auntie nellie
my great aunt nellie used to have a brown terrierish looking dog, that she called ni**er purely on account of his colouring. Everytime we went round on sundays for tea she could be seen standing on the doorstep shouting till she was blue in the face " oy ni**er, come in and get you tea". God knows what the neighbours thought...
(spaceshrew, Fri 12 Mar 2004, 12:37, Reply)

My Gran
Now long since passed on thought that electricity poured out of a socket if you turned the switch on with nothing plugged into it.

My other gran, lived to be 94, had all her marbles, was very together. She used to have a keen interest in all the goings on of her grad kids. Whenever we had an important thing coming up (job interview, exams etc) she would 'put a pin in the sofa' for us. This was some old folklore from her parents who were Lithuanian/jewish immigrants. Anyway, it worked, and now that she's gone, I've got to stick my own pins in the sofa!!
(Che Grimsdale Best before:, Fri 12 Mar 2004, 12:27, Reply)

A
truly ancient female friend of the family used to join us for Xmas dinner every year, until what we have come to know as 'THE INCIDENT'.

It was obvious she was going off the rails quite early in the day, when she explained to my mum that she didn't want any turkey because her hairdresser had, earlier in the week, attempted to kill her by means of some unduly agitated brushing. She had since spoken to a doctor, she continued, who had explained that this vicious attack had given her water on the brain and, as a result, she should never eat poultry ever again. Obviously.

So we indulged her, but she got more and more peculiar as the day wore on. Things reached a peak, I feel, at about the point where she explained that the RAF were carrying out some form of black magic rituals in her garden, as proved by the small group of minuscule people, about six inches high, who had taken up residence on her windowsill.

By this stage she had clearly had one sherry too many - one sherry, in this case - as her next action, as we sat staring at each other and our shoes in a slightly awkward manner, was to shit herself and then panic quite badly. And let me tell you, there can't be much that puts more of a damper on your christmas evening than a demented and severely agitated old person shambling around the living room caked in shit.
(Wong Fei-Hung - now with added flickr.com (see profile), Fri 12 Mar 2004, 12:19, Reply)

My nan
told us of this wonderful talk she went to about an expedition around the Cape of Good Horn.

She was also glad when the Romanians had a revolution and shot Tchaikovsky.
( crouchingbadger, Fri 12 Mar 2004, 12:17, Reply)

My Granny the bigot
A mate of mine recently went through something of a punk-goth phase and wore a luminous pink fishnet shirt thing to church once, on the way back home Granny begins to comment on andy's strange attire these days, she leans toward me conspiratorially and in a stage whisper the whole street can hear, she utters,

"Is he a Queer?"

old people eh?
( spikedirection no frills, no skills., Fri 12 Mar 2004, 12:13, Reply)

My mate's granny
wanted to buy a de-humaniser to get rid of the compensation on the windows.
(Freakmandu, Fri 12 Mar 2004, 12:12, Reply)

Hmmm.
Can I just point out that when we're all barking octagenarians, there will probably be some 733t-speaking website with a forum for posting all the wierd shit we come out with :-D

See you all in 60 years time ;-)
(minister of heresy, Fri 12 Mar 2004, 11:55, Reply)

funny but sad
my mates mother got a tumour on the brain which made her see things, (a dog on the bed, a swan) she later had surgery to remove it (the tumour, not the swan)and during one of her moments of lucidity a week later, my mate was taking to her saying how well the operation had gone and that she was better now and not seeing things any more and she leaned over and whispered “ I still see them, I just don’t tell anyone now” poor old soul
if there’s one thing worst than being daft, it’s knowing yer daft.
(montyzuma, Fri 12 Mar 2004, 11:47, Reply)

My granddad
is a bit strange. He forked out £1000 for a webdesign course. I'm 60 years younger than him, and taught myself. For free. Oh, dear.
(Ninja Squirrel what is this new-fangled technology?!, Fri 12 Mar 2004, 11:43, Reply)

My Gran (Gawd Bless Her)
My Gran took me to buy a pair of trainers once. The shop assistant asked what size I was and she said "Well...He's a size six shoe in a trouser." WTF? This has since become a much loved phrase in our family. She's in a home now.
(doowaz, Fri 12 Mar 2004, 11:20, Reply)

she doesn't know any better
Christmas before last, my dark, handsome boyfriend was with us. He's part Spanish, Finnish, Russian, and damn hot. But dark.

My parents have this massive kitchen that amplifies a whisper around the house. Boyfriend's on the sofa reading next door, Gran's in kitchen beside Mum doing the washing up, I'm making tea.

Gran turns to mum and says "he's very nice, but is he an *INDIAN*?"

Thud sound in distance as gorgeous man falls off sofa in silent hysterics.

She also tells Brummie waiters in Chinese restaurants their English is very good. And she's recently started saying that black people (we trained her to stop using the 'n' word, thank god) make very good carers because "they had all that slave training".

Oh, and my bru and I once got into a huge arguement with her when we were kids because she told us dinosaurs were god's way of confusing evil people.

And that science is WRONG.

94 and still going...
(niceandwarmandhot vive la résistance, Fri 12 Mar 2004, 11:16, Reply)

Grannyisms
My granny was asking about the internet, and if she could use it without a computer. My dad, very sarcastically went 'no, Fanny, you can access it via your piano'. Granny immediately goes over to the piano and asks how.

She also is terribly scared of electrocuting herself, yet uses an electric blanket and wets the bed.

And at Christmas she told me I was stupid for spending £1200 on my laptop because a TV is much better for watching films because you get more programmes. Nevermind the fact that the computer is what I use every day for work and I didn't buy it merely to watch dvds on...
(gingerrgoth, Fri 12 Mar 2004, 11:15, Reply)

racist old scrote
In the last year of my electricans apprenticeship, I wired up a couple of sockets for an old couple up the road, he’d lived in scotland for years was unfailingly polite, well dressed and well spoken , never heard him swear. I was connecting the wiring into the fuseboard and doing it live (ie not switching off the electricity) through a mistaken sense of not wanting to disturb his missus who dint keep well and was watching the telly, when the bare earth wire touched the main bus bar and an inch of copper wire disappeared b4 my eyes like a flashbulb going off, he was one of these guys who liked to stand at the back of you doing a running commentary and he asked the polite eqivalent of “what the Falkirk was that” and I made excuses and said everything was fine (while waiting for my sight to come back) shortly after someone was singing on the telly and out of the blue he said “that sounds like a n*gger,……..I can’t stand n*ggers” holee mackeral klu klux yorkshireman
(montyzuma, Fri 12 Mar 2004, 11:06, Reply)

Oh to have been there
A few years ago my Granny offered to buy me some perfume for Christmas and asked me what I wanted. I said 'Eternity'.

She spent a whole afternoon looking but gave up because nowhere sold it.

Apparently, she'd gone in every chemists in town demanding they sell her Ecstasy, which she wanted to give to her teenage grand-daughter.

She's a formidable woman, my granny, and she said she shouted at one "gormless shop-girl" who seemed to find this amusing...
(EllyBaby, Fri 12 Mar 2004, 11:06, Reply)

My nanny got me Conkers bad fur day for xmas a few years ago
'nuff said.
( Blobcat Less Jaffacakes this year, Fri 12 Mar 2004, 10:57, Reply)

Batty Coppers
I work with a lot of police staff in my building (not coppers though). One woman, when ever a siren goes off (which is pretty damn often) shouts out "Go get 'em Danno!"
(minister of heresy, Fri 12 Mar 2004, 10:54, Reply)

My Nanny again
Sometimes when my nannys having a convosation, or just evesdroping on one, she picks up a word and starts singing about it and clapping like shes encoraging a dancer.

eg "the field outside"

"oh! the field outside, lalala its so big and wide
lets go dancing in the field tralala!"
I love her loads :D
My favorite photo of her is her in wales with mountains in the background doing her Sound of music pose.
( Blobcat Less Jaffacakes this year, Fri 12 Mar 2004, 10:49, Reply)

ROW LOCKS
My godmother who has always been a tad touched.
got a fright one day as her husband took a bad "turn" and collapsed. she phoned round about 5 of her friends telling them all "john's deid" (she's scottish) b4 phoning the ambulance. when the ambuance arrived and he'd recovered, she phoned them all back saying "he's a wee bit better now"
(montyzuma, Fri 12 Mar 2004, 10:39, Reply)

My grandparents
My great grandmother grew cannabis for years, blissfully unaware of what it was.

My grandfather - who I only met a few times and he used to scare me shitless, he reminded me of the Dungeon Master from Dungeons & Dragons - was convinced the woman in the flat upstairs was trying to poison him through the heating pipes. According to my dad, he was a bit of a bellend.
( Neth, Fri 12 Mar 2004, 10:00, Reply)

head lice
My dear departed geordie nanna used to refer to dickies, headlice, as "Jerusalem Donkeys".

Has anyone ever heard this expression before? I've only ever heard my nanna use it, and wodered if it comes from somewhere or if it was just some sign of an elderly geordie lady's secret anti-semitism?
(mountfoc, Fri 12 Mar 2004, 9:48, Reply)

My gran's
dead
( Batshitmentalist is sane for once, Fri 12 Mar 2004, 9:43, Reply)

Trivial Pursuit...
One christmas (after we'd gorged ourselves suitably of course) the whole family were sat round the table having a jolly game of trivial pursuit...the game was going on swimmingly (it was Christmas after all...the grown ups were all pissed and us kids were filled up to the eyeballs with sugary sweets...made things interesting I can tell you) until we came to the question "what sea-bird has the biggest wing span?" and my great great gran piped up with "oh that's easy...a hippopotamus"

Oh how we laughed.
( The Reverend Lord Lizard, Fri 12 Mar 2004, 9:42, Reply)

Old man B3TA
What's happening??

Are the founders so rich now from their multimedia empires that they don't have time to devote to B3TA??

Come back to the fold, stop working at the stuff your paid to do, and use their hardware to amuse me and countless others.

For the love of Gawd...
(CerberusDog woof, Fri 12 Mar 2004, 9:30, Reply)

One of my grandmothers..
.... always referred to Bill Clinton as Clinton Eastwood (which was a bit confusing the first time she threw that into the conversation). She honestly thought that was his name. My other grandmother always called trainers "trainees" - "That's a nice pair of trainees you're wearing!" We still call them that years later!!
(Hazy, Fri 12 Mar 2004, 9:18, Reply)

As long as I can remember...
...my dear mom (now 70) has always transposed the 'm's and 'n's when she mentions "aluminum" (or "aluminium" to most of you other b3tans - we're Canadian, y'see)...so it comes out "alunimun". My brother has tried to get her to sound it out properly, syllable-by-syllable, to no avail. Also, my late dad pronounced Mexican food items with flat vowel sounds, such as "TAA-co" and "burr-IT-oh", and would often make vague requests of us such as "go fetch me the whatchacallit; it's right on top of the thing over there".
(seanwilk, Fri 12 Mar 2004, 9:07, Reply)

Gran again
Oh yeah and whenever my gran heard someone cough she would scream "CHOKE UP CHICKEN"
To this day I have no idea where that came from and even now I find myself occasionally saying it to my girlfriend and she thinks I am a complete ketchup ferret
(_earwaxuk_, Fri 12 Mar 2004, 8:31, Reply)

My gran
Sadly passed away now so no more joyous pieces of wisdom from her any more but this one always makes us laugh.

On Christmas we were playing a game called 'Whose in the Bag'. You get a card with a famous persons name on and have to get your team to guess them without using their name, so if you had Neil Armstrong you could say "First man on the moon". That is unless you are my gran who assured us that the personality in her card was the first man on the moon and when Neils name was suggested the said "Oh, np, his brother". I was never aware that Neil and Louis Armstrong were related.

As an aside, she also thought that Long John Silver was a Prime Minister and Moby Dick was a footballer
(_earwaxuk_, Fri 12 Mar 2004, 8:28, Reply)

Me dad,
Just like eariler, my dad's not particually old, just a bit mad. Remote controls are "hoofer doofers". A while ago, I put them in some home cinema kit, so now M&D have 4 hoofer doofers, 4 "jobbers" (amp,DVD,vcr,tuner), a "thinger" (me mum wanted Mario Kart, so I gave her my old N64). And the like. I gave them some mp3'd CDs a while back, imagine explaining to them how to use them -

So these work in the DVD player thing, but not the stereo in the kitchen?

Yes mum.

Why?

Gnnn! I ended up buying her a mp3 boombox for the kitchen.
( bowdie, Fri 12 Mar 2004, 8:21, Reply)

'Are you courting yet?'
Despite now being 27, I still occasionally have an old person ask me 'Are you courting yet?'

What does that MEAN? Does it mean 'Do you currently have a girlfriend?', 'Are you engaged to be married?', 'Ever had any pussy?'.

What does that phrase MEAN?!?!?!
( Kung_Fu_Russ ran out of amusing signatures on, Fri 12 Mar 2004, 7:01, Reply)