I've mentioned this one before, but it's worth another airing, with further details
During the second year at Uni. back in 1997, we had a new addition to our student flat in the form of 'Babs' - and Babs was a little naive about the ways of the west as he hailed from Nigeria, the son of a very rich family out there (where everything was done for him)

Now, before I get on to the act of food sabotage in question, have some background information which led to us exacting some 'revenge'

He arrived in England on a Friday. He then travelled up from London to Bolton where we welcomed him to the flat and did the whole 'if you need anything just shout' speech. Bearing in mind he'd only been in the country for around 24 hours, we thought we'd keep an eye on him to make sure he was ok, can't have been easy for him making such a huge adjustment so quickly.

Sunday morning. 6am. Doors to flat bang and open and then close loudly. Being a Sunday, nobody wants to get up at 6am to see what's going on. Eventually, everyone else is up and milling about in the flat kitchen by 10am... Everyone except Babs that is. We knock on the door, nothing.

'Hmmm', we thnk, 'he must have gone out shopping or something, no harm in that'.

2pm comes and goes, still nothing. 3pm, 4pm, 5pm all pass by. Zip. No sign of him. By 6pm, with no sign of him, and us all realising he doesn't know the area at all, we get cautious and ring the police. He may, after all, be lost somewhere.

11.30pm. That's when Babs rolls through the door, with a grin across his face like a Cheshire Cat. After all the 'where the f*ck have you been???' conversations he looked at us puzzled and replied,

"I've been to Church".

Puzzled, we enquired further. Babs then went on to tell us that he needed to find a Pentecostal Church to go to on the Sunday, so he got up early to go scouting around. This scouting around involved him walking around Bolton, and then somehow out onto and along the various A roads following road signs to Manchester - 16 miles away, where he found a church to visit. Said Church welcomed him, and then invited him to an afternoon picnic they were holding, where he duly went before leaving to walk the 16 miles back to Bolton, getting back at 11.30pm

It was then we told him where the Pentecostal Church was in Bolton.

His naivity often came at the worst possible times as well. Often the Kitchen would be a complete disaster area due to his 'experiments, as back at home, everything was done for him by servants. On one memorable occasion, after 2 failed attempts, he held a potato in front of me, asking "Simon, how do I turn this into chips"?

Also, upon seeing snow for the first time in his life, he decided at 5am one Sunday morning to take all our pots and pans from the kitchen to collect snow and make a huge snowman in the middle of the courtyard at the halls of residence at 6am on a Sunday, with 400 students bearing down on him from surrounding windows, often wondering what the sound of clattering pots and pans was coming from the Courtyard, and a few 'choice' phrases being shouted to him by several students.

Gradually, we were worn down to the point of needing some form of revenge. We had got him out of a few 'near misses' with locals, and his family (sadly) never bothered to ring and check up on him that much, leaving us to do a lot of handholding.

Babs, during our time with him, developed a keen taste and extreme passion for Hot Chocolate. In fact, it would be fair to say that if he could, he would live off it.

However, one cruel evening early in Babs' Hot Chocolate drinking career, we decided to top it up with more than a few hefty spoonfuls of Cayenne Pepper, shook it up and left it. Day after day and night after night Babs continued drinking it, and we continued topping it up with more pepper and further chocolate and he never twigged... For weeks.

Then came the comment which the rest of us couldn't help but fall about laughing at...

"You know, the more of this stuff you drink, the hotter it gets, I can see why they call it HOT Chocolate".

To be honest though, I don't think the sabotage really worked, as he still kept drinking it like it was going out of fashion. I wonder if he's been disppointed by the 'Hotness' of Hot Chocolate ever since leaving us.
( The Great Architect is still waiting for his account to be deleted on, Wed 24 Sep 2008, 12:51, 10 replies)

Sounds Harsh
He seemed relatively innocent enough.
(powervator and NONE SHALL PASS, Wed 24 Sep 2008, 12:57, closed)

He was perhaps a little 'too' innocent
likeable enough fellow though, yes :)
( The Great Architect is still waiting for his account to be deleted on, Wed 24 Sep 2008, 13:02, closed)

hmmmm
Babs seems quite likeable to be honest.
(Pat_Gash, Wed 24 Sep 2008, 12:58, closed)

I think some chocolate
is made with bits of chili in it.
(apeloverage committed the vile act of onanism on, Wed 24 Sep 2008, 13:17, closed)

I agree
A mate from work offered me some, it was very tasty!

What you did to Bab's sounds a bit harsh, like picking on the retarded kid in class
(Fuckarma was masturbating into your handbag, Wed 24 Sep 2008, 13:33, closed)

indeed it does
Lindt make some chilli-flavoured chocs.
(bamboozled Can hear you getting fatter, Wed 24 Sep 2008, 23:19, closed)

the aztecs or whoever it was that first had chocolate
had it as a spicy type thing with chilli.
( Vipros. clever got me this far, then tricky got me in, Thu 25 Sep 2008, 8:42, closed)

i keep seeing babs an image of this guy


did he ask you for any monies?
(Dan dan dan They tik urh jerbs!!!, Wed 24 Sep 2008, 14:22, closed)

I'd have said that was a bit tight..
..but it sounds like he enjoyed the spicy chocolate! sounds like a lovely bloke, a lot of our culture (chips, lol) must have been an alien landscape to him!

..I imagined Cousin Benson.. lols!
(AndyC4m Eject Eject [><], Thu 25 Sep 2008, 11:38, closed)

In retrospect, it probably was.
but constant 'handholding' and getting him out of a few scrapes due to 'culture clash' coupled with his pure innocence in quite a rough area of the UK is all the defence we had.

As said above, he was a lovely chap, very bright, but common sense wise, pretty vacant. You couldn't really get angry with him :)

He was like a more innocent version of Carlton from the Fresh Prince
( The Great Architect is still waiting for his account to be deleted on, Thu 25 Sep 2008, 11:45, closed)