Toxic Timber
I had a fellow work on my house a few years back, before the drugs took hold and they had to cart him away. The fellow brought over to my house a lot of chemical paraphernalia, including a can of a smelly, oily substance that I didn't recognize. The can was labeled 'Wood Preservative'. I had to figure out some way to discard the nausea-inducing toxic liquid.

One of home improvment projects had been to place timbers along the edge of the driveway, and I thought maybe that was a good way to use the liquid; precisely as advertised, as a wood preservative for the timbers. So, I spilled the liquid onto one timber and used a paint brush to spread it out.

Unfortunately, whatever the substance was, it wasn't the least bit tolerable. It smelled awful and stank up the neighborhood. Increasingly concerned, I dug the timber up out of the ground and quickly hid it in my yard. A minute later, the policeman who lived next door poked his head out of his house and began investigating the source the terrible stench.

I had to dispose of the timber, and quick, but how? Where can you toss big toxic stuff, fast? I laid out some rags and newspapers in my car, tossed the timber inside, and sped off.

It's amazingly difficult to dispose of large objects in an urban setting without people noticing. At least the timber wasn't anything bigger, like a human body. How do murderers get away with their crimes? Corpses are sizable. If you leave bodies about, people notice immediately!

Gasping for air, I drove to and fro, and eventually tossed the timber behind some new houses: illegal dumping at the least, and maybe some kind of environmental crime too. The liquid tainted my car's upholstery, and I had to smell the liquid for a month. My neighbor asked probing questions about odd odors in the area, and I feigned ignorance. Eventually I anonymously turned the liquid over to the authorities.
(Perv With A Dog had his eyes pecked out by scrub jays on, Mon 30 Jan 2012, 8:48, 10 replies)

Bag Bomb
We used to have BBQ's of a Monday eve at our place, generally a dozen or more of our late teen/early 20's chums would show up. The area was quite posh, but were quite not, so the neighbours weren't real fond of us to start with. We'd taken to making little rockets by filling plastic soft drink bottles with acetylene and dropping them cap end first down a drainpipe that had it's end stuck in the fire - a little "boom" and off it sailed!

Well, we thought, we can do better than this! I came up with the idea of filling a large plastic garbage bag/bin liner/"whatever the seppos call them" with acetylene and setting it off in the front yard. For a fuse we used a light fitting, inside the bag with the two poles wired together to make a spark when the power was switched on. We put the bag in the front yard, retreated to a (hopefully) safe distance and the call to power on the fuse was made.

¡BOOM! It was very fucking loud. Later, a friend lived a couple of blocks away told us her windows shook. So we waited for the police to arrive. They just drove straight to our place, didn't think of going anywhere else. I hid, Jef spun some story and they left with a "now don't do it again". Great fun :)
(Pleiades, Mon 30 Jan 2012, 7:43, Reply)

I had the police looking for me in 7 counties
I was in care for a while and, due to blahblahblah I had to stay in care until I was 18. After I turned 16 I lived in a flat with a social worker or two keeping a close eye on me.
When I was 17 I asked my social worker if I could go to Reading festival and she refused point blank. I can understand why, looking back, but at the time this was a huge injustice in my eyes.

There was a pub nearby which a) served me and b) seemed to turn a blind eye to the rather obvious drug dealers that hung out there. I wandered down there to drown my sorrows with a couple of mates and somehow ended up taking my first LSD tab. At this point it transpired that several of the guys were about to hitchhike to a free festival in Camelford, Cornwall. As this was in Paignton, Devon it wasn't too far and it seemed like an utterly amazing idea so, without going home to pack, I joined them.

On the way there, one of the blokes ran off with the tent so we arrived without a clue where we were going to sleep. I didn't even have a sleeping bag, or course. Thankfully we were introduced to a nice bloke with a bus who wasn't averse to having a load of smelly freeloading hippies dossing on his floor.
Although it was a weekend festival I stayed for about 5 days before catching a lift back to Devon on the back of a scary blokes motorcycle.

What happened at the festival is another story (I can't believe how naive yet lucky I was at that time) but when I got back to a very angry and disappointed social worker, she informed me that I'd had the police looking for me everywhere between Paignton and Reading!
(teasus likes tea, Sun 29 Jan 2012, 23:56, 2 replies)

I should have been arrested
I was a bit of a pyro as a child and liked playing with matches in a field behind some local businesses. One afternoon, after exhausting my stash of matches, I wandered off up the road a bit. After a few minutes, I heard sirens, and then watched the fire trucks scream by me, heading in the direction of I had just come. I walked back and found the local firemen putting out a small brush fire where I had just been "playing". I overheard one of the bystanders say "It's a lucky thing some one spotted the fire before it got to the tanks". It was at that moment that I realized that those big, hulking things were gasoline (petrol) storage tanks, and that I had been lighting fires behind one of our local fuel and heating oil companies. At that moment, one of the firemen approached me and asked if I knew anything about the fire or who may have set it. Trying desperately not to burst into tears and praying I didn't look guilty, I stammered I thought I saw an older boy run away from the field just before the trucks arrived. He just looked at me and said "Ok, thanks". I never set another fire and for years couldn't hear a siren without jumping.
(auntienursey, Sun 29 Jan 2012, 23:15, 3 replies)

You get to a point when you realise
that you've used up all your luck.

I've always been law-abiding, except when it comes to drugs. I have the attitude that our drugs laws are complete balls, an outlook that seems increasingly to be shared by people who know what they are talking about - which is why the government then sacks them from being policy advisers. Hey ho, we have a PM and a Merkin President who've both taken coke. But drugs are still bad. So it goes.

Anyway, my main drug has been / is cannabis. I've taken it across numerous borders, and somehow never got busted. Highlights include the large block of the best resin I've ever had, which came back with me from Nepal via the UAE - United Arab Emirates, which a couple of years after I took the resin through sentenced some poor bastard to 4 years inside for a 0.003g spec of cannabis that was stuck to his shoe. I must also be one of the few people to bring cannabis into the Caribbean. Then there are the numerous times I've come back from Amsterdam with baggies of different types of weed.

I've never been busted despite having been smoking for 26 years now. I refuse to be hypocritical and hide what I do; I see no reason why I should. So, I should have been arrested on many occasions, I guess I'm lucky that I haven't been; one day I hope that the stupid laws which ban a natural product that has never killed anyone will be repealed - but I'm not holding my breath on that one.
(TheImmortalJenkins, Sun 29 Jan 2012, 18:13, 10 replies)

I was going to buy my own suit
for my school formal. But my friend promised me he could get me one for free, through his uncle who worked at a market.

This suit...Jesus. It looked like it'd been made out of a sofa. And not a new one either.

I should have been 'arris tweed.
(apeloverage committed the vile act of onanism on, Sun 29 Jan 2012, 11:59, Reply)

my friend said goodbye and climbed out the window, onto the roof.
I wouldn't have minded,
but I was doing 60 down a dual carriageway at the time.
( nightbuffalo needs more duct tape, Sun 29 Jan 2012, 4:08, Reply)

Hashing it out
I went off the rails a little in my late 'teens, and spent a lot of time hanging out with a friend of mine who owned a clapped-out 1972 Vauxhall Viva with a Union Flag painted on the bonnet. (The car in question will shortly become germane to events, trust me.)

It was 2am or thereabouts, and he and I plus another friend had been parked up in the middle of Epping Forest partaking of some hastily acquired illegal substances in resinous form. To wit, a quarter ounce of hash. Having made the decision to head home - probably because none of us could remember our names by this point, although I do remember reading the back of a bag of Wotsits and giggling - we drove out of the car park, at which point the car's exhaust fell off. Simply fell off. When we put the car in reverse, it was right there in the headlights.

The obvious solution, formed in a haze of fragrant smoke, was to reattach it by the simple expedient of lashing it beneath the car with a length of rope which was then knotted over the back seat. We then drove off again.

Only problem? The rope in question was elastic rope, which meant that shortly after this, as we were travelling at some speed along a back road in rural Essex, the exhaust sagged and started to drag along the road producing a 15 foot trail of sparks like the fucking Batmobile. This sight must have stunned the two police officers we passed, although not to the extent that they failed to pull us over at once.

I was, as previously mentioned, stoned off my tit, although not so much that it prevented panic from sobering me up quite quickly, all things considered. Bear in mind that we still had the best part of a quarter ounce of hash in the car, and visions of slopping out at Holloway Prison were flitting through my mind. To this day, I'm still not sure what led me to accept my friends' prompting to shove it down my bra, but that is exactly what I did. The officers eventually declined to ticket us or search the car, for which I (and my still criminal conviction-free history) are eternally grateful.
(Leda74, Sun 29 Jan 2012, 3:50, 2 replies)

Caught fucking (2)
This was originally only a reply, but I've been persuaded to open it up to a wider audience in a desperate attempt to seek some community approval, in direct contravention to my sigline.

---

Age 17: young, horny and with my own car. We took her off to a quiet layby, flipped the back seats down and proceeded to get down with it. Having successfully done the jiggy in the back of an Austin Metro (no mean feat in itself), Emma proceeds to wander off to have a wee in the bushes. No sooner does she squat down hidden behind a tree, then the police pull up next to me and shine their torches through the windows to find me lying on the back-seat, tackle still semi-proud, apparently enjoying a good solo session. Trying to contain her mirth and urine, my loving lady simply stayed crouched down out of view while I tried to explain to the police that I wasn't in fact enjoying a lonely roadside wank. And then she laughed at me for about 3 months afterwards.
( ousgg is not seeking approval, Sat 28 Jan 2012, 19:26, 7 replies)

Halloween 2011
I was at a conference in San Francisco, bar hopping with fellow attendees, when the German guy gets out a pipe and starts packing it with weed. We decide this is an excellent idea and take it in turns having (admittedly small) bowls as we are wandering to the next bar. While distracted by the weed we cross the road at a clear point, not realising it was clear because of the two phalanxes of coppers 15 metres to our sides. They rush over and start shouting at us, asking what the fuck we were thinking.

Hm.

I turn to the German, the only way out of this is to go for ignorance: I ask "Was ists?" and he dials his accent up to the max and says "Vat iss wrong, vat vere ve doing, officer?"

"You can't cross here, you need to go to the corner and wait for the light!"
( Ungersven would support SpankyHanky's patreon, Sat 28 Jan 2012, 14:50, 2 replies)

R. Jimlad and the Dangerously Inept and Eerily Decrepit Speedsters.
Get yourself a cuppa, it's a long 'un.

I attended a Speed Awareness course today. For those not familiar with the concept; when you get caught speeding by “a little bit”, you get the offer to attend one of these courses rather than pay a £60 fine and get three points on your licence. The course itself costs £85. So you’re basically paying an EXTRA £25 to avoid the points. You also have to sacrifice four hours to attend said course.

Until I was going on one I didn’t know anything about them. Until I mentioned I was going on one, I didn’t know anyone who’d been on one. But as soon as I did mention it people started emerging, blinking from the shadows saying they’d been on one too. As though the mention had jogged a memory of something they’d tried to blank out. Reports were mixed. Some felt patronised or that they’d had their time wasted. Others lauded them, praising content and delivery. So, to clear up for those still ponderous; here’s the full exposé.

You’re told to turn up 15 minutes beforehand or face possible forfeiture of the course. Not attending (or failing to complete) the course leaves the police with two options. By accepting the course you’ve rescinded the offer of a fixed penalty notice; that deal’s no longer on the table amigo. It’s re-booking the course or standing in front of a magistrate – and it’s not your decision which. It’s the cops’. It’s no surprise, then, that everyone’s there on time. What *is* surprising is the people on these courses. I was expecting boy racers and white-van men. What I got was Dad’s Army. I was the youngest. By some distance. The closest in age to me was a woman I’d put at about 50. More on her later.

So there are 24 of us sat around in the reception area of the Holiday Inn waiting for the course to start. Everyone’s chatting away in the way the elderly do – y’know, everything’s gone to shit and things were much better when we had the Germans bombing us. Me, I’m in a corner buried in my phone. I am not being part of Walmington-On-Sea’s finest till I absolutely have to. I’ve already made the decision to sit at the back, keep my head down and just hope I don’t get asked a question.

At 2pm on the dot a rotund camp man who introduces himself as Graham ushers us into a conference room. Graham could also be part of the home guard. The seating arrangements are dismaying. There will be no ‘hiding at the back’. The chairs are assembled in a ‘U’shape with a white board and projector screen at the open end. Great. After introducing himself and running through the health and safety rigmarole Graham (who has that annoying “I’m not your instructor, I’m your pal!” demeanour) lays out the course content and makes it absolutely clear we have to stay till the very end to complete the course. And that the very end will be at least four hours away.

He then gets us to introduce ourselves one by one. “Hello, I’m Mark. I drive a 2008 Fiat Punto, mainly for social and commuting use, I do about 8000 miles a year and was caught doing 38mph in a 30 zone. The reason I’m here today is that I didn’t want 3 points on my licence.” Now, everyone else in the group had given a clearly made-up reason. “I’m here to learn”; “I’m here to improve myself”. I was the only one being honest.

Graham didn’t like this.

“Oh my! Mark!” He makes an exaggerated head-shaking gesture. Then, trying to chivvy me along, “That’s not the attitude is it Marky? Do you mind me calling you Marky?”

(Cute girls can call me Marky. Friends can call me Marky. Relatives too. But not fat camp men in their 50’s that I’ve only just met.)

“I’d prefer Mark.”

He pulls an exaggerated sad face. “We’ll soon get you on the right track.”

Graham is not my pal. Graham is a dick.

The only other person of note, at this stage at least, is the lady I mentioned earlier. It turns out her name is Posh Elaine and she’s from Underhill. Or as she pronounced it Unnndahhh-hiiil. Like she was Michael Bolton serenading a lady. She got caught speeding in a courtesy car after her Mercedes convertible was crushed by a falling tree. Whilst parked outside her daughter’s ballet school. Four days after she bought it. You’ve got to laugh, haven’t you?

And so we begin. And it’s pretty much what I expected. Long, drawn-out examples of why speeding’s bad, the damage it can cause, what causes people to speed and what can be done to prevent it. After about an hour Graham announces we’re going to watch a short video. A man to my right (Arthur) immediately puts his hand up. “Can I sit nearer the front please? My eyes aren’t what they were”. “Mine neither” another adds (Ted).

Graham gazes around looking for volunteers to move. No-one is. A lady, whose name I didn’t catch, is also saying she won’t be able to see if she’s not at the front. Before I know it the three of them are stood up and having a competition to see who has the worst eyesight by gradually walking to the front and saying “Nope, here’s no good”, “Closer still I think”.

I seem to be the only one thinking “HOW ARE THESE PEOPLE ALLOWED TO DRIVE!?” I am RP McMurphy and the cuckoos have taken over the nest.

After much rearrangement of chairs the video finally starts. Graham urging us to note down any potential hazards as a car-mounted camera makes its way around town. “Remember, any thing that could distract you is a potential hazard.” are his last words before the projector kicks into life.

Once done, he asks me what I’d observed. “Uh, residential area so possibly kids or other pedestrians around. Road was wet. Oncoming traffic. Cars parked at the side of the road could be hiding junctions.”

“Excellent Marky!” (Graham really is a dick) “Anyone else?”

“Animals”, pipes up a man who’s been silent till now.

“Yes. Good! Like cats and dogs running out you mean?”

“Well no, I meant from the trees you can see. Squirrels and that.”

“Oh don’t mention trees dear, we’ve got far too bloody many in Underhill (Unnndahhh-hiiil)”

Everyone laughs. Save for me. I want to die.


“Ok, here’s one for you then”, Graham addresses the group, “Do you get to where you’re going to more quickly if you drive faster? Hmm?”

Silence. It’s like he’d asked them to remember whether they’d left the oven on.

I can’t stand awkward silences.

“Well, yeah. Of course you do.”

“WRONG!”

“Uhhhh. What? How?”

“Well what makes you think you’d get there quicker? Hmm?”

“The laws of Physics, basically.”

“Ah, Marky. But do the laws of Physics allow for roundabouts? Stopping at traffic lights or dense urban gridlock?”

At this point I just want to punch him. Or myself. Just so I don’t have to listen anymore.

And so it goes on. One man putting on a show, twenty three being hypnotised and me, wanting to chew my own face off.

Other highlights:

“What are some of the signs that we’re driving to fast?”
“My wife normally shouts at me” (completely deadpan and bereft of humour – I nearly pissed myself)

“What causes the most accidents?”

(Ted) “The bloody government!”

“....Ummm. Ok. How?”

“I once fitted out a fleet of cars for the police and was going to make them four-star (petrol) runnable. But the government said they had to be two-star so they’d be cheaper. But two-star petrol ignites and burns at a much lower temperature than four-star. Firebombs on wheels I tell you.”

“Right. When was this, Ted?”

“1969.”

Finally, we’re all handed a different picture depicting a road-scene and given 5 minutes to identify all potential hazards and highlight the most dangerous. It’s 5.55pm and I’ve been here precisely 3 hours 55 minutes longer than I’d ever want to be again. When it’s your turn, you’re picture is projected on to the screen for all to see while you run through the hazards.

I’m last.

“Right, well. Woman walking her dog on the pavement could lose control at any point. Blind corner up ahead and the sun is very low in the sky so visibility is reduced. Parked cars also blocking vision on the left.”

“Good! Biggest hazard?”

“Well Graham, the frost on the car windows and lack of leaves on the trees suggest it’s wintry. And with it being wintry it could also be quite blustery”

“...Right....”

“So if it’s blustery, whoever it is who’s parked their car alongside those frail looking trees is just asking for them to fall down”

He managed a chuckle, but I know he hates me. As does Posh Elaine from Unnndahhh-hiiil.

As a course, it’s torture. As a deterrent to speeding... Well I never want to go through that again.
(R. Jimlad twitter.com/sirmarkymark, Sat 28 Jan 2012, 14:24, 21 replies)

Epic tale of a Czech boy
Growing up I lived in a tough neighbourhood. Like really fucking tough. I didn’t know anyone who didn’t carry a knife. Or anyone that wasn’t in a gang. People think gangs are a lifestyle choice - they are not. You just get swept up and carried along. Sometimes fantasy and real life blurred at the edges. But this was the cold reality of my existence and there was no escape from it. I looked up at the same sky as everyone else but we were shit poor. I didn't ask anything of anyone. I learned quickly to accept the ebb and flow of things. Some of the times we had were great others were the lowest points of my young life. I learned to just go with it, whatever happened – to be honest I didn’t give a fuck about anyone or anything.

Until that is, the day I had to break it to my mother I had committed murder. She couldn’t accept it, simply refused to believe it. The worst part was when she demanded to know how I had killed the poor bloke. Having to tell my own mother I had shot another young man at point blank range is still to this day indescribable. He died instantly of massive head wounds. Pulling the trigger was simple, but I hadn’t any idea of the consequences. She was distraught. She told me I had thrown my entire life away. I have never seen anyone cry with such gut-wrenching pain. I didn’t want this for her. I didn't mean to make this happen. I did to do the only thing I could. I ran. The following day i was gone but my mother had to try and pretend she knew nothing of this terrible thing and continue life as normal.

But all too soon the game was up. By the time i was caught i was in a terrible state, I was petrified and every part of my body ached. I waved goodbye to my life, my mother, I didn't want it all to be over but frankly by this time I wished I’d never even been fucking born.

In court I looked at the judge, a little thin wisp of a man. He was a joke, a fucking buffoon. We danced around the whole stupid legal process. Being in remand was terrifying. The first night in prison there was a huge storm, thunder scares me but the banging of doors and the clatter of hundreds of other men terrified me. All at once my place in the gang – the security of it meant nothing. I was just another dirt poor fucker trapped in a hole. My family was skint, there would be no fancy lawyers to come save me from the inevitability of the situation. But my attitude was still – who gives a fuck?

Clearly there was no way out of this one, but then, on a technicality I got off. Reluctantly they let me go, well got off for now that is - if there is a Hell then there is surely a place set aside for me.

You can think what you like of me. Some people call me scum others just turned their backs on me. But when it comes down to it I have realised in this life that if you look closely enough, nothing really matters, anyone can see. Nothing really matters to me.
( spimf ™ is whoever you want him to be, Sat 28 Jan 2012, 10:17, 13 replies)

Driving under the influence
The female population of Blackwater in the early 1970s was either married or under 16. Gordon and I came in from the mining camp for a few beers one Saturday night and we met up with Devlin P. At the pub Devlin hooked up with a woman who was travelling through and was just about the only single female there. Somebody told us there was a party on after pub time so we loaded into my car, think Vauxhall Viva with Gordon in the front and Devlin and the woman in the back.

So we drove around looking for the party and could not find it. After a while I noticed that we were being followed by Johnny McM in his Ford. He had a passenger.

I pulled up on the main street near the railway station, to ask why. Gordon hopped out as well to interview the passenger, who started claiming he had some right to the woman. Gordon disagreed, he was a ginger with a fairly short fuse. Johnny's passenger opened the glove box of the Ford to show he had a pistol there.

Gordon said later "Better a live coward than a dead hero."

Just then the police arrived. They went straight for Johnny's passenger. I was expecting to get breathalysed but they told us to piss off.

Which we did.

The following Monday Johnny McM was back at work, but we never saw the passenger again.
(Redemption blamed it on the Bossa Nova since, Sat 28 Jan 2012, 6:32, 1 reply)

Um...got caught fucking this girl behind a nightclub once
Was hidden behind a bush while I was filling her bush, just off a small road behind the club where we met. During mid-sausage-slurping and while my ass was happy bouncing away, my partner in crime suddenly noticed that my derriere had become illuminated in light, not akin to the moon that she could also see in the field of view. I stop, glance about and realize that a police car had pulled up at the other side of the bush and was shining his torch in onto my sweaty Death Star.
As I was slightly pissed, I burst out laughing and shouted "Oh fuck off please?"
The copper, obviously stunned by my turn of phrase and current 100 metre "in-the-blocks" starting position simply said "Oh....sorry", turned his torch off and drove off to leave us to it.
I laughed so much my cock went limp. She wasn't happy.
( Jeccius Steam Borderlands 2 junkie, Sat 28 Jan 2012, 1:04, 5 replies)

"We must buy a shirt"
October 13th 2011, 3.45am.

I'd been drinking with some friends in halls when it two things suddenly occurred to me. The first was that it was the morning of international suit up day, and the second was that while I owned a jacket and trousers, I didn't have a suitable shirt. With three quarters of a bottle of whisky swooshing around my system, I decided that I had to get one. Right that very second.

Being in Edinburgh and only a few miles away from a 24 hour Asda (complete with clothing department), this would not present a problem. If I could get to Asda. I was obviously far too far gone to drive, and the night buses would have stopped running by the time I wanted to come back. I was not in any state to walk a long distance.

That left the bikes. I say bikes, because my friend W also thought this was a great idea. We set off down Calder road, weaving our way around non-existent obstacles and giggling like the drunken fools we were. Somehow we managed to get to Asda without falling off or cycling into anything. My memory then goes blank until we've left again, and I decide that we should cycle back along the union canal towpath. Less traffic, but a much thinner path. By a canal. Safer? Maybe. I forgot, however, about the bridge supports and how they (in some places) stick out slightly into the path. I was reminded of this fact when I rode smack bang into one, taking almost all the force through my right hand and landing heavily on my left hand. After lying there for a few moments, W helped me up and we continued home. I don't remember getting home.

I woke up the next day at 2pm, unable to move either of my thumbs. Where does being arrested come into this? I was informed later by W that we had not, in fact, left Asda voluntarily* and had got out just as a couple of policemen strolled in. I also remembered that in order to get to Asda the way we did, we would have had to cycle right past Dumbryden police station - a large and active institution, staffed by people with a distinct sense-of-humour deficiency. Then we would have cycled right past it again on the way back, obviously barely capable of walking, let alone cycling. I still don't know how we didn't get pinched at some point.

Opening the bag I took with me, I found a bottle of coke, a (now very flat) box of muffins and a can of energy drink, but no shirt. Arse.



*W tells me this was because we a) had a fifteen minute, shouted argument over what sort of biscuits he should buy and b) because when we had settled that question, we spent a further ten minutes running up and down the toy isle, setting off every single noisy item we could.
( MatJ LOOK, Sat 28 Jan 2012, 0:30, 1 reply)

Through a series of events which resulted in me
being reincarnated as the person I am today, I missed out on my preferred path of being both the 49th and 53rd president of the republic of Haiti.

And that's how I should have been Aristide.
( Infidel , shit and wrong, Sat 28 Jan 2012, 0:24, Reply)

oh fuck it, have a rickroll


obviously not a rickroll, this is a video of me getting arrested, made the local news cos of the comedy falling over....n.b. is actually a rickroll
(baby ray pissed is an alien or sutin, Fri 27 Jan 2012, 23:15, 3 replies)

An idiot abroad.
Back in '87 or '88, I forget which, while on hols, I illegally crossed the border from Senegal to Mauritania in a clapped out, windowless minibus full of stoned Senegalese musicians.
I think the original intention was to visit some warrior's graves and have a bit of a picnic and do some drumming on a 200 mile long beach before heading back to St.Louis, a large town near the border.
The journey took hours and hours and bloody hours. The driver had asked me earlier if I had a passport of any other form of identity with me; I didn't, I didn't think I'd need them as I had no idea we were about to wander into the kind of place the foreign office advises against visiting and I definitely hadn't expected to cross an international border.
When I told him I had nothing with me he glanced at the other guys and shrugged. "We'll take the bush route then, wouldn't want to get caught with this Tubab (foreigner) would we?"
There was general agreement that, nope- being caught with this Tubab wouldn't go at all well with the authorities.
I asked why but they just laughed it off and told me to chill and everything will be cool though maybe the cops would think I'd been kidnapped or something equally hilarious.It meant that we had to cross a river or two but this didn't seem to faze this driver who had eyes as red as the sunset from puffing on the local weed.

This had me wondering for a moment, had I been kidnapped? I mean, I'd had a drink and a smoke or two with these guys and met up with them a few times, they seemed alright. Perhaps they were about to rob me and cut me up for fishing bait; you hear these stories.

As it turned out, the trip was fun and mostly without incident, the one exception; this shitheap minibus being flagged down by a gun carrying guy in army gear just back inside the border. Soldier? Opportunist bandit? I didn't know. He saw my white face and began to question the driver; who was really stoned off his face. The driver giggled nervously and explained that "oh no, we hadn't been anywhere really, definitely not been across any border and that this tubab was a famous visiting recording artist from the United states of Europe" ; clearly bullshit.
The soldier glared at me and asked to see my travel documents, in French. My French is fairly crap but I understood exactly what he wanted. I answered that I didn't understand him and shrugged.
Staring into my eyes he very slowly and with much menace said something in a local dialect, I grinned like an idiot praying he wasn't planning to drag me away. The driver replied and the soldier glanced at the driver, cracked up laughing then waved us on as we all fell about laughing. Joining in the merriment, I had no idea why.

Apparently he asked me ,to my face, something like "Are you as stupid as a newborn goat?" (or whatever passes for an insult in those parts) A question which the driver was happy to report that "yes, in fact he's so stupid we had to show him how to wipe his arse" or another witty quip. It was obvious that he was testing me for a reaction, to see if I understood what he said.

I'd just been into a country in the middle of a serious diplomatic incident in which Senegal had been implicated in a coup. In Mauritania they were executing people and I'd just turned up there, in its trouble stewn Southern district with no papers and no excuse.

tldr? I'm a fucking idiot.
( Infidel , shit and wrong, Fri 27 Jan 2012, 22:41, Reply)

All dem murders what I done
-and my bad grammar. Oooh call the spelling police!
(Nitrous Nitrous, Fri 27 Jan 2012, 22:08, 1 reply)

Don't be seen in camo gear and carrying a gun near to a Royal country house when the Royals are at home.
Camo can acquire an extra shade of brown when the Pork Chopper arrives with a gun toting marksman hanging out the side and the loudhailer bellowing at you to "get on the fucking ground".

Those pigeons had a lucky escape that day.

The cops had a good old laugh about it, eventually.
( Infidel , shit and wrong, Fri 27 Jan 2012, 22:03, Reply)

Many moons ago
Fourteen years old, and I was interested in sex, drugs, and rock and roll. Unfortunately the ladies were far too frigid back then so it was mainly drugs and rock and roll. Most weekends me and my mate Dan would go to our friend Stu's house. It was a village the next stop on the train, about 5 miles away, but it could have been Royston Vasey. Stu's house backed onto a small stream which led to a river. Also his bedroom was on the ground floor with patio doors; giving us the perfect opportunity to say the pleasantries, and then hide ourselves away in his room, smoke copious amounts of weed and squidgy black, and listen to Kyuss. The best part was when we watched 'Stars In Their Eyes' on mute so it looked like Dolly Parton was singing 'Gardenia'. In retrospect there's no way his parents didn't know what we were up to, but hey ho.

For several weeks running during summer, Dan had pointed out to me a field about halfway between the two train stops, swearing it was a big field of weed. Each week I looked, and lo and behold I began to believe him. The next week we walked and met Stu half way there, until we reached what would have been about 6-8 tennis court's worth of weed. You know that scene in The Beach where they're running through it full of joy? For a brief time we had that moment too. Jump forward two hours, and we'd arrived back with binbags in the pockets of our cargo trousers to seize as much as we could, hide it in the nearby woods, and then smoke the lot.

Another hour and we were all carrying a black sack fulled to the brim down the main road leading toward Stu's village (glad the Five-0 didn't turn up at that point), up the hill and into the woods. Another hour and we'd realised that a)it was pretty damp and b) it was hemp; so we proceeded to get as mashed as we could on what we already had beforehand. Soon there were five spliffs being shared between the three of us, and then the heavens opened, soaking everything in a matter of minutes.

Dan then wondered what would happen if he threw a stick up at the pylon that was running through the woods.
"I wouldn't do that dude", was pretty much what I said.

He went for it anyway. First throw: nothing. Second throw: nothing. The third time, the wet stick must have hit two of the cables. What followed can only be described as the loudest thunderous noise I've ever heard, coupled with a huge bolt of electricity running half a mile up the hill, as far as the eye could see. A split second later, the wet stick fell back down to Earth in pieces, and on fire. We did the obvious thing and ran as far as we could.

Nearing the bottom of the hill, we came across a dead squirrel which had fallen out of a tree, eyes half closed and in rigamortis with its paws near its mouth. Putting a spliff end between its paws was possibly the funniest thing I've ever seen.

Anyway, as we get back onto the main road, we go into the (only) village shop to buy some more skins and general munch, to find it much darker than usual.

"There's been a bloody power cut" the shopkeeper said.
"Really?" was all we could come out with.

It turned out that basically the whole village was without power for 48 hours, except a handful of houses that were south of the railway - one of them fortunately being Stu's house.

Length? About 3 square miles. Sorry. I normally only write about two sentences.
( Turquoise Hexagon Sun has just dropped acid on, Fri 27 Jan 2012, 21:02, 2 replies)

Did ever mention that I drove a land Rover all the way around Africa? Well technically that’s a lie – rather than get fleeced by the Egyptian vehicle import charges I figured out a route from Suakin on the Sudanese coast that would take me across to Riyadh in Saudi Arabia. Once the transit visa was sorted out it was just a matter of the solo drive from Khartoum along Kitchener’s railway line (literally for some stretches) to the coast. It was an amazing crossing – I managed to get to the coast in a hard day’s driving from Atbara, and then spent a few hours faffing over the tickets for the ferry.

By this time I’d been in Africa for a year and a half and was used to African ways. I was expecting some rusting hulk, so the ferry came as a bit of a surprise; a modern looking behemoth that still had posters up from its recent service in the Scottish isles. I drove into a cavernous hold that was pretty much empty, and then went topside to watch the coral-built ruins of Old Suakin slip into the sunset.

On arrival I suddenly found myself in the first world again. In case you haven’t figured it out they call the third world the third world because of the gaping chasm between it and the first world, so there I am waiting for uniformed officials to arrange the offloading of my Landy in a smart ferry terminal, when I start thinking about my bottle of whisky.

This bottle had travelled up with me from Kenya, a good single malt about two thirds gone, and I hadn’t really thought about it for a while because, for a ‘dry’ country, Sudan proved to include quite a few good watering holes along the way (the best was the splendidly hospitable British High Commission) so I hadn’t needed to fall back on reserves. Once in the desert I realised that I’d mislaid the bottle – it had probably slipped behind the dead fridge, but looking for it was going to raise huge clouds of dust, so I let it be.

Fast forward an hour and now I’m in a Saudi customs shed where they are going over my paperwork prior to checking out the vehicle. I still wasn’t too fussed – if they found it I decided I’d offer to pour it down the drain or gift it, claiming (as was the case) that I’d lost it ages ago, and showing the dust that covered everything in the car as evidence. A genuine mistake which I was sure the friendly officials in pristine starched white dishdashes would accept. In the event I needn’t have worried – the search was perfunctory, and the bottle remained lost until I decided to share it with a friendly Syrian border guard a few weeks later.

I recently told this story to a friend who had worked with the Saudi military, and he shook his head. “Fifty lashes and a year in prison minimum, idiot”. Fuck knows what I’d have got for the cruise missile engine I was smuggling home in my top box.




Length? 18 months and 70,000km
(strongp, Fri 27 Jan 2012, 21:01, 16 replies)

cab theft bus chase
Friends of mine, very drunk in the rot-hole that is Camden, spotted a black cab, no driver and with the keys in. They stole it, reasoning it the best way to get back to South London. Being pissed, the main miscreant swerved into a few parked cars. As the cab of inebriation continued to pile down the road, the driver of a double decker bus, laden with passengers, gave chase. The idiots in the cab eventually shook the bus and ducked down a side road, stopped, legged it and hid. When they crept out of their hiding place they soon realised they'd driven north and had wound up in Hornsey and two hours had elapsed. Fools.
(ndeezy, Fri 27 Jan 2012, 21:00, Reply)

Hyde Park
1997. Three studes out on a conference trip in dat dere lundon all the way from Huddersfield. Got puggled and foolishly handed the map back to our hotel to the token frenchman. Got seriously lost and in our inebriated state we thought it would be really cool to moon all the traffic as it passed. We were stood on a low wall beside a massive roundabout or one-way thing at Hyde Park Corner. Much hilarity ensued until a police van passed us. Copper winds his window down and lets us know that he's got plenty of space in the back of the van.

As two of us deliberated over whether this was a threat or an offer, the token frenchman in the trio decides to ramp proceedings up a little by shouting 'fuck you pig!'.

Massive laughs were quickly punctuated by the sound of a slamming door. Copper made chase and it quickly became apparent that he was working towards a desk job via dunking donuts. We made our escape but the walk home was made in the shadows to avoid the rest of the fuzz.

And the map was repatriated in to the possession of yours truly.

Got back by 4:30 and had one hour of sleep as we needed to move the hire car to an NCP. I drew the short straw and I had to drive the thing for 400 metres with enough booze in my system to mollify a cuckolded bull rhinocerus.
(mersault, Fri 27 Jan 2012, 20:37, Reply)

Noisy shits on 2-stroke scooters
in a small Italian town, night and day, whistling at da laydees, tootling their horns and ring-de-dingding-dinging around the town square in clouds of blue smoke, wouldn't let me get any shut-eye.
I finally slumped into a coma as dawn broke , didn't hear my alarm clock and missed the interview.

I shoulda been arrested but I never gotta no sleep.
( Infidel , shit and wrong, Fri 27 Jan 2012, 18:00, 1 reply)

I'm still out aren't I?
DNA my arse.
(robneymcplum spiced up his life on, Fri 27 Jan 2012, 16:26, 4 replies)

Not me but
The brother of a woman I used to work with lived in a little Scottish town, where the only citizen of note was George Robertson - one time Labour defence secretary, recently (in those days) promoted to be head of NATO, Secretary General, I think.

Anyway, said little brother, and his mates were mucking about with fireworks one November evening, and they fired a fairly powerful rocket towards a phone box, and managed to hit it.

As luck would have it, this phone box was right outside George Robertson's house, and when it 'was blown up', it almost started a full-blown, Special Branch terrorist alert.

Brother and mates were lucky not to be shipped off to Guantanamo Bay by way of an aircraft hanger in Eygpt.
(Che Grimsdale Best before:, Fri 27 Jan 2012, 16:17, 1 reply)

Taxi for the bloke with the large pupils!
One night up on the downs*, a free party was rudely halted by the boys in blue. So there were a couple of hundred wasted techno-hippies stumbling around and trying to work out how to get back into town.

My mate, famous throughout the land for poor decision-making skills and woeful lack of forethought, noticed a cop car preparing to leave, and blatantly attempted to cadge a lift back into town. Not surprisingly, they were less than helpful -- some might say downright rude.

Wavy lines to Monday morning, and our hero is wandering blurrily through a working day. Now it so happens that on this day he has to have a meeting which requires the presence of a representative from the police force.

You'll probably not be surprised to be told that the Police Officer who walks into the room was the same one who declined the offer to be a taxi driver, in the wee small hours of the day before...




* Note for mystified non-brits: "downs" are hills. No, I don't understand it either.
(moon monkey is busy making memories worth repressing, Fri 27 Jan 2012, 15:23, 3 replies)

Sunroof and bogroll
When i was a young lad of 12ish i stayed at a mates house regularly cos our mums were mates and got pissed a lot.
We used to get up to lots of mischief whilst they were getting smashed. It was great.

My first story of mischief (i'll try and unload them all if time permits) concerned a car which was parked outside his house. An ancient Fiat 128? i think. Like a little bubble car it was. Had a little sunroof and to us, because it was always there, looked like it'd been abandoned.

So we decided it'd be an idea to wet little bits of bogroll and throw them at the car from his mums bedroom balcony. It looked like massive bird shits. Brilliant to our minds. Genius in fact. We cried tears of laughter.

We did it on another night, and another, and the car got so peppered we decided it needed a wash. So we filled a balloon with water to lob onto the car. One of those long balloons.

So over it went, splash. Straight through the sunroof. We nearly fucking died of laughter, this time mixed with fear as we'd now damaged the car.

So on another night (this is all over maybe 2 weeks or so) soon after we thought it might be wise to do more bogroll. Cover the inside in makeshift birdshit splatters. More hilarity.

Then the inevitable knock on the door came. The police. Shit.
His mum answered and we were really terrified. Criminal damage etc. ooer.

So we blamed his little brother. He was a little cunt and deserved it.
The Police did nothing once they learned a 7 year old had done it.

More hilarity. Win win.
(beebolbod for those that are hard of hearing - LISTEN, Fri 27 Jan 2012, 15:16, 4 replies)

Staggeringly drunk on toxic homebrew
Some friends and I staggered into town on a Friday evening. We were young, still living with our parents, and the plan was to stagger as far away from my friends house before the homebrew rendered us even more completely stupid than we already were.

After we made it into town, taking drunken delight in all manner of foolish activities (attempting to climb trees, attempting to jump over benches and so on), one of us decided to set fire to a rubbish bin.

Thankfully, due to complete lack of concentration and coordination, this didn't work out, and so we carried on our merry way.

Having got a good half mile from the poorly attempted arson, we were all surprised at the portable disco that screeched to a halt near us, and less amused when a couple of cops got out and headed our way. "Right then lads", one of them sighed, "what are you up to?". Mumbling didn't work, and he just shook his head and said "Look, three lads fitting your descriptions were seen attempting to set fire to a bin, and then wandering off. Was it you?". A mumbled "yes officer", and a nod of the head. "Right then you, what's your name?" he said, looking at me. Gave him my name, and my unfortunately unusual surname. "Say, you don't have a relative living at this address" he replied, rattling off my grandmother's address. "Erm yes" I mumbled. Turns out he was an old next door neighbour of my grandma, and recognising my name, right assumed we were related.

"She wouldn't be very happy if she saw the state you were in right now, would she?" he remarked. "If I was to tell her about this, how do you think she'd feel, eh?". My, formidable grandmother, would do doubt be hearbroken at her criminal grandsons antics. "Look" he said, "On your way, and we'll say no more about it, but I catch you again, you're for it".

I don't know if you can be arrested for being a drunken twat, unsuccessfully attempting to set fire to a bin, and learning my lesson, I may never know. Thanks random copper, for not grassing me up to my grandma.
( LemonEntryMyDearWatson This time, Moriarty, the hand is on the other foot, Fri 27 Jan 2012, 15:07, 2 replies)