Many years ago my friend bought a Nokia N-gage.
One of those poncey (yet crappy) gaming phones. He wouldn't shut up about it for the week beforehand.
"I'm getting a new phone in a week - a Nokia N-gage"
"I'll have my phone in 4 days"
"2 days time I'll be playing better games than that on my phone"
"18 hours and I'll picking up my N-gage"
Just generally being a complete technotwat about it. You know the kind.
For that reason I waited 'til he'd owned it for a couple of hours and sent him a text that went something like this:

Hey! Did you get the Ngage? How i# ## ######
**MESSAGE CORRUPTED**
**ERROR 843**
**REBOOTING MESSAGE**
Hey! Did you get the Ngage? How i# ## ######
**MESSAGE CORRUPTED**
**ERROR 843**
**MESSAGE TERMINATED**

A few minutes later I got a text back asking me to repeat myself, because my text was all garbled. I replied with:

Garbled? I was aski# ## ##### ##
**MESSAGE CORRUPTED**
**ERROR 843**
**CRITICAL SIM ERROR**

And then, nothing. No reply. I waited about an hour and called him.
Turns out he was already on a bus back into town with his malfunctioning phone...
(Paolo Nutini's Bikini Better than Frederick Fleet's optometrist, Mon 16 Jan 2012, 12:00, 7 replies)

Forks
First time poster, long time lurker...

Very simple this one. During my long-past student days I made many trips to my friend Jon's house due to his a) Amiga and b) his access to superior smoking supplies. Every time I went around I would sneak into his kitchen to steel a fork, leaving a knife I had smuggled in from my own cutlery drawer.

I often ate with him and his housemates. Over time the start of every meal was preceded by an increasingly irate search for forks. By the time his fork supply was down to one old battered fork he was simply bemused. "Where do they all go," to he asked, followed by "at least we have lots of knives."

I was able to sympathise with him as I was going through a similar experience, only with knives.
(cupeye, Tue 17 Jan 2012, 18:49, 7 replies)

Elmo
Is it really really unfair that when my 3 year old picks up the phone (and it's invariably cold-callers etc...) once they've gone, I start doing an Elmo impression from the other phone, and i've got her convinced that sometimes Elmo calls her up to sing the alphabet with her?
(Universon, Mon 16 Jan 2012, 12:22, 7 replies)

Inadvertent messing with Nan's head
I just overheard a weird conversation in a local caff this lunchtime. There were a bunch of wifies on the next table, and once I'd ordered lunch I started to pick up bits of a conversation between 'Darren's Nan' and 'Darren's Mum':

Nan: ...so I had to get on the bus to go to Marks and Spencer's to get some sushi for Darren's tea.

Mum: Aye, he mentioned you gave him something weird.

Nan: That's what he asked for when I phoned him on his mobile: cheese, sushi and chips.

(By now I was fully tuned in. The other old biddies were giving each other 'WTF?' looks.)

Nan: well, you know the kids these days, they like all kinds of stuff.

Mum: And he asked for cheese, sushi and chips???!!!

Nan: Aye, I had to get the bus up to Marks & Spencer's...

(I see a light go on behind Darren's Mum's eyes.)

Mum: So you phoned Darren, asked him what he wanted for his tea, and he said cheese, sushi and chips...

Nan: Aye

Mum: Or maybe sushi, cheese and chips...

Nan: Eh?

Mum: Sushi, cheese and chips... (Faster)Sushi, cheese and chips... Sushicheese and chips... Sussijeez-n-chips...

(I swear I never saw this coming)

Mum: (slowly and deliberately): Soss - idges - and - chips. Sausages and chips.

Nan: Aw, fuck.

Luckily the hoots of old ladies' laughter covered the sound of me snorting coffee out of my nose.
( MisterPunch did it that way on, Tue 17 Jan 2012, 16:37, 4 replies)

How long can you be in a job before it’s ok to be a Peado?

Being a dull-as-shite family man, I have pictures of my loved ones dotted about my office to help lift my spirits when the weight of the world crushes my soul (i.e. between 9am & 5pm, Mon-Fri). Nothing unusual about that I know, but I also have a nifty little gadget thing on my phone, which rotates through my photo gallery every ten seconds or so and creates a different wallpaper with each picture. It’s grand.

(Before I continue, please note that I have only been in my new job for a month or so now, and my reputation as an utter fuck-knuckle has not yet had time to circulate around head office).

Just before Christmas I was thrust into quite an important meeting (with the accounts department and a couple of directors – oh yeah baby - it was about as exciting as it sounds) so whilst getting my shit together I thought nothing of having my phone next to my laptop as the mind-numbing preperations started. My mobile was therefore happily scrolling through my photo collection, when the lovely young admin girl in her 20’s (whom I’d only met a couple of times before), approached me to give me some invoices, and the pictures caught her eye.

At this point, fate decided to fart in my eiderdown (again), and at the moment she saw the photos on my phone it stopped showing the reel from last Halloween, and the reel from when we went to the Sea life centre…instead it started showing photos from last summer, when on one of the hotter days my two young sons were frolicking about in a paddling pool, wearing nought but tiny trunks. Now these photos are innocent enough, and when the young admin girl saw the gleeful smiles on their faces as they twatted about in the garden, she exclaimed: “Awwww, it’s lovely that you have photos of your kids on your phone like that”.

Now I don’t know what came over me, as it was not the time and definitely not the place…but I decided to fix her with a stony, serious glare and declare: ”Oh, I don’t have any children…” thus instantly making me look like a massive screaming peado who was unashamedly showing off pictures of young boys almost in the buff.

Her face dropped like a big stone...attached to a large, ripe hippopotamus. “But…..erm…but….” she stuttered, mindlessly pointing at my phone as the pictures scrolled on. I continued relentlessly: “Nah…I don’t know who those kids are…I just thought they……..looked nice…” and with this I started to smirk creepily and breathe a bit heavier.

The poor girl shuffled uncomfortably back to her side of the table, her gaze fixated on me as I grinned inanely back at her. As I continued to crank it up I considered to myself how funny this would be when the truth was revealed and I began to prepare for the moment when I could finally put her mind at ease.

Unfortunately, I got so wrapped up in my frankly pathetic and wholly inappropriate 'joke' that I totally forgot about the other, quite important people also in the room...the ones who had just given me a job, were party to this 'new development', and were now demonstrating by their sullen faces how they silently agreed with the flabbergasted young admin girl…who by the expression on her face seemed to quite rightly be of the opinion that I should by locked up, beaten with sticks, and chemically castrated.

By the time I realised what was going on I started to bumble and whimper through lines such as: ‘I was only joking…honest…’ but the damage had been done. At that point I merely looked like I was slow to realise their disgust and was desperately trying to overcompensate.

So in typical fashion, my feeble attempt to mess with somebody’s head backfired quite dramatically...and knowing my luck, could end up with me being stuck on the nonce register. What was that they said about first impressions?

Fucksocks.
( Pooflake braces for an onslaught..., Fri 13 Jan 2012, 11:30, 16 replies)

My ex boss was a bit of a shortarse who suffered from short man syndrome.
Every year or so we'd had a staff group photo with us all lined up like good children. One particular year one of us printed it out on the colour laser printer and put it on the office notice board.

Each week we'd then photoshop our boss a few pixels shorter than everyone else and replace the previous copy. From time to time we'd notice him taking a look at the photo.

Took him about 10 weeks to notice he was now the size of Jimmy Crankie in the line-up. He didn't take it to well.
( Airman Gabber Living life like a 70's BBC presenter, Fri 13 Jan 2012, 10:50, 1 reply)

The Odd Sock
But probably subtler was the one I’ve been playing on my mate Dave.

Dave has the most immaculate flat in the world. Howard Hughes would happily eat off the floor there if he was still alive. Shoes are strictly banned, and everything has to be in its exact place. I think you get the idea.

One day he announce that the had thrown out all his socks and bought twenty pairs of new identical black socks. “Now show me the odd sock when I do my laundry” he said.

Challenge accepted. For the past eight years, probably every three or four months, I take one of my own odd socks out with me when I’m going around to his flat. And if the timing is right I sneak it into the depth of his laundry basket.

The thing is that he has never once mentioned the odd sock problem. And. It's. Very. Slowly. Driving. Me. Mad.
(strongp, Sat 14 Jan 2012, 20:16, 4 replies)

This was in the newsletter recently, but... LOST CAT
It started with a sign. "LOST CAT", it said, with a big picture of a lion. For shits and giggles, I pinned it on the local community noticeboard and took a picture. Within days, however, it had gone, the victim of the board's humourless self-appointed guardian.

Right, two can play at that game: Up went a photo of the original Lost Cat sign with the caption "LOST SIGN". Take THAT. And he did, the bastard.

In the weeks that followed, up went LOST "LOST SIGN" SIGN, and then LOST 'LOST "LOST SIGN" SIGN' SIGN.

And then, we went for the kill: A notice that only Noticeboard Guardian (who I picture rocking back and forth in the reading room of the local library, wondering what fresh hell awaits) would see. Like THIS:

1. Pin smaller pic to noticeboard

2. Pin larger pic on top

3. My sworn enemy who clears down the board will be the ONLY person to see the smaller pic

4. ???

5. PROFIT!

All illustrated neatly HERE

The Head-Fuck continues, but our enemy has more-or-less given up trying to censor us. Some of the notices actually stay up for weeks. You may wish to follow the latest HERE. We've even managed to get B3TA's very own Smug Bastard involved.


( Scaryduck LIKES EGG, Thu 12 Jan 2012, 11:48, 11 replies)

French swear words
A friend and I used to play football over the park a lot when we were 14. One day we ended up playing with a group of 10 year olds and after about 30 minutes we were approached by a bunch of French kids and challenged to a game, English vs. French.

The French kids were our age and a little more physical in their style of play and before long the English kids were complaining about the game.

"Just tell them to Fuck Off in French" we said, "The French for Fuck Off is 'J'taime'"

After that every hard French tackle was met with a frown and a fierce declaration of love. It was *SO* hard to keep a straight face.
(moistness, Sat 14 Jan 2012, 2:18, 1 reply)

The Standby Burgler
This is going back a while, when I used to do Tech Support for a national ISP. I won't bore you with the "types" of customers you get calling in and merely tell you that a good 90% of them are out and out idiots, but most of them are aware of this, are polite about it and will happily listen when you tell them how they broke something themselves. There are, however, a few that are still complete idiots, but couldn't possibly admit to having done anything wrong.

One day, a man phoned in complaining that his connection had dropped AGAIN. "This happens every month!" he exclaimed down the phone to me. Of course, I have the full history of his account in front of me and I can clearly see that he's only phoned in once in the last 6 months to pay a missed bill. Nevertheless, I diagnosed the problem - his modem was on standby.

Now as stupid as that sounds, it was actually quite a common problem. The Modem in question was coloured black. There was a button on top of it that would put it into standby mode - this button was also jet black, so it blended in seamlessly. Even more annoying, the Modem "remembered" that it was in standby, so if you unplugged it and plugged it back in, it would go straight back into standby. It was incredibly easy (And common) for people to accidentally hit this button while tidying up, or rummaging around behind the PC or whatever, then mysteriously loose all internet access. Most people didn't even know the button existed.

I explained this to the gentleman. It normally gives the customer and I both something to laugh about, we then usually agree on how "stupid" a design it is and the customer goes away happy because it was such a simple thing to fix.

But not this time. "Ohh no, that couldn't possibly have happened", he retorts. "The modem isn't in a position where that could EVER happen". I tried to plead with the gentleman, if it wasn't him accidentally doing it, then it could have easily been someone else - the wife, a wayward child, even the family cat. Alas, it was not to be - "No! I wouldn't do something so stupid! It wouldn't have happened, the problem is from YOUR end!". Eventually, I gave up trying to reason with him - he clearly couldn't have made a really simple mistake, so I had to try a different tactic.

I say "Now hold on, where did you say you lived? Was it *checks customer's account to see exactly where he lives* Leeds?". "Yes, that's right" he replies.
"Ohh, well we have had a couple of people report being broken into and having their electronic devices put into standby"
"What?!"
"Yes, there appears to be an individual breaking into people's houses and putting their equipment into standby. He doesn't seem to take anything, but they still call him the standby burgler"
"Oh my God, do you think he's been in my house?!"
"Well now I couldn't say for sure, but it would explain the Modem going into standby all by itself...".
"I can't believe I've been broken into! I'd best call the police!"

And with that, the man hung up. I never heard from him again, so I can only presume that the police laughed at him so hard, he decided never to pretend to not be stupid ever again.
(Kushan just wants to fit in..to your mum, Thu 12 Jan 2012, 15:35, 2 replies)

The littlest wookie
We had a lovely Japanese lady doing a post-doc in our lab, who was very small and very quiet. At a conference, I told everyone who'd listen the surprising fact that despite her tiny stature and retiring nature, she did an amazing Chewbacca impression. She was so shy though that she'd only do it if she was really drunk. For three nights, I watched people she'd just met (including, at one point, a couple of bikers) buy her drink after drink (that she was too polite to refuse) and beg her to "do Chewie", while she pleaded with them in broken, slurred english that she didn't know what they were talking about. Which was true, because she'd never even heard of Star Wars.
(cubby2, Sat 14 Jan 2012, 14:07, 4 replies)

The one where I got rid of awful neighbours (pearoast)
My neighbours weren't actually from hell, but there was something about them I didn't like. They were nosey gets whenever I went in my garden, even if just to hang the washing out. They listened to music quite late, shouted at their kids a lot, well bellowed anyway (had they never seen Dr Tanya Byron?), the shouting would start their dog off which would then get shouted at.

The man of the house, we shall call Gary, would go out of an evening, and not get in until about 1am, when he demonstrated that he had no concept of taking a key with him as he used to hammer on the door until his wife got up and let him in. I got a card through the door once saying that I wasn't in and my parcel had been left with a neighbour. I went round and was given the parcel, which had clearly been tampered with as one of them had been curious about what I'd received.

Nothing seriously anti-social, just a nuisance.

They had a daughter, Amy who used to treat my daughter as a fair-weather friend. If none of Amy's other friends weren't available, she would come knocking. My daughter twigged and would say no only to get a bit of verbal off Amy if she didn't play out with her. One day, my daughter had been invited over as it was Amy's birthday. My daughter came home early because she was bored and Amy and her friends weren't talking to her. My daughter had left her jacket there so I said I'd go get it. Then I had an idea.

I dug out an old typewriter, fed a piece of paper in and halfway down and in the middle typed two words. I folded the paper up, stuffed it in an anonymous Xmas card envelope and went round. I fed it quietly through their letterbox and knocked on the door. Gary came to the door and behind the glass I saw him bend down and pick up the envelope and then open the door.

"She left her jacket, it's the blue one" I said.
Gary shouted through, "Bring next door's jacket, it's the blue one." He then opened the envelope and read what I'd put, under his breath but audible all the same. Two words.

"They know"

He stuffed it in his back pocket, I was given the jacket and he shut the door.

I heard a heated conversation, but in low voices between him and his wife. Amy's friends were sent home and I saw Gary carry something into the garden so I ran upstairs and peeked out of the bedroom window to see what was going on.

He had a laptop, and was smashing it open with a big hammer. He then went back in the house and came out a few moments later with a power-drill and drilled several large holes in the hard drive.
He went back in and came out with two more drives and drilled holes in them. Then he got a metal dustbin out from behind his shed, filled it with grass-clippings that had been going brown at the side of the garden followed by a liberal amount of lighter fluid and a match. He went back in the house.

He came back out with a load of paper and some CDs and the lot went in the dustbin, followed by the hard-drives and the remains of the laptop. He went back inside again and slammed the door. I heard a lot of shouting for about 30 minutes which died down.

Two days later, there was a lot of commotion again and I saw Gary and his wife loading boxes and furniture into a removal lorry. This drove off, Gary locked up his house and he and his family got in his beat up old Mondeo and drove off.

I never saw them again.
( sandettie light vessel automatic New Twitter - @bollocksreally, Fri 13 Jan 2012, 15:07, 3 replies)

Time zone difference
Being a Brit in California, I get asked lots of dumbass questions (do you have milk in England?)...a few weeks ago, I was at the bar with my boyfriend and the lovely but a bit gullible Marissa was working. She asked us what the time was, my clock said 6.41, boyfs said 6.40....so as a joke, the boyfriend said it must be a time difference thing.
Hook, line and fucking sinker....Marissa totally fell for it....I had her believing that England was exactly one minute ahead of California (cos of the international date line).
Some random English guy went into the bar 2 days later, so Marissa struck up a conversation and proceeded to tell him about the time difference.....naturally, he was 'eh, it's 8 hours love'. I got a text message from Marissa about it (while English guy was still there), and so I told her it's because I'm from Hull......bless the guy...he was like 'Oh, ok, I'm from Portsmouth, that makes the difference'. I saw Marissa the next day and she told me all about their conversation and the 'British date line' that seperates north & south, and how when it's daytime in the north it's night in the south.

She nearly fucking killed me on New Years Eve when I went in at 4pm to celebrate British new year.....

Thanks random English bloke for 'validating' my story...
(nolongernuts, Mon 16 Jan 2012, 18:32, 11 replies)

George
My best friend from primary school, George, was a very nice, gentle, and somewhat shy lad. Desperate never to upset anyone, he once held in a fart in assembly with such great gusto that when it eventually escaped, it actually whistled out, like the sound of a boiled kettle. He also accidentally called the teacher 'Mum' on more than one occasion, and once turned up for PE naked because he'd forgotten his kit and didn't want to admit it.

Anyway, we also happened to be in the same Cub Scout group, and when we were about ten, the adults took some athletic equipment out into the park on a nice day and we had an impromptu sports day. George went for the high jump with such determination that he not only cleared the bar, but indeed missed the mat, coming down in a heap on the grass.

After the cruel laughter you'd expect from adolescent boys had died away, me and a couple of lads walked over to see how he was, and after an adult had picked him up and checked nothing was broken, we walked him off, badly winded, to sit on the sidelines. One of the other lads - a more popular lad than me - seemed to have decided that it would be fun to make George think it could have been really serious; 'You're lucky to be alive!', 'Someone in my brother's year at school died doing the high jump!', etc.

Anyway, I was at that stage of my youth where being popular was really important to me, and I could be a bit of an arsehole if I saw an opportunity to gain an advantage. George was obviously still shocked and struggling to breathe, and if these lads thought it was fun to mess with him, then why not? They were cooler than me, anyway.

So I leant over to George and asked 'Thinking about it - how do you know you're NOT dead? You could have broken your neck and this could be the afterlife. Maybe the afterlife is just where your normal life carries on because you don't know your dead. But you are dead. Eh?'

'Am I dead?'

'Maybe. If you were dead, and we were all in your imagination. Would we tell you?'

'Am I dead?'

'I can't say'.

And we went back to the games.

That weekend, my Mum got a call from George's Mum. Apparently, I had so convincingly persuaded him of the real possibility that he was dead, that he'd sulked for two days before asking his mum. It had taken her an hour, and help of a priest, to persuade him that he wasn't dead.

I wasn't very popular with either his parents or mine for a while after that.
(SnowyTheWereRabbit the Leporid from Hell, Thu 12 Jan 2012, 13:49, 3 replies)

Woodwind
When I was in a school orchestra a few years ago, I was made section leader over a group of learners. They ranged from maybe grade 6 down to absolute beginner.

I convinced them that if you belch down a wind instrument the pitch will change, due to the comparitive density of the air or some such bollocks. This, I told them, was why jazz bands are always drinking when they're playing. It's to help them belch on cue for those jazzy pitch-blends.

They tried it for months, to the utter bewilderment of the conductor. I had to 'fess up when one of them accidentally overdid it and vomited into a sax.
(Sivvus trolley collision in the fruit aisle led to a jam, Thu 12 Jan 2012, 13:42, Reply)

Bluse Rinse Dragons Part II
This will make more sense if you can be bothered with this Blue Rinse Dragons part I

The wispy apparition of the Lingerie Lady of the Line obviously represented a sort of lace trimmed gauntlet to the old bats. Stalls had been set out, battle lines drawn. This first became evident when they started to mow further and further into my lawn. The old buggers were quite literally cutting my grass. They always conspired together, frantically rushing around the garden in tartan slippers, always at dusk - one mowing, one cable bashing. I’m not a petty man; well I am actually so clearly this was going escalate.

The flats had a white slatted fence about 6 feet high at the division point of the properties, but this barely extended onto the back lawn – 20 feet at most. Whereas the lawn stretched a good 50 or more feet further off into the distance. To make matters worse my side was an end terrace so I had another large garden area and parking for 3 cars at the side of my place. They had no such luxury, so this was probably an issue of hot contention for them too, even though neither of them had cars.

The wonky line that veered further into my lawn, now twice a week during the height of summer, was getting on my tits. Then plastic bottles filled with water started appearing everywhere. I had to ask – to which I was informed with the sort of confident air in such matters that only David Attenborough should have access to…

‘The bottles keep YOUR cats out of our garden’
‘Eh?’
‘Their reflection, it scares them off’
‘Does it really? How ingenious!’

I said this while casually observing over her shoulder my tortoiseshell moggie Chloe. She was lying on her back in a distinctly louche manner lazily prodding one of the plastic bottles. I had also at one stage witnessed one of the old trouts propping up a few house bricks against the fence at the far end of the garden. On further enquiry I was informed (incredulously as though I was an utter cretin):

‘It keeps cats out – cats are too lazy to climb fences’

But it was the lawn thing that really pissed on my pizza. So one Saturday morning, courtesy of HSS Hire, the sort of ubermower that Wembley groundskeepers have pictures of, have taped inside their lockers, arrived on a trailer. One very noisy hour later the lawn was like a fucking pinstripe Savile Row suit specified in lurid green.

I knew however the wine from this sweet victory would soon run dry. So the following weekend they were in for another little surprise.

If you ever need to put up a fence really fucking fast - then I suggest you check out these guys. www.metpost.co.uk/

When the bloke arrived from B&Q to deliver my order I got him to leave the posts, 16 pound sledgehammer, fence panels, clips and other related paraphernalia stacked up ominously in the back garden. Then I went for a pint.

By the time I came back they were out in the deckchairs perched on the vehemently disputed border, knitting - knitting long polymer strands of pure black clicking hatred. An empty crisp packet blew across the garden like tumbleweed. A lone crow mocked the scene from its gallery on the rooftops. I stubbed my cigarette onto the lawn, dead on the borderline. Grinding it in with my foot I squinted into the sunlight, and snarled...

‘Can't hang around ladies, things to do’

Whang – the first metal post spike pierced the lawn and plunged into the soft black loam like a javelin through a badly coordinated Olympic official. It was like pushing candles into a birthday cake. A few taps on the wooden post with the sledgehammer, couple of clips here and there, and low! The first birch lap, pressure-treated panel was up. At 6 foot it was considerably taller than me, and these old biddies were struggling to hit 5 foot in two pairs of support hose. And there it was, a magnificent all seeing Pagan monolith draping its cold malevolent shadow deep into their chintzy territory.

They went absolutely, vein-popping, batshit mental. Literally running in and out of their flats, shouting insults from upper windows.

‘You can’t do that, this is private property’ one shrieked.
‘Yes it is, and this half is mine' I smiled sweetly.
‘You don’t own it; I’m phoning Mrs Cantremeberhername (my landlady).’
‘No need, I have in writing from her that she approves of the fence, would you care to see?'.
‘You need planning permission’
‘I don’t’
‘You do’
‘I don’t – it is classed a temporary structure, and as it is less than 7 feet in height therefore I don’t need permission from anyone except the landowner – which I have’
‘It’s on the wrong boundary’
‘Not according to this copy of the deeds (flip, flap, unfold) – care to see? In fact I’m sorry to be the one to tell you but that part of the end of the garden is also actually mine – right up to the back fence’

She was fucking apoplectic by this point – the bit at the bottom of the garden was her favourite spot for deckchair surveillance – it actually looked into my living room.

Then her son arrived.

‘Tell him Malcolm, TELL HIM’

I explained the situation to the clearly long suffering bloke. He apologised and gave me his number in case I needed it. Then smiled weakly as he tried to assure her it was not a police matter and I was not deliberately destroying the value of her property. So I continued to put the line of fence panels up at an impressive rate. The mad old witch now had to be physically held back by her son. Then the other old bint who had been quieter up till now suddenly opened her upper window and screamed…

‘You’re not even married it’s disgusting’
‘Why don’t we elope?' I suggested. 'Blue hair really does it for me?'

As the last panel went up I stood back and took stock. Just as I was about to pop another beer I heard a clattering from the mad old bats garden shed. Then perched on ancient stepladders, craning and wobbling awkwardly around the last panel, I saw a frazzled mop of blue hair attached to an alarmingly purple face glaring round the fence – so far down the garden I struggled at first to see which poisonous harridan was there screeching the now immortal line...

‘I can still SEE you you know! I can still SEE….’

I can only assume at that point the ramifications of a person of advancing years clambering onto an antique ladder suddenly became distinctly apparent to the old bitch.

I moved out 18 years ago. Fence is still there though.
( spimf ™ is whoever you want him to be, Wed 18 Jan 2012, 11:06, 12 replies)

I'm probably a bit too horrible to my Nan
But it's all smiles at the end of the day. On her sixtieth birthday, when I was about thirteen, we were all having a nice family game of pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey. Which was entertaining for all of ooh... five minutes? Something had to give.

A quick explanatory aside- said donkey had been stuck to the door to the cupboard under the stairs, and had a very quiet door handle.

So whilst my poor Gran is blindfolded and being span around to disorient her good and proper, I crept forward, and opened the door, and in she walked. And then I closed the door again.

How three generations of a family kept from giggling I will never know. I'm pretty damn sure that my Nan is the only person to ever try playing pin the tail on the washing machine though.
(The Luggage is haunted..., Mon 16 Jan 2012, 23:11, 8 replies)

Michael Palin Would Have Been Proud
Another Africa tale I think…

It was in village market somewhere near Ketama in the hashish region of Morocco that I came across the alarm clock. It was exactly the same as the one that Michael Palin has used in Sahara. It was shaped in the form of a mosque with two minarets and a golden dome, and when it went off it played either the morning or afternoon call to prayer. This was a must have souvenir.

I really needn’t have bothered though. We were travelling during Ramadan when the morning call was at 4:30 am, and wherever our small covoy went we always seemed to end up sleeping next door to a mosque – I swear there must be some sort of zoning regulation in Morocco that ensures this. Personally I quite liked being woken up and I still find the morning call to prayer to be an immensely evocative sound. Brad Pitt on the other hand was being driven to distraction by it all. Every morning he’d be cursing in his roof tent and the bitching would continue until at least midday.

Rewind a bit. Brad, who was really a South African called Piet, was driving home in a shiny new land rover. He was actually quite a nice guy, but unfortunately the ladies in our travelling party spent most of the day swooning over him – and when he stripped off his shirt to work on his car it was like being at a Justin Bieber concert. So basically he had it coming.

Eventually we’d sorted out our visas at Rabat and were able to head out into the desert. We drove south east along a series of increasingly smaller roads, then tracks, and finally drifting sand until we found a perfectly isolated gap in the dunes and made camp. As space wasn’t an issue we would generally leave quite a space between vehicles for privacy, which fitted my plan perfectly. Finally at about 9pm Brad stretched and declared that it was his time to retire. As he walked back to his vehicle he said “At least we won’t get woken up by any fucking calls to prayer”. Half an hour later I crept under his landy and placed my alarm clock between the axles, volume turned up to maximum, alarm set for 4:30 am.

Over breakfast Brad was ranting like a man possessed. As far as I know he still hasn’t figured it out and I was even able to retrieve my clock just in case I felt a need to use it again.

Length? 18 months and 70,000km
(strongp, Sat 14 Jan 2012, 20:07, 2 replies)

A few years ago, when such things weren't very common
was travelling abroad with my wife, and we hired a VW Golf which had controls for the stereo on the steering wheel.

I told her the stereo reacted to hand gestures, and was doing complicated finger pointing at the head unit, while flicking the buttons on the steering wheel.

She naturally wanted a go, and was gesticulating wildly at the stereo - one in every 5 times or so, I'd change the track or alter the volume, just to keep her interested.

Kept that up for 3 days. I got bored in the end with having to wave at the thing every time I wanted to change something, and told her.
(username failed moderation, Thu 12 Jan 2012, 13:00, 3 replies)

Humiliation
Once upon a time I was strolling through the Smithfield Market area of Dublin with Willie, my pal, when we decided to go for a pie and pint. I chose a likely hostelry. "No, not that one," said my chum, "they are all bastards in there."

I had to know.
Turned out he had gone in there and as he was about to take a stool at the bar he spied a £20 note lying on the floor. Willie quickly took stock of the situation; the pub was silent, with a few guys around, quietly supping their stout. No one had noticed the money.

So he took out his Evening Herald and 'accidentally' dropped it on the floor on top of the note. He then stooped down to pick up the paper intending to retrieve the banknote at the same time.

Just as he was about to pick up the money, the note shot across the floor and poor Willie instinctively stumbled and lunged after it, falling flat on his face accompanied by the roars of laughter from all the punters and the barman. The twenty quid was on a fishing line, pulled by one of the innocent looking customers.
He was so embarrassed he walked out of the pub, never to show his face there again. Now THAT's being dicked with!
(reinvented, Sat 14 Jan 2012, 6:24, 1 reply)

Dick dick dick dick dick dick dick dick dick. How many dicks is that? A lot.
In the weeks leading up to the most recent election day, I began receiving phone calls attempting to solicit my vote for various candidates running for local offices. Inevitably, these phone calls seemed to be most common when I was trying to cook or eat dinner. Rather than be annoyed, I decided I would entertain myself at the expense of the next person who called, and I was not disappointed. While I don't recall the candidate's surname, his given name was the unfortunately phallic shorthand for Richard and the conversation went something like this:

“Good evening sir, I'm calling on behalf of Dick Whatshisname, and we'd like to know if we can count on your vote in this upcoming election.”

(Me, pretending to be hard of hearing) “You're calling for Dick?”

“Yes sir, I'm calling to see if we can count on your vote for Dick Whatshisname.”

“Dick?”

“Yes, sir. Dick.”

“Well, I don't really know much about Dick. Do you know a lot about Dick?”

“Yes, he stands for things our community needs.”

“So, Dick is a stand-up guy?”

“Yes sir, I believe he is.”

“You seem to know an awful lot about Dick.”

“Yes, I've been volunteering for Dick's campaign for several months now.”

“So you'll work for Dick? You'll work hard for Dick?”

“Yes, I think he's a candidate worth fighting for.”

“So you like Dick?”

“I think Dick is great!”

At this point I just hung up the phone – I couldn't hold in the laughter anymore, and my wife was laughing loud enough in the background that I could hear through the phone.
(WillF http://www.flickr.com/photos/silverfischdotnet/, Fri 13 Jan 2012, 20:50, 1 reply)

One Place I Worked
had a porky chap who used to prepare his lunch, and snacks, in the morning at work before he started. He never deviated from his foods of choice. He'd arrive at work with 6 hamburger rolls, a fuck-off tin of tuna and a Mars Bar. He'd empty the tuna into a bowl, squirt a ridiculous amount of mayonnaise into it, stir, and slop onto his six rolls. The prepared rolls would then go into a plastic tupperware box and be stuck in the fridge.

He'd eat these at random times during the day as he got peckish.

Then someone started to fuck with his head. At first, he'd steal a roll, keep it for a few hours until fat chap noticed he was a roll down, then replace it. Then he got inventive and started to bring the exact same rolls into work and add them to fat chaps box - randomly. Some days fat chap got two extra rolls, some days one, occasionally three - and the odd day he'd get no extra but one stolen.

Completely pointless exercise but amused me. Fat cunt shouldn't have cut my rate at contract renewal time. He ended up going to the doctors as he thought stress was affecting his memory.

No mate, it wasn't stress, it was me. You fat fuck.

Cheers
( Legless Mister Stabby - shanks for the memory, Thu 12 Jan 2012, 13:20, 4 replies)

Leading gullible work mates down long, winding roads of bollocks.
We had a colleague who was a bit ditzy in a very annoying way. They'd squeak like a very small child for attention and try to be as girly as possible to get help from the men when we'd have helped anyway. She was also rather gullible.
A friend and myself were talking about who was the best Bond and I'd plumped for Timothy Dalton and was recounting the plot of Licence To Kill, up to the point about cocaine being smuggled into the States in petrol tankers.
"Wow, is that a true story?" She squeaked.
"Errr, yes. Except that instead of going into the US, they were going out of it into Venuzuela and instead of cocaine, it was jelly beans."
"Whaaaaat? No..."
"Well," I continued, "Venuzuela has always been left-leaning and they used to consider the US to be the Great Satan to the north. As such, they banned all forms of American candy. As it happens, Venuzuelans are very partial to jelly beans, so criminal gangs used to dissolve them in petrol, tanker them over the border (with Venuzuela being a net importer back then) and evaporate off the petrol to get the beans back."
"Ohmigod, but wouldn't be there be petrol left in the sweets?"
"Worse. It was leaded petrol. Messed a lot of kids up."
"Ohmigod."
At this point, I decided to see how far I could push it.
"It's where the phrase 'sugar daddy' comes from."
"Reeeeealy?"
"Yep. Each crimial gang had a 'padrone', or 'daddy' and they were the ones who got you the sugar."

I sometimes miss working with her.
( Colonel Boris "...a desperate Buzzfeed imitation...", Thu 12 Jan 2012, 12:51, Reply)

An American came to visit
Many years back, I was part of a volunteering group, who were close-knit socially and tended to hang out a lot. One summer, an eager American college student who was a pen friend of one of us came to stay. We welcomed the gushing, grinning lad and took turns in hosting him. He said he wanted to learn all about British culture, so we convinced him that:

* Poking your head out of a car window with a yell of "Wanker!" is a chirpy British greeting.

* Welsh people are called "Whalies" and their currency is "Whale coin". We got him to pop into a bank on the way to Wales to change £40 into whale coin so he'd have some spends. (He was in there a good while before re-emerging, scratching his head and protesting about the manager.)

* The traditional British breakfast is fried bread butties. We had him grinning like a loon while frying hunks of bread, sandwiching between two dry slices and serving them up to bemused guests.

* People playing guitars in subways etc. are immigration agents who work for the police, and they'll arrest anybody with a non-British accent. When seeing them, approach them first, announce your name and country of residence and show them all your papers.

* If striking up conversation with strangers (e.g. on a bus), a good, safe and neutral topic is farts.

...plus other stuff I can't remember. He took it in good spirit, when he eventually sussed us out.
(IHateSprouts is baking a huge pie shaped like an enormous pie, Sun 15 Jan 2012, 9:41, 5 replies)

Eating dogshit - yum!
I was crossing the main concourse at Victoria Station, pushing a luggage trolley, when a jar of peanut butter toppled out of my bag and smashed. I picked it up, and only then realised that I had trodden in it and smeared it across the floor. It looked EXACTLY as if I had trodden in dogshit. So, with many onlookers, I removed my shoe and sniffed the sole, recoiling in the way you do. Then, slowly, tentatively, I scooped some from my shoe onto my finger, tasted it with the tip of my tongue, and then licked the whole lot greedily. I looked around - a few people had noticed and were truly horrified. I just shrugged nonchalantly, replaced my shoe and trolleyed onwards...
(Hurple Pelmet, Fri 13 Jan 2012, 16:57, 8 replies)

One night at Glastonbury...
I guy is wandering around the camp-fires, asking people in worried tones if they'd seen his rabbit, which has escaped. No? He wanders off into the darkness.

A few minutes later, an accomplice in a rabbit suit bounds joyfully through the camp...
(moon monkey is busy making memories worth repressing, Fri 13 Jan 2012, 16:45, 4 replies)

My Grandad, circa 1962. Sat in the pub, quietly sipping his pint.
Door bangs open and a rather brash cockney chap barged in.
(to my grandad): Aright John?
Grandad: Are yer aright boy?(Grandad is somewhat rural).
Cockney Interloper: Cor, dun't yew lot tawk funny?
Grandad:........
C.I.: So, anyway John(not Grandad's name), woss ver best way to 'artest?(Hartest, is a village a few miles from where my Grandad lives)
Grandad: Are yew gooun' boi car bor?
C.I.: yes John.
Grandad: Then thass the best way.
( Amorous Badger NAKED BEA ARTHUR PHOTOS 4U, Thu 12 Jan 2012, 16:12, 6 replies)

I'm on a f*****g TRAIN
It was the early years of truly portable mobile telephones, but noise-cancelling microphones weren't included. So people really *did* have to shout, "I'm On A Train" to be heard and understood.

On the long rail journey to Gobowen from London, the man sitting only one row from me, but facing away, was constantly using his mobile phone, loudly braying to anyone he could call about his City deals, bonuses and the girls he was going to seduce as a result of increasing his cut on his clients' investments. Perhaps he was heading to Shropshire to steal some country land from the locals in order to build a golf course?

I, too, had my shiny new Orange phone with me, on the cheapest plan, £15 a month -- the year was 1994. And the idiot in the next row read out his telephone number, clearly and loudly, to someone he'd called.

Even in those early days, dialling 141 hid the number you were calling from. And Orange did not charge for any calls lasting less than two seconds. Oh! How I enjoyed the rest of the journey!
(Sky Channel 760, Mon 16 Jan 2012, 15:51, Reply)

Terrible bullying
My brother's school was blessed by a new student joining in year 9. His name was Sam Wong and as the teacher's explained he didn't speak much English and everyone was to help Sam settle in.

My brother and his friends befriended Sam and proceeded to spend the next few months using him for entertainment.

Classics include:
In the dinner queue Sam asks 'What food I should get?'
'Chips and bastard' say his friends
'Chips anna bastad' Sam tells the dinner lady
Sam is send to see his head of year.

Sam is placed in a bin and only allowed out when he can state the contents of the bin in English.
'What's in the bin Sam?'
'FUCKING RUBBISH... and a wasp'
( WormuIus, Sat 14 Jan 2012, 11:33, 6 replies)

A good friend of mine is Japanese.
When he was still in the earlier stages of speaking english we used to mess with him, only occasionally though. One day there were a couple of flies in the kitchen and when he asked, we told him they were called giraffes. Later that evening at the pub, the local shopkeeper told us about some japanese lad confusing the young girl that worked there by asking for giraffe spray, trying to explain that there were too many giraffes flying around the kitchen.
(yourmumonastickwithmintsauce, Fri 13 Jan 2012, 22:39, Reply)