dry wastland near the houses, it got out of control.
My dad was on duty and got called out to put out the resulting inferno which nearly burned down 3 houses. Ironically, the fire I started was compounded exponentially by the local cypriot families who, when seeing the fire as it became apparent, running out of their houses with rubbish, old clothes, tyres etc. to dump on the fire.
The sight of firemen from the local base trying to put out a wasteland fire on one side of the towering smoke, with people heaving rubbish from their houses over the fence ONTO the fire that is going to engulf their HOUSE has left me with a rather sad view of the intelligence of most people.

Needless to say, after that scare, I stopped setting fires, torturing small animals and bedwetting (Jeffrey Dahmer territory in case you don't know). Years later I became a vivisectionist.

Apologies for multiple dimensions, I'm an Alien.
(cargo, Sun 6 Nov 2005, 6:09, Reply)