Photo Lab 'japes'
I used to run a professional photo lab in pre-digital days. One of my colleagues was prone to telling the customers all sorts of nonsense to see if they believed him.

[Note: professional photographers are almost all complete idiots who think they know everything there is to know about the photo stuff, but most of them have no idea what happens after the shutter is pressed].

On two occasions this + gullible customers (note the spelling there folks, it's not gullable, that's the American spelling) almost got us sued.

1) A punter's images are all completely out of focus. Probable cause? Not realising you have to adjust focus on a non-SLR camera. Suggested cause? "We forgot to put the focusing powder in the developer." Punter goes apeshit, threatens violence, legal action, until we all stop laughing long enough to explain that there's no such thing as focusing powder.

2) A punter's slide film is almost completely black, except for the first frame, which is white. Real cause? film not loaded / not winding on properly (hence all 36 exposures on first frame). Suggested cause? "The drier was on too high and all the frames melted and slid down." This one did actually get as far as legal action. I had to patiently explain to the solicitor the real cause, and how his client would look a proper chump if he pursued the matter. We never saw him again.
( MisterPunch did it that way on, Fri 22 Aug 2008, 10:22, Reply)

I'm a naughty Blouse.
Years ago I used to try to convince any bloke that I was seeing at the time that they were going bald.

Knowing men's primordial fear of this affliction meant that with a little coaxing and a poker face, it wasn't too difficult of a job.

One guy I was going out with had a mass of thick red hair and he was only in his early twenties. His dad had a mass of thick hair on his head in his 40's and even his grandfather was the same, however I still managed to convince this guy he was going bald.

(To be honest, he was a bit of a twit).


I don't do it any more because it's wrong.



*looks sheepish*
( girlinthehole, Fri 22 Aug 2008, 10:22, 1 reply)

Civil engineers
get paid as much as doctors and lawyers!


lying fucks
( Vipros. clever got me this far, then tricky got me in, Fri 22 Aug 2008, 10:22, 1 reply)

Gullibility
At the age of around 5 or 6 i had asked my Grandad the same question thousands of grandchildren ask. "Grandad, what did you do during the war?". Grandad sat me down and began to tell me how he was a machine gunner in the glass bubble underneath a Lancaster bomber. This is how he told the story..."We had just got back to England after a sortie over Germany but we had taken so much flak that the undercarriage would not work and I could not open my hatch to get out of the bubble. We all knew that we had little fuel so a crash landing was required. We went lower and lower until finally we were only four feet from the ground" At this point my Grandad stopped talking and carried on watching an old war film on TV (for the first time he usually told us) while I just sat there. Only a minute later I turned back to Grandad and asked "what happened then, Grandad" to which my Grandad replied "we were all killed".
(Reservoir Ducks, Fri 22 Aug 2008, 10:21, 2 replies)

Less gravity
I convinced fellow drinkers that the reason the Dutch are so tall is that with Holland being mostly below sea level there's less gravity pulling on them so they grow taller.
(toadrunner, Fri 22 Aug 2008, 10:20, Reply)

Wonky Sheep
We managed to make a (blonde) colleague believe that the sheep on the side of reservoirs had two legs shorter that the others so that they could stand up straight on the slopes.

She still doesn't know they're not wonky!
(uniquestar, Fri 22 Aug 2008, 10:20, 1 reply)

Apprentice
When you're doing an Apprenticeship in Engineering you usually get all the usual long stand, left handed screwdriver, skyhooks and bubble for a spirit level type of wind ups but due to a cynical disposition I never believed any of it except long stand when I just went home for a couple of hours.

There was one welding apprentice who was told that they needed a bucket of sparks for testing so he spend all day with an angle grinder on this large piece of metal trying to direct the sparks into a bucket he had strategically placed on the floor.
(Harold's hip man!!, Fri 22 Aug 2008, 10:17, Reply)

Fat Paul
A university housemate - short of stature, hairy of palm, reeking of armpit - was the most gullible person I've ever met. Over the three years, he proved again and again that he'd believe pretty much anything. For example:

He once came to my room at the exact moment an icecream van was doing the rounds of the campus. This was early on in the first year and he didn't know me too well, so I faked a 'diabetic fit' and persuaded him that only an ice snickers would save my life. So he ran off to buy me one.
(frankspencer, Fri 22 Aug 2008, 10:14, Reply)

Of Clint Eastwood and his father...
now I'm normally the one convincing people of ridiculous things. I've probably repeatedly mentioned that I once convinced someone that Al Capone's real first name was Colin (in a spoooky coincidence that very question came up while playing Trivial Pursuit that very same day) and that it is called the Moonwalk because when you walk on the moon it looks like you are going backwards...

I had it handed to me good and proper however, and compounded it further through my own moronitude (it's a real word, look it up)

A good friend of mine told me in passing that Stan Laurel (of Laurel and Hardy fame) was Clint Eastwood's father. He said it in such an off-hand way, and was not renowned for being devious, so after a moment's thought I believed him and acted as such, only to be ridiculed for being taken in...

Fast forward a couple of months and completely unprovoked I mention to a group, one of them being the afore-mentioned vile deceiver, that the almighty Clint Eastwood had a famous father, none other than Stan Laurel.

Blank looks were delivered, and I was informed that not only was that not true, but that it had been made up by one of the people I was now confidently informing of it.

A blow to my reputation of know-all and smart-ass I can tell you!
( Vipros. clever got me this far, then tricky got me in, Fri 22 Aug 2008, 10:13, 3 replies)

Gabrielle
Four facts that are fundamental to this story:-

Gabrielle is a singer. Only one of her eyes work. She used to wear her hair in a sort of quiff covering up the unfunctioning one. Lying transparently is fun.

I was sat in my kitchen watching TV, my flatmates had left their friend in the kitchen unsupervised while they did some stuff. I think it must have been saturday evening because Gabrielle came on to sing her latest single.

I said to the guy "you know how she went blind in that eye" "how" "well you see how her hair is covering it - she had that hairstyle from a very young age, and the hair sort of...grew into the eye socket. By the time anyone realised, it was too late and she had been blinded in that eye"

He was INCENSED and ANGERED that such a small thing could have such DEVASTATING consequences. It's just STUPID that the world could be so UNFAIR.

I was amazed and blinky that someone who is allowed to walk around inside without a helmet would believe such an obviously fake story. And pretty damn scared that he would get so worked up about it and shiteing it that I had created a nutter in my own kitchen and he was between me and the exit.

Fortunately 10 minutes later he had calmed down enough (down to about one splutter per minute) that I could tell him the truth - about Gabrielle, not about how I hadn't thought anyone would believe my stupid stupid story for even a second.
(teebie jeebie, Fri 22 Aug 2008, 10:11, 1 reply)

Bloody fathers, eh?
I suspect that at least 50% of the population have a father like mine; one who delights in continued and ritual humiliation of his progeny. And, what is more, revels in telling the same stories about it time and time again.

I've had a sort of condescending intellectual superiority (possibly the sole reason for becoming a teacher) since about the age of five, so he is particularly proud of times that he managed to get one over on me and trots out the tales with monotonous regularity. Suffice to say that every ex-girlfriend of mine has been treated to these recollections, as well as my wife and EVERY SINGLE BLOODY GUEST AT OUR WEDDING. My step-mother must have heard them at least twenty times. The worst thing is, because I'm so unpleasantly high-minded, it still pains me even in my late twenties.

So, for starters, there is the tale of the lightbulb. At the tender age of eight(ish), my bedroom light went 'ping', and father decided it was time I attempt some rudimentary DIY. The lightbulb-changing lesson progressed smoothly until 'getting the replacement bulb out of the box', which is when my visual acuity kicked in:

"Dad! The old lightbulb is cloudy, but this new one is clear."

The old lightbulb was a pearl lightbulb, of course. Would it have been too simple to tell me that? WOULD IT?! No. My father knew of my predilection for science, even at that tender age.

"Ah. The old one must have blown because of gas leaking through the glass. That's what has made it go cloudy. If you hold it upside-down for a while, it will go clear."

Half an hour I sat there. Half an hour of my life wasted trying to make a pearl lightbulb go clear. Happy, Dad?



The story from about the same time that gets trotted out even more frequently, thanks largely to a decent punchline, is 'making fried bread'. The fact that I have pretensions to being quite a good cook twenty years later makes this a family favourite...

I had just returned from my first ever Cub Scout camp. Rather than recall some mild homesickness and a veiled threat about having to clean out the Leaders' toilets, I regaled my parents with jolly tales of campfire songs and wide games. Best of all was the fried bread.

God bless my mother, in the dark days of the 1980s, she had a good grasp of healthy eating and five-a-day vegetables, and us kids ate pretty healthily (twenty years later, much to her distaste, I live on beer and vindaloos and have the anatomical proportions of a Weeble). So Cub Camp was my first encounter with the crispy, oozing glory that is fried bread. It was dished out to me one breakfast time, and I devoured very little else all weekend. On reflection, I wish I'd actually watched it being cooked...

A week or so later, Dad asks what I'd like for lunch, and holding tight to my memories of Camp, I ask can we have fried bread. Dad acquiesces, on the grounds that I come and help him cook it. I was unsure at first, being the sort of wimpy child that flinches from hot things: a fact which father soon latches on to.

"I'll get the frying pan out...and you look it up in the recipe book".

Books have always been my friends, and at tender pre-teen years, I would not have attempted any cookery manoeuvres without recourse to some sort of manual. So down comes Mum's trusty Delia Smith, and my youthful brows knit themselves in concentration. About five minutes later, my mother, my grandmother at least one set of neighbours, and a man who just happened to be walking past with his dog, are (unbenknownst to me) standing in or about the kitchen watching this poor kid trying to find the recipe for fried bread; my father taking centre stage, still anticipatorily clutching the frying pan like Kirk Douglas in Spartacus.

If I had not been so intense in my beloved reading, I'm sure I would have heard the muttered conversations:

"What's young ousgg doing?"
"He's looking up fried bread in the cookbook"
"Why?"
"He wanted to cook it, so I told him to"
"Oh...this should be good"

Clearly having an acute sense of how to be as ridiculous as possible, it was then that I blurt forth the line which now gets trotted out at a moment's notice at any family event or reunion. Without lifting my head from the book, still riffling through the index, and unaware of the onlooking spectators, the words fall forth from my lips:

"Dad? Does it come under 'bread' or 'fried'?"

Cue masses of delirium, cheers, slaps on the back and a general party atmosphere. In fairness to him, Dad did go on to make the mysterious recipe that was fried bread, but he burned it, the git.



Over the years, I have thankfully become wise to the wind-ups, and I thank the great Spaghetti Monster that I am not my younger brother, who was always that crucial bit slower on the uptake. He once spent a whole year trying not to fart (and feeling panicked when he did) in the genuine belief that 'too many trumps will make your willy fall off'. Bless.


EDIT: One of the replies in the thread has reminded me of my favourite ever wind-up, sadly not committed by my father, but by a friend of his. But it was a fatherly jape, so I feel justified in including it here:

Said gentleman got a new car as one of the perks of his job every few years. He was delighted to find, on one particular new motor, steering-wheel stereo controls: this being in the day when such an item was virtually unheard of.

Of course, he then proceeded to take his daughter for a drive, convinced her that the stereo was voice-controlled (while, of course, subtly manipulating the volume via his steering wheel control), and then having her spend fifty miles shouting 'LOUDER! LOUDER! QUIETER!' at the stereo while telling her that 'the stereo didn't recognise her voice yet'.

Truly inspired.
( ousgg is not seeking approval, Fri 22 Aug 2008, 10:08, 3 replies)

My story is awesome
I had this guy fooled over the internet once. I posted an awesome prank on a forum. It left him puzzled for ages! Click Here To find out all about it!

The link is perfectly safe and is safe for work. Oh you might have to try the link a couple of times because my server can be a bit slow.
(Miggyman, Fri 22 Aug 2008, 10:01, 1 reply)

exta middle name
had to post to this- my big sis may be reading!

when i was about 16 my dad told me that i had an 'extra' middle name- Izzio. My dad's family are Italian/Welsh, and so despite my surname being Thomas he convinced me it was true. Even offered to show me my birth certificate but I stupidly declined. My ma who is the only beacon of truth in the house even backed it up

Cue months of my mates piss-taking calling me Izzio Bizzio, Inchio etc.

This lasted for a while... about 8 months. Until my sister broke the news "what you actually believed that you tool"

durp. cue months of even more piss-taking
(chimpo2k, Fri 22 Aug 2008, 9:54, 4 replies)

Twelve year old boys are a pain

When my mates and I were about 12 we had a game called the Gulliable Game. It was very simple and very silly. Two contestants would stand opposite each other and dual. The only rule was that you had to believe whatever your opponant said to you and react appropriately [though we probably didn't use those words].

E.g. I'd start with a quick shout of: "Your hair's on fire" and my opponant would have to beat his hair with his hands to put out the flames, meanwhile he'd counter with: "Your right leg just fell off" causing me to collapse on the ground clasping my 'stump' and firing off "Your bollocks just exploded", giving me time to hop to my foot...

You get the idea. Try it at the next bash? And make sure someone's got a camera.
(Che Grimsdale Best before:, Fri 22 Aug 2008, 9:49, 2 replies)

Farmyard frolics
I remember a bitterly cold morning during Christmas holidays in the early 80's.
My best friend and I were messing about skating on his dad's goldfish pond, making snowmen and having snowball fights in the farmyard just over the wall of the back garden.
We had been outside for a fair while and our hands and feet were frosted and we just couldn't get warm.
The farmer came across and said, "Yer boys, you do looked shrammed* roight up"
We were indeed.
"Tell e what, zee that there pile o' stuff? Tiz proper warm that zee, got zdeam comin' out o' 'im n'all. You d'wanna ztick yer 'ands n veet in un."
So we did.
Yes, it had steam coming off it.
Yes, we did take our gloves and boots off and stick our appendages into it.
Yes, it was warm(ish).
Yes, it was indeed horse manure.
Idiots.
I'll bet the old bastard had a right chuckle at that.

*freezing cold
(oneinthepink is at your cervix m'lady, Fri 22 Aug 2008, 9:47, Reply)

I didn't fall for this but it had some gullable members of my 6th form confused for a couple of days . . .
A typical conversation went like this:

1st Friend: Did you know that when you cook a cucumber, it becomes a courgette?
2nd Friend: No it doesn't thats stupid!
1st Friend: No really it does, didn't you even know that?!
2nd Friend: Really?
1st Friend: Yep, God's honest truth.
2nd Friend: Seriously? Well I never knew that!
( FreudianSlap, Fri 22 Aug 2008, 9:46, Reply)

Well... it involves milk!
Well, whilst at a pissup desperately wanting to get into the pants of a nubile young wench called Amy (Okay, she was ginger, but I thought she was hot) Someone told me that if you drink a pint of milk after evry pint of alcohol it would cancel the effect of the beer/rum/advocat (we where poor!)
Well, after drinking the 12 pints of milk readily avaliable to me I decided to make a move. I was gullibled. Milk just makes you ill and gives you nightmares. I followed her into a dark-ish side room, ignoring the fact she had violently vomited and layed her down on a leather couch.
There are two things you need to know about leather, firstly, it leaves a lovely "grain" print in your arse/face if you sleep on it, and secondly, it retains the smell of bodily fluids for a very, very long time. So, thats my chances of a nice friendly make-out session/recieving oral out the window. Cock, I said. I whipped off her P!ATD hoodie (Im young enough to do this to whiny fangirls, im no garry glitter) and black lacy bra. Well, this is fun, i said to myself. Not hearing the usual cries to take this nipple gargling any further I did the honourable thing and asked... no response... I assumed this was because she was in some considerable ecstacy.
Knowing how crap I was with the female species this should have raised some questions, but no, in my drunken state a silence was as good as a yes. So I unbuttoned her purple skinnys and pulled down her black teenage panties. Cock, i exclaimed again, my condom was in my jacket pocket, and fuck me with an octopus could i find that now in my drunken state.
Well, it looks like I was about to have my first ever experience of giving oral. Lucky me. Of course, i had read the FAQ's, and watched the movies, but I had bugger all chance of remembering it now. Then i woke up. My face pressed to a ginger teenagers vagina.
Yay me! I look around, and COCK, if it isn't Anthonys mum. (well, i was hardly going to use my house, but thank fuck it wasnt hers) "What the fuck have you been up to?" She said, looking at the empty cartons of milk, advocat and strongow littering the floor. FUCK, i said, and ran for my life, face still smelling of horny teenage girl.
Sitting on that sofa next day I was informed of many things. One of these was that I had left the door open. COCK, so everyone had seen me performing drunken oral to a girl at 90 degrees to me. Secondly, she had passed out before I had even unbuttonned her skinnys. Lastly, some drunken mong called Joe had walked in, sat down, and promptly filmed the entire thing. And the sofa still smelled of "amy" for months afterwards.
And thats the story of how i wrecked my chances with my first crush.

Edited for kind people who commented on my work.

And length, fuck me if she found out, she was unconcious.
( UseAName Because you cant get the bends if you muff dive., Fri 22 Aug 2008, 9:44, 4 replies)

My brother
was hopeless at maths at school. He panicked about his GCSE, particularly anything with letters in ie. algebra.

After a few weeks of tuition, I realised that he could never be taught or understand this ("letters? that mean numbers? what the fuck is that all about? Its fookin witchcraft" etc).

Finally, to get out of this, I decided to tell him the secret of algebra - the secret they dont tell you until A-levels. The master secret of (spooky voice) ALGEBRAAAAA...

I told him that a=1, b=2,c=3 etc. Just replace the letters with those numbers.

He failed maths GCSE, and for that matter, all the others. (Which i never tutored him for either so I'm not entirely to blame!)
( I have run out of coke is a little sweaty, Fri 22 Aug 2008, 9:43, Reply)

Ummm...
I haven't checked, but has anyone mentioned The Goat yet?

EDIT: Crikey. Noone has.

Now: has anyone gone off on a deeply tedious rant about the government? PJM and 'Swipe - sorry - but I'm looking at you...
:)
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Fri 22 Aug 2008, 9:41, 10 replies)

Pogrom
When I worked on a bar not so long ago, a fellow employee mentioned that she'd heard the word "pogrom" and didn't know what it meant.

I told her it was a breed of dog.

She believed me.

Did I mention that she was in the second year of an English degree? No? She was in the second year of an English degree.
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Fri 22 Aug 2008, 9:38, 1 reply)

Parity
I think i've posted this before but I cant remember anything before last tuesday.

Working in IT, we came up with the modern equivalent of the long stand, tartan paint, bucket of steam etc. We sent our junior helpdesk guy from Sheffield on the train, to Manchester where our stores are. We told him to pick up a box of parity bits.

He came back about 5 hours later having lugged a considerably large box of what appeared to be co-ax connectors, (god bless the storeman for knowing exactly what we were up to) with 'Parity Bits' written on the side. The box looked very heavy and was obviously a complete twat to lug about. My manager Pete opened the box, and looked at our little junior with furious anger - "These parity bits are even! I wanted odd!"
( I have run out of coke is a little sweaty, Fri 22 Aug 2008, 9:37, 1 reply)

I told my girlfriend
that Alan Rickman was gay.

She cried.
(Waspard has your wank bank account details, Fri 22 Aug 2008, 9:34, 1 reply)

This time next year, Rodney...
I had a very good friend at school who was always talking about his plans for the future, how he would make lots of money, told me about the trips we'd take and the cars and other boys toys we'd buy once his money came in.

As a gullible 17-year-old, I mentioned this to a girl I was seeing at the time, who told me not to be so naive. And I thought, yeah, she's got a point - I'd just fallen for my friend's charm and spiel, without thinking for a moment about how small the chances were that he would actually manage this.

25 years on, my schoolfriend, who I lost touch with a year or two after leaving school, has a Central London property portfolio worth hundreds of millions of pounds, a 110-foot yacht moored on the French Riviera that you can charter for the week if you have a spare 100,000 euro, and co-owns some very well known restaurants.

Fair play to him.

(And just for the record, money's never been a huge motivator for me - I'm writing this and watching the Olympics when I should be getting on with freelance work - and I cycle everywhere because I still can't drive, so a sports car would have been wasted on me)
(Capo, Fri 22 Aug 2008, 9:33, Reply)

When I was 18 and had a second job as a barman.
I fell for the oldest one ever.

Steps (Head barman): "Maff, Go down to the bottom bar and ask Busby for a long stand."

Off I trot.

Me: "Buzz, steps is asking if you can get me a long stand?"
Busby: "Wait there I'll just serve some customers and be right with you."

It took about 3 minutes for the penny to drop and I got a round of applause when I went back to the top bar. Bastards.

Also, Guy at work got sent to the store for a tin of Tartan paint. He got told in no uncertain terms to FUCK OFF by the storeman and had to have the whole thing explained to him when he returned the department.
( Maffers I flow kinda strange like Spina Bifida footprints, Fri 22 Aug 2008, 9:31, 1 reply)

I believe all my stories are true
No, really...
(frankspencer, Fri 22 Aug 2008, 9:25, 2 replies)

My most gullible moment
Was beleiving Tony Blair when he said that things would only get better! And then agai when he said "Education, Education, Education"
(Herr Doktor Lemminge Is bored, so cheer me up!, Fri 22 Aug 2008, 9:23, Reply)

I don't believe this QOTW exists.
Can't fool me.
(ThomsonsPier consumes, Fri 22 Aug 2008, 9:19, Reply)

Not mine, but two mates.....
Sent one of their wives off to the fishing shop to get some tackle. Being told to get a bag of "banjo snappers" and a couple of "blue-arsed buzzbots", they even spelled them out so she could write them down.

The poor cow still had no idea, so went to the tackle shop where the owner told her that they didn't have any in stock and sent her 10 miles away to another shop where they gave the game up by pissing themselves laughing to her face.
(Greencloud Wanted to go fishing on, Fri 22 Aug 2008, 9:13, Reply)

Adam's Apple
A couple of years ago I went to Budapest with a couple of mates and one night we ended up hitting a local bar called Soho.

One of the guys (A) took a camera out to capture the fun and debauchery of the evening. The camera itself was a pretty nifty bit of kit and the pics were very clear and had excellent zoom capability.

So he ended up pulling one young lady and is playing some tonsil tennis with her, he then gets a couple of pics with her from that night.

Next day we were doing a debrief round the war table and checking the photo's and saw a pic of this girl with a bit of a shadow on her neck so we told A that we could see an Adams apple on her, we then used the zoom oh his camera to show him. His face turned from a triumphant grin to what can only be described as 'what the fuck have I done?'. We kept this up for the week, using this one photo as evidence.

When he started to question his sexuality with us we decided to come clean...

Was good fun though!
(Fuckarma was masturbating into your handbag, Fri 22 Aug 2008, 9:10, Reply)