Free range
Two friends and I (aged 14) were pictured in the local paper celebrating the wonders of free range eggs. We had made a 6ft collage of a chicken. Oh how I cringe now.
(moomin, Sat 12 Feb 2005, 11:55, Reply)

Giant Dog
My mate Carl is a big lad who likes Cider.

My home town of Ilkley is quite posh and therefore the local Newspaper will publish articles on any old fucking subject that is currently pissing off all the old dears on the parish counsil.

A few years ago there a spell of some bugger letting his giant dog foul a couple of shop doorsteps late at night.

Story was in the paper two weeks running. The police made investigations. There was a parish counsil stake out. Vets were called to identify the dog breed. People still talk about the dog mystery.

Carl says he got caught short two weeks running on the way back from the only nightclub in town (that fucking shithole is another story).

Dirty bastard. We still laugh about that big fucking dog though.
(Tim K, Sat 12 Feb 2005, 11:29, Reply)

landlord scum
A while back when i worked for my students union, instead of carrying out a survey like i was supposed to, i fabricated a load of *facts* and *quotes* about the quality of local student housing. Many of these facts happened to support my argument that private landlords are lower than a worms scrotum and shouldn't be trusted at any cost.

Pleased with my industry i wrote a press release and fired it off to the local media.

The reponse was fantatsic!

Interviews on BBC radio, an invitation to address the local landlords and and offer my advice on how they could stop being low grade shit bags and a 2 page spread in the local rag filled with said facts and quotes from me, which i was pretty much allowed to write myself with a stooge mate of mine posing for photos in his squalid gaff highlighting the perrils of student housing.

Pot of jack, as they say in the old country!
(lordfredatron lordfredatron, Sat 12 Feb 2005, 11:15, Reply)

I suppose this should go in really!


:o)
( The Boy T, Sat 12 Feb 2005, 10:45, Reply)

Reign of terror
Back when I was younger and did a lot of local Live Role Playing Games we found out that there were regular reports in the Leicester Mercury about the gang warfare and satanic rituals being enacted on Aylestone Meadows (where we played) - there weren't any it was us!

But the best one. For a one off game, based on 'Aliens', the Armed Response Unit was called out (even though we'd informed the police in advance - twunts didn't think to check). There were some great quotes in everything from the Mercury to Radio 1!

Some notables:
"I knew it wasn't real when the dead people stood up and lit a cigarette"
"Entirely too realistic for my liking" - This was from the pissed off sergeant in charge of the ARU.
(resident deity, Sat 12 Feb 2005, 10:14, Reply)

Not Many Column Inches
When I was in my first or second year of primary school, the whole school was photographed in the local paper as part of the school's anniversary. It's funny to look back at the photo now.

A few years ago the web design company I worked for got me and two designers in the Liverpool Echo over a site we had done for a Japanese games company. They made me redundant a year later, cnuts. Still, one of the designers (a good friend) was that p1ssed off with the company for doing that (and with the company in general) he eventually left. Yesterday, I received some spam email from the aforementioned Japanaese games web site and it looked like a dog's breakfast. Either they've lost the contract to do the web site, or they've never managed to get a decent designer to carry on with the web site. Ha har.
(Hagis, Sat 12 Feb 2005, 9:57, Reply)

sixth grade
my school's spelling bee came down to my sister and I as the final two contestants. The local paper thought that was sufficiently interesting to use as the lead-in for its report on the spelling bees across the city.

senior year:
someone from the same paper was looking for a local student to write a story about where the local young folk liked to hang out. Somehow my entry managed to be the winning one.

various points later:
a columnist in yet the same paper seemed to enjoy printing nearly every letter I ever wrote to her, though fortunately the one I wrote when I was drunk and pissed off didn't make it to print.
( Shiksa, Sat 12 Feb 2005, 2:59, Reply)

I was third closest
in guessing how many marbles there were in a jar at some fair. I believe I won a sponsored rucksack of some sort. Seriously, how could THAT be the only thing in my life that was ever regarded interesting enough to print in a newspaper?
(One of these things first, Sat 12 Feb 2005, 2:18, Reply)

various crap
When I was 8 the Yorkshire Evening Post printed a story I wrote. When I was 18 they printed an article about the crappy band I was in. I'm now 38, but still have the clippings. Nothing much happened when I was 28.

...and how could I forget when we were all in the Scotsman? I'm the one on the left, with my eldset son.
(hokkyokusei, Sat 12 Feb 2005, 0:27, Reply)

Never actually been in
a local rag...have never quite achieved that level of fame, however I did used to do the paper round for the Woking Review, once a week they would dump some stupid number of newspapers on my doorstep, expecting me to deliver the lot to all of Woking town centre, plus leaflets. I used to deliver about 15-30 papers, sometimes none, depending on my mood. This would be fairly late on a friday night, so avoiding being mugged or attacked by drunks/tramps made things interesting, the rest of the papers would get dumped at the recycling bin. Might not sound that funny, but my distributor thought I was a model delivery boy and payed me £50-90 a week for recycling the woking review, which was printed on recycled paper.
(Peet, Fri 11 Feb 2005, 23:38, Reply)

Review
Back in 1992 when I was a fresh-faced young pup of barely twenty, I managed to snag the lead role in an amateur dramatics production of 'The Opposite Sex' in Southend. My first ever stage role.

Six weeks of rehearsals later, we were ready for our 3-night run. Did the thing on opening night and it went pretty well. Plus, there was a reviewer from The Evening Echo in the audience. Woo-hoo!

The following day, about 30 minutes prior to 'curtain up', someone hands me the newspaper instructing me to read the review, but not take it too seriously. It said:

"Dan L******* was so underplayed that even a dose of valium would have livened him up. He wallowed, undirected in a vacuum of his own inexperience."

It was my first ever review and it completely destroyed me.

If you're reading this, Roger Diss, you're a fucking cunt.

Ta.
(Ravenhill, Fri 11 Feb 2005, 23:05, Reply)

Not local papers, but...
PSM2:

There were a few other haikus that they didn't print, the best one of which was:
Person in my sights
Stay so very very still
Ha ha ha! GOTCHA!

For non-gamers: Dante is the lead character of Devil May Cry. He has a white barnet. Spyro is a nauseatingly cute purple dragon. DMC2 is Devil May Cry 2, which was asshat compared to the first one.

Official PlayStation 2 mag:

Got a copy of Second Sight for this one. Had it been Psi-Ops I would've kept it, but as it was I traded it in for EyeToy Play 2.

I have also appeared in the local paper a couple of times, and had a letter printed in The Independent, but none of those were funny.
( Bob Todd whee, Fri 11 Feb 2005, 23:00, Reply)

Well...
About 5 years ago, I decided I wanted to be a translator in the forces. What better way to get experience than join the cadets? I thought to myself.

Well, I found my very camp, skinny self surrounded by butch, testorone-fuelled blokes, but decided to stick with it. I did the Ten Tors challenge later that year, and our Commanding Officer was so chuffed, he had the local rag run an article. Unfortunatly, it also included a picture of us...

I'm the one in the back-center, hunched over like some sort of cripple. Also, if you look closely, you'll notice I'm stroking my coporals shoulder...I don't think I would've got far in the forces.


( owain2002, Fri 11 Feb 2005, 22:51, Reply)

Less local, more national....
I once got in a couple of papers after asking some freakly masculine sad excuse for a woman to marry me after knobbing off a stunning blonde a few years previous......

Hopefully people will stop thinking I'm gay and bum my staff.... ha ha ha... I'll show them when I'm king!
(ElitePlotter, Fri 11 Feb 2005, 22:28, Reply)

Not so local....
I got very drunk and decided to buy Oxfam Goats for everyone for Christmas, including the guitarist from Radiohead. Ths was mentioned on the front page of the Guardian 3 weeks later. With a quote from me saying "I think I want to populate the world with my goats".

We did raise 40 goats for Ed O'Brien though.

It was obviously a slow news day though.
(cookiemonster, Fri 11 Feb 2005, 22:13, Reply)

ROBOTSLEAVE say twat it local press.
Me and my brother have a band called robotsleave.

www.robotsleave.co.uk its not pop so dont get any idea's

We used to live in HULL and one of our albums "See You Tomorrow Sweetcorn" got a review.

one of the cunning songs on there was called

TWA flight T. little did the impish ginger bearded reviewer know. He had been set up.

He printed the title in the unsuspecting view of Hulls common folk.

www.robotsleave.co.uk

listen to our free music.

username:robot
pass: ass

Ripe music from spanner land
(look, Fri 11 Feb 2005, 22:07, Reply)

My ex-girlfriend works for a local newspaper
in the Dorset town where I used to live. Everything was going swimmingly for us -we bought a house, a car, a rabbit- but for some reason she got all uppity when she caught me shagging around, and chucked me out.
Not content with making me homeless, she then ran a full page spread on male impotence and bedwetting in the paper's weekend lifestyle section, centred on a (totally falsified) interview with me that also listed my name, age, and place of work.
Naturally, the rest of the town (including my friends, family and work mates) thought this was hilarious, and when I rang the editor to complain he just burst out laughing and put the phone down.

I now live in Birmingham.
(le renard, Fri 11 Feb 2005, 21:42, Reply)

Young, nerdy and proud
Been in the Evening Express (Aberdeen) a couple of times. Once when my primary school chess team (rough council estate) beat the posh private school to the district chess trophy. My hair looks like a motorbike helmet.
Also a picture when my cub group were planting daffodil bulbs along side a dual carriageway. I wish I could say we planted them in the shape of a swear word or something but we didn't.
(garrison, Fri 11 Feb 2005, 21:06, Reply)

I have been in the SLough, and wherever else it is express
and the Maidenhead Advertiser far more times than I care to remeber - usually for washing cars
In the rain
In the middle of winter
In a church Car park
In Slough
(P-nut Obsessive Compulsive Green Day Disorder..., Fri 11 Feb 2005, 20:33, Reply)

no good deed goes unpunished
In 1974 (yes, I'm a semi-old fart) I went with my father and sister to an amusement park for a day...a place called Sterling Gardens if I recall. I was alone in a pedal boat out some distance from the pier...in a nearby boat a little girl (4 years old or so) decided that she wanted out of her boat RIGHT NOW...immediately. No, she would not wait to go back to the pier. There was a floating barrier between our two boats that lead back to the pier..she decided she could walk on that. And in the drink she went...and couldn't swim. Glug glug. I, fully clothed, dove in the water and pulled her head above water...lost my specs doing it. Anyway, I made the front page of the local paper, replete with dorky photo, for 'saving' her life...and was endlessly tormented by the rest of the boys in school for the rest of the year. Cries of 'save me' followed me up and down the hallways for months. Damn.
( HairyTwatter certified eel and sodium salesman, Fri 11 Feb 2005, 20:27, Reply)

Front Page of Sports Section, NY Times
I ran cross-country back in the day, and once ran in the same race (men & women combined, although scored separately) as the women's national champion. I finished a few minutes after she did, and I was walking past her just as a photographer took a picture. The next week I found out that the picture he took was used for the front page of the New York Times sports section.

I used to have a copy of the paper, but I lost it shortly after I went to college.
(joe stoner dot com, Fri 11 Feb 2005, 20:24, Reply)

Incest shock!
I have an aunt who is in the Salvation army. Lucky me...

So, back in a dingy Sally army hall in the middle of a cold January in 1973, she officiated the wedding ceremony of my dear parents. Grangemouth must have been somewhat starved of news at the time, because shortly afterwards there appeared a headline in the local rag proclaiming 'Sister marries brother'.

Ye gods, the local neds must have been in pre-Trisha heaven.

My Mum still has the article somewhere...
( b3th Not shit. Not mod., Fri 11 Feb 2005, 18:55, Reply)

arse
ive heard that a very drunk newspaper editor in the usa demanded at gunpoint that his staff photocopied their arses into his paper
it ruined him forever
(beast on toast has xpango=> http://www.xpango.com?ref=90520974, Fri 11 Feb 2005, 18:53, Reply)

Pretty Rank
When I was a young pup at the tender age of 17 I lived opposite an abattoir; it had been a particularly warm summer and the smell from the abattoir had been rather nauseous so much so that the local press decided to do an article to get the public perspective; unfortunately I was the only person they could find to interview; seeing as I have difficulty breathing through my nose the stench of animals being led to the slaughter hadn't really bothered me that much. This made me say this crass statement when interviewed "I thought the smell was prety rank" at the time the word rank was quite cool but not when you are pictured on the front page of your local rag in an aaron jumper that looked like it belonged to "Captain Birdseye" with a cheesy grin on my face. 20 years on and I still get stick from friends so much for 15 minutes of fame.
(offit, Fri 11 Feb 2005, 18:38, Reply)

Overt Jubilation for Duck Race Winner
I was 14. I had been dragged to my local fun day, which included a duck race. And whadddaya know, I won. And it's true what they say about fame- the hacks descended upon me within seconds. A rather confused looking middle aged man, as it was. He asked me how I felt to have won. I said that it felt good, because I depended on it for sustenance, then walked off feeling ever so smart for sticking it to the press and pretending I was homeless. Yes, I was a.. whats the word... 'twattish' child.

Well I was in the paper, and he put my quote.

He also printed a picture of me collecting my book token.

TWAT.. TWAT... T W A T.
(PsychoApeMan Riding a white pig to the edge of Lapland, Fri 11 Feb 2005, 18:29, Reply)

Faked Name
This is from my friend Peter:

"I was selected with a few of my school friends to appear in the Surrey Herald, the Guardian and the Informer to show off the school’s Day of Modern Languages. Instead of asking for our names, the reporter asked us to write our names on a piece of paper. Being 16 at the time, I thought it would be hilarious to substitute my name for Paul Mascinbac. The following day, we decided to buy a Surrey Herald and found a ¼ page colour photo of us all with the caption, ‘Paul Mascinbac, Erik Hesketh, Louise Macdonald, Daniel Young and Daniel Southon, of Heathside School, discovering the Spanish culture’.

The school didn’t appear too happy about my fraudulent name, and coupled with another prank I pulled with a faked school letter advertising the maths-debating club, I got a week’s suspension."
( Megalowho? feeds beefburgers to swans, Fri 11 Feb 2005, 18:26, Reply)

Pedophilia
Once I was at a newspaper conference for university newspapers in Vancouver, Canada. One night while getting drunk in the well-stocked computer room, a girl who'd been frantically laying out her next issue asked me and another guy for a favour.

A pros vs cons article on child pornography. I chose cons and wrote a scathingly religious piece about how pornography of all kinds is a sin, and the other guy ranted for 500 words about how much he loves child pornography. Neither of us used our real names, luckily. Anyway, right after the issue was published, the RCMP swooped in and gave them a lot of grief.

We also published a news article in my own paper about the scandal, and I was very careful to keep my knowledge of the participants a secret.
(racetraitor has an alibi for, Fri 11 Feb 2005, 18:23, Reply)

Solvents
When I was a teenager, one of my mates didn't appear for a few weeks. Had no word what had happened to him. I was reading the paper and saw a feature saying 'W...... W.... was found by police walking down D.... Ave with a poke of glue in his hand shouting 'society is a timebomb' and was given 30 days'.
(albinomeatpod, Fri 11 Feb 2005, 17:56, Reply)

West Coast Puke Haters Convention
Back at the height of my emetophobia (fear of vomit), a bunch of us from a website I used to frequent got together. For a laugh, we contacted a journalist to see if the "convention" could get some coverage.
Along she came, prepared to take the piss big style. She left almost in tears, and realised that people have real fears and real anxieties.

Here's the article - you can guess who I am!

www.ocweekly.com/ink/02/13/commie-schoenkopf.php
( Batshitmentalist is sane for once, Fri 11 Feb 2005, 17:47, Reply)

The Mighty Weather Wall
For unexplainable reasons at uni we decided to collect as many signed photos of weather people as possible to go on out 'weather wall'. Then it seemed like a good idea to try and get into the local free paper (on account of it being full of shit)

However, apparently this was one of the most exciting things in Swansea at the time, and, after interviewing us we had a whole double page spread devoted to us talking crap.

I particularly like the last line which reads

But weathermen are not the only people they are interested in, they also have a signed photo of local newsreader Kevin Owen, because as they say "...He has great eyebrows!"
( Citizen Cavy Admires your passion for conformity, Fri 11 Feb 2005, 17:45, Reply)