Let's all go down the strand
Banana skins? Yeah, right, they went out of slapstick fashion along with stepping on a rake and looking down the sharp end of a hosepipe, ooh, around about the time the talkies came in. Look, Ted bloody Bovis in Hi-de-bloody-Hi talked about them being a comedy staple. How much more proof do you need that they're not funny?

Except, except... On a drizzly, dank evening in 1994, at the exit to the Vasileostrovskaia Metro station, where the wind whips in off the Gulf of Finland and where the apartment blocks huddle together in groups to disperse radioactive fallout. It's that kind of a cheery place. The St. Petersburg winner (and believe me there's stiff competition) of the Nora Batty lookalike contest - headscarf, blue raincoat, face hewn off the distaff side of Mt Rushmore - struggles out the station door and shuffles off down the plaza with a bulging net carrier bag in each hand, the kind Russians fold up and carry on the off-chance you come across something worth buying, because you knew it won't be there later. The economic chaos of the early 90s meant Soviet habits died hard, and it was a struggle for many to make ends meet. Russia had the best-educated taxi drivers, not to mention other unfortunates working the streets, in the world. I can't remember now what she had found, but whatever it was it looked heavy.

Now it wasn't quite wartime levels of deprivation: people didn't have to be told that bananas needed peeling; they had seen them before. At least, one person near that station exit obviously had. Mind you, poor Nora Ivanovna obviously hadn't seen the banana skin. I wonder what went through her mind as her feet went up in the air. Her legs and torso described a perfect right angle with the arms still weighed down vertically by the net bags. I swear for a moment she floated there, a blue-clad geometric vision backlit by the advertising hoardings, a martyr to the immutable rules of comedy. Then down she went with a crump.

I don't know what happened after that. I was too busy wiping away tears of laughter. Part of it stemmed from a post-modern disbelief: "Bugger me, I have actually just seen someone slip on a banana skin" but, let me be honest, most of it was sheer hilarity at the misfortune of someone else. And do you know what the worst thing was? The fact that she'd seemed miserable as sin prior to just made it all the funnier. I've never seen it happen since. But, frankly, after that performance, I don't need to.
(Mr Apollo Follow me!, Tue 26 Jan 2010, 1:16, Reply)

A story I heard tonight
I was talking to an aquaintance of mine in the pub tonight, and he told me about a friend of his called Tommy. Tommy is possessed of quite a good singing voice and a good sense of time, so his party piece was that he would pick a song on kareoke night at his local (which used a radio mike) and sing it while wandering all over the place. The finale to this act was that he would walk out of the doors at the back of the pub, walk around the side (unable to hear the music) and come back in the front door, still singing perfectly in time. While he was doing this, however, the sound from the mike would usually be muffled or not present at all. Until one night when Tommy, being more pissed than normal, did not reappear when he should have done.

He had pushed the pub door instead of pulling and rebounded straight into the path of a number 16 bus, which promptly hit him and broke both his legs.

Probably what he deserved to singing kareoke really.
( MatJ LOOK, Tue 26 Jan 2010, 0:45, Reply)

Superglue in the eyes
Between homes once I was dossing on an airbed in the loft space of someones house.
Basic rule was , once up in the loft at night, not to come down into the house ( by dropping a ladder) and disturbing them and the children.
No probs, I had a bucket for a loo, bottled water and all my belongings stashed around me.
Until one night I realised my airbed had sprung a leak.
Now I had prepared for this possibilty and had a basic repair kit to hand
Superglue and some strips of plastic.
To find the leak I sat on the bed and listened for the hiss.
Located it and in my stupidity didnt get off the bed when i tried to repair it.
Opens glue, leans over the tiny hole and drops glue onto it.
Tiny hole that is under pressure by my weight on the bed.
Escaping air under said pressure forces glue right into my face, mainly around the eyes.
Eyes glue shut.
I cant find my water bottle and realise I need to get down to the bathroom and hot water.
Grope around to find ladder, try to drop it down as quietly as possible, not really feasable when blinded actually.
Knock over the loo bucket ( not empty :( ) , miss my step out of the loft cover , slide down the edge of the ladder with a howl and a screeching noise and land in a crumpled blind heap on the landing with a not so discrete crash.
Spend the next hour or so with a part sympathetic part annoyed friend in the bathroom helping to prise my eyelids open.

Can laugh about it now
(insomniac-surfer oh go on then, just this once, Tue 26 Jan 2010, 0:36, 1 reply)

Tube socks of death
A friend of mine was blearily trying to put his socks on one morning. Balanced with one foot in the air (standard sock-tugging position), what he didn't yet realize was that his other foot, the one still on the ground, was standing on the toe of the sock he was about to pull on. As he slipped the open end over his toes and yanked, he received a fearsome thwack in the balls, the force of which hurtled him face first into the laundry pile. Excellent stuff!
(harmless kitty, Tue 26 Jan 2010, 0:32, 1 reply)

So I represent GB at Bobsleigh...
...when this happened...

www.youtube.com/watch?v=pECFnsgLH20&feature=related

*red face*
(bennycmufc, Tue 26 Jan 2010, 0:13, 1 reply)

Attack of the Plastic Bag!
One day a few years back I had just finished work and me and my mate were stood at the bus stop. The weather was hellish that day with the driving wind and pissing rain only adding to our impatience as we waited for the bus into town at the shelterless stop.

Out of the corner of my eye I spotted a plastic carrier bag about a hundred yards away bag being blown all over the road and spiralling upwards in the wind.

So there we were just chatting and then I turned to look and see if the fucking bus was coming yet, that's when I was attacked.

The wind had blown the bag from all the way along the road and now the bastard was attached firmly to my face! What the fuck? It was like a white skinned face hugger from Alien with an Asda tattoo on it's back.

I immediately removed the bag from my face only to be greeted by the sight of a rush hour packed bus waiting at the stop with pretty much all the passengers all pissing themselves and some pointing at me. My friend couldn't talk at that point and it looked as if he was suffering from sort of seizure such was his enjoyment of my humilation.

I waited for the next bus.

Fuck.
(Helmut McBucket invites you to pull his finger on, Tue 26 Jan 2010, 0:09, 2 replies)

My brother's mate, 'Doughnut'
Pearoast, this one.

Doughnut, so named for his ability to act stupidly, was at the gym, running on the treadmill.

After a while, he decided he was too hot and needed to take his sweatshirt off. In a masterly stroke of time management, he did this whilst still running.

Pulling the garment up over his head, he lost his balance and stepped off the side of the treadmill, which resulted in him running, still entangled in his sweatshirt and unable to stop, into the weights room, where he was brought to a swift halt by the wall, much to the amusement of pretty much everyone else in the gym :D
(Professor Kenny Martin Hmm? What?, Mon 25 Jan 2010, 23:13, Reply)

Fairly old but still makes me laugh
I was about six, being walked to school by Mummy Dearest. Now, the infants school I went to, to get to it you had to walk through a park. One day, Mummy Dearest was concentrating on something else, so whilst walking through aforementioned park, she walked past the concrete bollard things that stopped cars, whilst walking me into a bollard and proceeding to try and drag me over it. It was only when I let out a high pitched yelp of ouchiness did she realise what had happened.
She thought I was just being slow.
(pinkpunkpython is skinning up, Mon 25 Jan 2010, 22:49, Reply)

Play her off, Rod Stewart
just over six years ago my (now ex) girlfriend had a birthday party for herself in her flat. we had only been seeing each other a few months and she hadn't met most of my friends so she said to invite along who she should get to know.
so on the night quite a few of my friends came along and everyone gets along fine, and everyone gets real properly merry and full of booze and other things. my friend Roslyn, however, true to her style, got rather wasted rather faster then the rest of us. this was nothing new so we allowed her to stagger about wildly, slurring her speech, and suffered her being a drunken pest.
and then it happened, around 1am, a quick flurry of slapstick gold. Roslyn, in the living room, while trying to get out some recognisable words to my friend Ewan, lost her balance and did one of those half fall half run manouvers, u know when a person scurries along at a 45 degree angle? well she did this towards the record dex that were set up on a knee high coffee table infront of the living room bay window. she tried to prevent her fall by putting her hand on the left record deck but she put her hand on the spinning record which gave her just enough more momentum for her to fly forward a little bit more and half fall out the open window in front of her. the record that was playing was Rod Stewart's greatest hits and the song playing as Roslyn struck was Maggie May, but her hitting the record caused it to jump straight into the chorus of Do You Think I'm Sexy. so theres Roslyn, all thats visible of her is her ass and legs dangling in the window and a room full of people crying with laughter to the soundtrack of Rod Stewarts cringe-worthy disco anthem.

what i should also mention is that my girlfriend then stayed on the third floor of a tenement building. a few weeks previous to this the council started putting in double glazing on the flats that did not have it and scaffolding was set up on the face of the block. had it not been there Roslyn would most certainly have fallen right out.

My friend Ewan still cries with laughter whenever this night is brought up.
(Raol Duke, Mon 25 Jan 2010, 21:09, 3 replies)

Just remembered...
Not me, but one of my mates.

We were out and about a few years ago, getting up to the usual things you get up to in your early 20s.

keep in mind how easy it is to trip on a plastic bag, after all old people do it all the time. One foot goes into the bag, you step on the rest of the bag with your other foot... inevitably you fall.

My mate, seemingly not happy with doing it the regular/boring way, somehow managed to get both feet inside said plastic bad.

What followed can only be described as history's most uncoordinated sack race. He hopped and stumbled for a few yards before finally falling flat on his face.

Old people rushed to help him, various onlookers stared in amazment, others simply joined me in laughing so hard I could barely move.
(NoStrings Tastes like zombies!!, Mon 25 Jan 2010, 20:39, Reply)

Not funny at all.
Today at uni I broke one of a matched pair of quartz cuvettes, worth £600.

Oops.
(Petite chien is going to do science to it, Mon 25 Jan 2010, 20:23, 11 replies)

Warning
My mate Barry got up one saturday morning, wandered into the living room for a fag before heading back to bed. As he got up, he caught his foot in the throw of the couch, and tripped over. This would have been fine, he could have stopped himself from falling by using his hands. However they were comfortably cupping his balls and therefore inside his tracksuit bottoms. He hit the parquet flooring with teeth first, breaking his jaw and knocking out the front two. Nice
(blondesmithp, Mon 25 Jan 2010, 20:18, Reply)

Ok, this one goes back quite a way.
I was in first school actually, probably about year 2 or 3.
There I was just a tiny MiniStrings happily wandering to school one morning, ghostbusters lunchbox in hand. I was messing about with my friend (who's name escapes me now), and generally making a tit of myself.

Infact I was messing about more than watching where I was going.

The inevitable happened and I walked into a lampost. This wouldn't have been so embarassing had my luchbox not opened at the same time, spilling my sandwiches along the path. Even that wouldn't have been so embarassing had my trousers not fallen down at the exact same moment.

That's right, I walked into a lampost which somehow set off some kind of horrific chain reaction causing my lunch to spill all over the place, and my trousers to plummet groundwards.

I can still remember the howls of laughter from my peers, and the muffled giggles from the group of parents accomanying us.

And yes, I was the laughing stock of the school for about a week (which, when translated onto childhood timeframe is comparable to an eternity.)
(NoStrings Tastes like zombies!!, Mon 25 Jan 2010, 20:16, Reply)

Oh I have one of these...
I was doing some work for BT and had to go to Hammersmith hospital for the day to install some IT stuff. It was pouring with rain and I parked nearby and ran off towards the hospital. I saw Accident & Emergency in the distance and raced towards it. As I got close I saw a big sign which basically said that you couldn't get into the main hospital through A&E so a few yards away from the doors I stopped to turn back and run off the other way. Unfortunately I stopped a bit too quickly and fell, twisted my ankle and skidded along on my arse about 10 feet away towards the glass doors.

My lasting memory was of the two staff who were just about to exit laughing so hard that the nurse was hanging off the doctor's shoulder, as I limped away in agony.

I think even if I had broken my leg I would have crawled away. Going in and checking-in with my injury would have been just too good a punchline for them/shameful for me.

Cringe.
(Tricity Bendix, Mon 25 Jan 2010, 20:01, Reply)

The Internet is here to catch you out..
I have a big wooden dining table in my front room (picture Del Boy's town hall table in Only Fools) with matching wooden seats, that have a wooden bum-bit with a sewn on cushion on. The *practical* idea of said bum-bits is that you can slide them off of the chair to give them a wipe down. Useful, in theory, although they have an irritating habit of sliding when you get up.
Then along I come.
Plonking my laptop on the table, after moving from the noisy kitchen to continue my group Skype conversation, I settled myself down comfortably on one of the chairs. Getting up a while later to go and get a drink, I came back into the front room and threw myself back on the chair in my usual elegant style. Cue a massive *CRAAAAAAAAAACK/SNAAAAAP* and me ending up stuck, through a chair that's snapped at the arse-bit.
Picture someone on a chair, that has no bum-bit on it.
Yes, that was me.
Stuck like duct-tape in a completely buckled chair.
On Skype.
To about 12 people. Cue manic laughter, lot's of "What the fuck!!"s, and wailings of: "Muuuum! I'm stuck!".
(pinkpunkpython is skinning up, Mon 25 Jan 2010, 19:13, 1 reply)

Drunken
I fell asleep standing up having a piss one night and cracked my teeth on the edge of the pot when I went down which immediately woke me up to the taste of blood and piss.
(Daisho Arseholes everywhere I turn., Mon 25 Jan 2010, 18:39, 1 reply)

Table prat falls
Working in a school, my first year as a teacher. I was finally preparing for my year 10's to take their GCSE Drama exam. Decided to set up the studio,got up on a table to afix the backing.

Got down from the table, as my feet slipped and table fell and i fell arse first onto the hardwooden fllor. Table and chair go, my arse goes 'Whump' and kids run in. At first it was funny, like something off you've been framed.

Then their teacher (me) starts crying like a baby and they realisesomething may be wrong. They called an ambulance and i waved like the queen as they took me away. Turned out the funny pratfall off the table, i had an impacted tail bone fracture.
( squiddylyd Once you pop you can't stop!, Mon 25 Jan 2010, 18:39, 1 reply)

death slide disasters
does anyone remember the old death slide in blackpool funhouse? i loved that slide, i'd go on it every time we went there, which we did twice every summer as kids.
one year, we had picked a swelteringly hot day for our blackpool trip, so we had all decided to take swimming costumes to have a dip in the sea. now, as any parent knows, it's far easier to let your children wear their swimming costumes all day when the weather is hot than to persuade them to put their clothes back on. as a result of this, i was still in mine when i went into the funhouse. it was one of those deeply unflattering pink ones with the tiny little skirt arrangement on the bottom. as usual, once inside the funhouse, i made a beeline for the death slide. for anyone that doesn't know, it was about 30 feet high and mostly vertical. i sat at the top, then pushed off gleefully.
very quickly, i realised that this had been a bad idea. the speed i was moving had wedged my swimsuit up my backside, which brought my bare buttocks into very painful contact with the wooden slide. it burned.
without thinking it through, i leapt up and attempted to run down the vertical slide. now, milla jovovich may be able to pull this off, but i couldn't. i tripped almost immediately and fell, head over heels, tumbling straight to the bottom of the slide. fortunately, there was a barrier at the side to break my fall. unfortunately, it also broke my toe.
i left blackpool that day with massive friction burns on my buttocks, a broken toe and 3 siblings who couldn't stop laughing at me.
needless to say, the coach journey home was very uncomfortable on my backside.
( Smash Monkey lowering the tone of the whole internet, Mon 25 Jan 2010, 17:41, 11 replies)

Right now
Falling up a set of granite stairs inside the university library and in the process letting out an unladylike "HUUURRGGAAAH!" noise and a guff I had been saving for later. A lot of people saw.
(Puddle of Sugar was still wallpapering on, Mon 25 Jan 2010, 17:15, Reply)

Two from my Dad's Copper Days
My Dad was in the police from mid 70s to the mid 80s. Here are two of the stories I have heard from him that tickled me at the time. I've no idea if they are true or not, but he told them as if true.

The Gyppo in the Caravan
So my Dad and two other cops are called to pick up a guy at a Gypsy site on suspicion of something dodgy. They all enter a large caravan and find a very drunk, very angry man shouting at nothing in particular.

So my Dad starts trying to calm the guy down, with Copper 1 behind him on his left and Copper 2 on the right. He's trying various things to calm the guy down, offers of drinks, and 'just wanting a little chat', etc but the guy is not having any of it and pulls a massive knife.

The next few actions took place in a few seconds.

My Dad jumps back into a defensive stance, trained into him from his early career. To his left Copper 1 picks a frying pan off the stove, but rather than brandishing it in defense, he covers his own crotch with it.

My Dad is standing there thinking "What the fuck?" when the Gypsy guy starts to make a lunge at the both of them.

"Oh here we go" thinks my Dad, when out of nowhere Copper 2 appears, brandishing an upright Vacuum Cleaner(!?) and spangs the Gypsy in the forehead with it, end on, as if in a comedy jousting tournament.

The gypsy goes down like a sack of shit, out cold. So they de-arm him, cuff him and wait for him to wake up, at which point they put him in the car.

Unfortunately, they had trouble questioning the guy later, as they couldn't stop cracking up. The Gypsy guy had 'Hoover' branded in reverse across his forehead.

The Cat Burglar
A friend of my Dads (lets call him John) is sent out to investigate some suspicious activity in the Oxford area where he finds a house with a ladder against it, leading up to an ajar bedroom window.

Clearly a bit suspicious, but he can't see a van or any activity. He decides he had better investigate further.

So he proceeds to climb the ladder, remarking to himself how old and rickety it is.

As he reaches the top he briefly glimpses through the window a bedroom, with a cat sitting on the bed giving him a quizzical look.

I say 'briefly glimpses' because a second later there is a loud 'CRACK' as the rung he is standing on snaps cleanly through the middle. John plummets rapidly, each rung snapping cleanly as he hits them, like something out of a Looney Tunes cartoon. The sides of his hands gather a million splinters as they run down the sides of the ladder.

He hits the floor on his back and rolls away groaning, clutching his hands which are now 20% wood.

As he is laying there a car pulls up and a guy comes running over.

"What are you doing lying in my Garden mate? Are you alright?"

John slowly gets to his feet.

"I was checking your house, because there was a ladder going up to a window and someone reported it as suspicious!" John groaned.

"Oh no mate, that's just so my cat can get in, I haven't got a cat flap you see!" says the guy cheerfully.

"Are you not worried about getting burgled?" John whimpered.

"Nah" says the guy, "That's why I sawed half-way through each rung".
(stubbledchin, Mon 25 Jan 2010, 17:14, 2 replies)

I own this motel and this woman came to stay and I stabbed her to death
It was well funny.
( Je suis un vagabond is an unfunny, up your own arse middle class knob, Mon 25 Jan 2010, 16:32, 2 replies)

'Twas about 15 years ago...
As a treat for my 21st my family had "bought" me a box for one match to watch my beloved team play football.

Obviously by "football" I mean "football"; a game where the 2 primary items of use are the foot and a ball (not the hand and an egg, like our KRRAAAZZEEEE American cousins)

We had had a meal and a few pints in the box/bar before the game. Then watched the game from the seats just outside the french windows of the box. Halftime comes and goes with some coffee/tea and biscuits back in the box. We return to our seats and carry on watching the second half.

After a while I go back through the box to visit the little boys room. After draining the main vein, I head back through the box to my seat.

It was the noise of me walking into the strengthened glass of the closed french windows that alerted the 30 or so people within earshot of my mistake.

It was the bouncing backward after the impact that knocked over most of the remaining coffees and teas on the table behind me.

It was the nosebleed that lessened my enjoyment of the majority of the second half.

And it was the laughing at me by most people near me (including my own family) after my mum told them all that it had been me who had closed the french windows in the first place, that really made me feel like a twat.

(We won 2-1 tho, which helped ease the pain)
(FUXTIX Not my words, Carol, Mon 25 Jan 2010, 16:17, Reply)

I hope nobody saw...
Me and my friend were exploring the various rooms in a nightclub after getting sufficiently pissed in the others.

We stumble upon a large, interesting looking room after a time and, walking arm in arm, i suggest we see who and what is on the far side of this exciting looking room...however while we are making our way over there, immersed in chat, we accidentally bump into two other people and apologise profusely. Bit embarassing.

No. Actually it was quite a small room. Actually the only thing large in that small room was the floor to ceiling mirror...argh.
(cheerymaddox 'Quite cute when not talking', Mon 25 Jan 2010, 15:43, 1 reply)

Little things that take you by surprise
I was just going into the kitchen to put the kettle on. So I pulled the kitchen door open (seeing as I'm not a ghost), but it hit the side of my foot and bounced back again just in time for me to walk into the edge of it. Not only did I smack my head on the door, it made me jump in surprise and I bit my tongue.
( sandettie light vessel automatic New Twitter - @bollocksreally, Mon 25 Jan 2010, 15:41, Reply)

About 1am this morning
I awoke with a kick-stand which could only mean one thing - I had a full bladder. So I got my dressing gown and went to the bathroom to micturate. When I finished, I then heard a bit of a commotion outside. I opened the window slightly and peered out.

There across the road was a young couple arguing whilst a second bloke looked on. Well, I say arguing, the lass was doing all the shouting. She then took off what I think was a bracelet or maybe a watch, opened a nearby bin, slung it in and then stormed off. The blue recycling bins were collected this morning which is why they were in the street last night.

I could see the kid gesturing to who I assume was his mate, and I could hear him chuntering on a bit. He then went over to the bin, lifted the lid and tried to use his phone as a light source to see if he could retrieve whatever it was.

He then muttered something to his mate again before leaning into the bin whilst his mate held his legs. His mate in a moment of madness thought it would be funny to let go. So he did, flicking his legs upwards for maximum effect. I heard some muffled screams and banging and judging by the amount of leg sticking out of the top, the bin was maybe half full. He kicked and shouted a lot and could clearly not get any purchase to push himself out. These aren't your regular wheelie-bins, they're the slightly narrower smaller bins, so I imagine there's precious little room in there to do anything apart from store rubbish.

All the while I could see his mate bent over wetting himself at the sight. The kid in the bin thrashed his legs about some more and with one massive kick of his legs, a kick that would have launched him out of the sea like a performing dolphin had he been scuba diving, he managed to tip the bin over. This left him lying on his back, mostly still laid inside the bin like some sort of giant mutant hermit crab. It seemed to take him for ever to wriggle out again. It didn't help that the girlfriend had come back for round two, and thought she could best drive her point home by booting the side of the bin as he tried to escape.

Had it been a more public area and not so late, I would've assumed it was an impromptu stunt that would appear on YouTube shortly afterwards.
( sandettie light vessel automatic New Twitter - @bollocksreally, Mon 25 Jan 2010, 15:19, 1 reply)

Ripped my trousers
Just crouched down at work to pickup a heavy pritner and I heard a ripping noise.

Yup I've just ripped my pants from crotch to backside. Nice.

I'm sitting down for the rest of the day. Luckily I have a long overcoat so I'll be fine getting home (as long as I don't sit down with my legs open infront of anyone)
( Crap Little Monkey Deathstar, so good they built it twice, Mon 25 Jan 2010, 15:11, 4 replies)

Burn n Turn!
.
When my missus was a bit wee-er a guy called simon was playing with fire works on the memorial ground in Watchet (a rough palce!)
when it exploded in his face, he instantly span around to get away and smashed his face on the floodlight pole, haha.

.
(Tallyhosis Two heads are more than One, Mon 25 Jan 2010, 15:07, Reply)

I was adding extra ram to a motherboard the other week
and the computer wouldn't start afterwards. I'd only gone and put High Density RAM in instead of normal RAM!

My god how we laughed...
( Jeccius Steam Borderlands 2 junkie, Mon 25 Jan 2010, 14:39, 2 replies)

A friend pointed out the boy she fancied walking towards us on the other side of the road
Then tripped on an uneven paving slab, hidden by the fallen leaves of the trees, and landed flat on her face. And the boy had heard her saying she fancied him.
(ricky_darkholer is blonde on the inside, Mon 25 Jan 2010, 14:13, 3 replies)