I'd bought a Ford Escort van off ebay for 21 quid
because the seller couldn't spell "Escort" and had listed it under antiques. I took this mighty chariot on a jaunt around Europe in the summer of 2004, figuring that if it broke down I wouldn't exactly be out of pocket if I had to abandon it somewhere.

That van got me to France where a dodgy roadside meal gave me the shits, and I spent a feverish 2 nights in a German roadside layby venting liquid vengeance from my tattered arsehole. During those fevered dreams a pair of Turks tried to steal the van, but hadn't countered on the greasy English tourist sleeping in the back, leaping out at them completely naked wielding a 22mm spanner. I nursed the van and my fragile guts to the Netherlands, where an old friend nursed me back to strength with chicken soup while her mental boyfriend ragged my van ragged around Arnhem, whooping in delight at having the steering wheel on the wrong side of the road.

Revived, I nipped up through Denmark and crossed the various ferries and bridges to Sweden, where other travellers would strip naked and bathe in the lakes next to the petrol stations. But it was in Gothenburg where my van let me down, splitting its fuel tank and spilling my precious skandinavian-priced diesel all the way down the hilly road. Two packs of Hubba bubba patched it up, and I limped it to the nearest ferry terminal to get back to Denmark and start heading back to Blighty.

The ferry came and went, and myself and a pathetic dribble of other cars disembarked in northern Jutland on a foggy August evening. As the sun went down the other cars left me behind, and I found myself alone on a dark road, the pathetic candles of my headlights barely penetrating into the misty gloom.

I crawled along at a snail's place, feeling like a solitary Fred in the Mystery Machine, when I saw it. A mighty shape lumbered through the fog, all lumps and tentacles. I slowed the van to a squeaky halt, letting the engine idle as the beast moved forward. Then its face broke through the mist and it stood, staring at me with cold, soulless eyes.

A massive fucking moose, right there, in the middle of the road on a foggy night, all antlers and muscle. I was entranced and terrified. If the beast charged, its massive bulk would make mincemeat of my rusty tinfoil van, and with no-one else on the road it could be hours before anyone came to my aid. I would have shat myself if I hadn't completely exhausted my shitting capabilities back in Germany.

We stared at each other for minutes that felt like hours, my ropey old diesel grumbling to itself and the massive moose blowing steam from its nostrils that merged with the fog. Then, as mysteriously as it had appeared, it turned around and plodded off, vanishing in the night.
( Grrrmachine the indifference engine, Mon 13 Jul 2015, 11:15, 2 replies)

I used to live in the part of Southampton recently the subject of 'Immigration Street'.

One day, I was walking back from the corner shop with a friend when we encountered the couple of junkie prostitutes who hung around on the corner. My friend was in the habit of stopping and talking to these ladies, for reasons best known to himself. This time he was drinking from a carton of milk, and one of the ladies asked for a swig - he was a friendly guy, so he let her have one, and her friend had one too.

After the usual "sorry, I'm broke, bye" we resumed our walk, and I got my chance to wonder out loud where those nice lady mouths had been in the last couple of hours.

The look on his face as he spat out the milk and started retching into a hedge - that's the funniest thing I've seen on the street.
( Zuowan, Fri 10 Jul 2015, 16:33, 2 replies)

I was once wandering through town with a bag of chips and a car drove past and the passenger shouted "nice chips mate" through a megaphone.

( Slippery Mick ‏, Mon 13 Jul 2015, 10:57, 3 replies)

I was sat on a bench waiting for my other half.
A frail looking elderly black woman came and sat next to me, and after a few moments of silence turned to me and asked 'What do you think life is all about?'

My internal nutter detector triggered, but I'm pretty good at the level of inane small talk that's required to stop them from killing me and posting my severed testicles to local councillors. I considered the question, and decided to respond with a question, to further determine precisely how much of a fruitloop she was. 'In what sense?' I therefore asked.

"Well, we're all on this planet, orbiting the sun, none of us really have any sense of purpose because our natural instincts have more or less gone. What is life about now, with all of this considered?"

I was slightly taken aback, it seemed quite intelligent and I doubted my nutter detection skills for the first time in quite some time. So I answered. "I honestly think, as long as you're happy and you don't harm or hurt anyone during the course of your life, then you've made the most of it and made of it the best you can."

She stood up, stepped in front of me, leant towards me and shouted at the top of her voice; "NO! IT'S ABOUT JESUS!"

At which point she twatted me around the head with her incredibly heavy handbag, and stormed off.
( Muns, Tue 14 Jul 2015, 16:26, 19 replies)

Small town, smallr town
A friend visited family in a nearby small town. He got there early so went for a bit of a walk.

A Very young girl offered him oral sex in exchange for cigarettes. So young and so blatant, his instant reaction was that this must be some kind of sting operation. Not the sort of thing he was expecting in a small country town. "Ermm... No. Anyway, you look too young to smoke".

Eventually the rest of the family gets home after school and work and he gets to meet his 13yo cousin for the first time for the second time in one day.
(xixax, Fri 10 Jul 2015, 14:25, 6 replies)

In Amsterdam
a skinny young chap sidled up to me and muttered, 'Have sex with me?'

'Ugh no! Why would I want to have sex with YOU?'

He frowned, shook his head, and said more clearly, 'Hash, ecstasy?'

Of course I made my excuses and walked on.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
(Dr Skagra glorious glargzhem, Sat 11 Jul 2015, 10:55, 2 replies)

A few years back
Someone nicked the wheels off my bike, so I popped to a friend's to get two spares that he kindly offered. As I walked back through the roughest part of town, late at night, carrying two bike wheels, in a hoodie, it occurred to me that I probably looked a bit dodgy.

I then bumped into another mate, who was carrying a toilet, a neighbour returning from a protest with an anti-war placard, and a forth guy en route to a party, who was in full drag and made a strangely convincing middle-aged bearded woman.

The four of us walked together and must have looked a pretty odd sight.
(Porcupine, Mon 13 Jul 2015, 11:34, 7 replies)

I used to notice one guy who was always in our street
always going somewhere and usually wearing some kind of moulded, figure-hugging keep-fit gear with a vaguely futuristic look that reminded me of The Operative, the villain from out of Serenity, so I used to refer to him offhand as "that Firefly guy". After we'd been there a while, I started seeing him everywhere, at the corner shop, on my bus in the mornings and always going past while I was tending the front garden. My front garden is the best on the street, incidentally. Two or three times a week people will stop and compliment me on it, mums will point it out to their children and the little old lady who lives on the corner will stop and have the same conversation she had with me last week about it. I digress a bit, but this gets relevant later.

So a couple of weeks ago I was out in the front garden with the missus - she was tending her hanging baskets, I was weeding and the cat was stretched out on the lawn, being a cat. I was bending down, mercilessly slaughtering baby dock leaves by the dozen when I heard in a high pitched voice from behind me:

"Boobie boobie boo! Boobie boobie boo!"

The fuck, I thought, and turned around to find Firefly guy bending over the wall and talking to our cat. "You are beautiful, boobie boobie boo! What's your name, boobie boobie boo?"

The missus looked at me. "Uh, he's called Charlton," I said. "He's, um, our cat." Firefly guy looked away and walked off down the street. "So that's Firefly guy," I said to the missus.

Later, we were chatting to our neighbour over the fence - she's lived in the street for 18 years and knows everyone, in fact I think she was telling us about the phantom shitter at the time - and the missus asked about Firefly guy. "Oh him, he's a psychopath," she said. She went on to tell us that he'd left unsolicited gifts outside her flat, he was especially weird around her children and animals, and eventually she'd had to ask her husband to tell him not to come around any more. Oh, and he's really into Transformers. Gah, I thought. There's no way I can avoid conversation with him. I see him everywhere, he's certainly seen me in a Decepticon T-shirt and my car is an Autobot, for Pete's sake. Small children tap it to see if he'll wake up.

So I spent the next week or so completely avoiding Firefly guy in any way I could. I took an earlier bus, I started working on the back garden more, or I'd watch for him and then go out and do stuff in the front garden once he'd passed. But I got sloppy; one time I was out in the front garden and he walked past and as I straightened up from planting a petunia he was right there. "Lovely work," he said.

"Thanks," I said, and the minimum required conversation done, went back to doing something else. "Keep it up," he said and then went on his way. And then just this Sunday, he saw me in the front garden again, and we had the exact same conversation. Except that time he felt compelled to add: "No bonsai trees, though." I wasn't sure how to take that, so I said "No, not yet," then turned away to do, again, literally anything else.

Yesterday morning I was up early and having a cup of tea in the front room with the curtains drawn when I heard a little noise outside the window about quarter past six. Thinking it was the cat wanting to be let in, I blearily pulled the curtain back to see Firefly guy disappearing up the front path. I don't know what happened after that because I was hiding behind the sofa in case he saw me. When I was sure the coast was clear, I went outside and had a look at the front garden.

In the middle of the table on the patio, was a potted bonsai tree.

It's actually still there. I don't know where he lives, otherwise I'd take it back and firmly refuse his kind but creepy offer.

TL:DR; I've attracted a weird stalker who's leaving me presents. Minimal sci-fi references.
( emvee cruor deo cruoris, Fri 10 Jul 2015, 22:13, 5 replies)

Bond

( drimble he'd been white, he'd been black, Sun 12 Jul 2015, 23:21, Reply)

"got 20p for the bus mate?"
This is the cry of Hull, from pikey looking kids to cider soaked derros, you will hear this soon on arriving in the city.

One particular incident of this springs to mind. A guy was standing outside a Sainsbury asking everyone who came in or out for bus money.

This I thought was especially brazen as one; no busses came down that road. And two; there was a wanted poster of him in the same shop window.

GBH, ABH and arson if you were wondering.
( willenium Fist bump for verification, Fri 10 Jul 2015, 18:11, 1 reply)

Photogenic Tramp
I remember once when I headed into town to visit the Bank I saw one of the local vagrants loitering with ill intent. Being a small city, these folks can become familiar - that is, until they snuff it. Anyway, this chap was clearly under the influence of something or other, he was leaping about the place and being a general nuisance. Some Japanese tourists were taking their holiday snaps in front of the landmarks and as the husband posed in a picturesque location, the down-and-out crept up behind him, rested his chin upon the fellows right shoulder and with a manic grin, waited for the wife to take the snap. She muttered to her partner and pointed at him, the Jap turned to his right and with a yell, ran away from the tramp. Shortly the Police arrived, chased after him and told him if he didn't calm down they were going to arrest him.
(luckylife , 0 guests and 3 bots are online, Thu 16 Jul 2015, 3:17, 2 replies)

A terrific chap called Sean hailing from Cork managed a terrific bit of Hammersmith King Street street life.
He parked his cheap, Ireland registered Ford Escort van on King Street at 4am one week day morning and went to his aunt's flat.
He was woken up by his aunt about 2 hours later and she asked where he was parked (he was new to driving in London and parking law) and he said on King Street. She said there was loads of Babylon on King Street, with weapons and the bomb squad. Sean had created a lot of attention by being parked the wrong way on the one way system, on the double reds and the sniffer dogs had detected explosives. All this about a month after the IRA attack on Hammersmith Bridge.
Well Sean managed to calm the situation when he met the 1iC of the operation and they didn't destroy his van. He did pay his fines. The dogs were correct he did have explosive charges, the ones to power his nail gun which as a rather fantastic joiner he is allowed.
( d.r._and_quinch when will you be famous?, Fri 10 Jul 2015, 18:59, 1 reply)

Leyton
I got propositioned by a lady of the night for sex for money so she could buy drugs. She asked right outside a full bus stop with 30 people waiting to commute home. They were all looking. She must have asked every bloke there.

I walked away thinking "I must look rich enough to pay for sex".

Then 20 steps later I thought "I look desperate enough to pay for sex".
(waxdart hello., Fri 10 Jul 2015, 15:47, 2 replies)

When I was about 18 or 19...
...my first job was working security/front desk up in Soho in the mid 90s, running errands and stuff. One day was walking through the other side of Walker's Court when a sweet old lady in a pink coat came up to me, blue rinse, the works. She looked a bit like the Queen Mum.
"Excuse me? Young man! Hello dear"
"Yes hello, can I help?" Perhaps she was lost, what a sweet old lady with a nice crinkly smile.

Quick as a snake, she grabbed my hand and started stroking it, then pulled my face towards hers and, rattling her false teeth in her mouth with a slosh and a whistle, said: "I'll suck your cock for a fiver."
( dysonology "You get an 'ology', you're a scientist!", Fri 10 Jul 2015, 10:24, 5 replies)

Mike Skinner

(localboy purveyor of pisspoor puns, Fri 10 Jul 2015, 9:38, Reply)