Invigilation
A couple of years ago, I earned a bit of pin money by invigilating for GCSE and A level exams at a nearby school.

During one of the GCSE papers, a kid put up his hand. I walked over.
"Sir," he said, pointing to his calculator, "The question asks what 10% of this is. What button do I have to press?"

Oy veh.
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Fri 19 Mar 2010, 16:11, Reply)

I love her dearly but...
We were watching TV the other day and MrsScars turns to me and says "Hasn't Julian Clary aged badly?"

"Er, I think that's Jo Brand"
(all my scars face forward possesses 2.5% of a hyperalloy combat chassis, Fri 19 Mar 2010, 16:10, 2 replies)

My banger clanger
I forgot this - when I were a lad, I thought I wanted to be a mechanic. For work experience they sent me to the bus depot to work with the grease monkeys to learn their trade.

They were a nice bunch, if a little lacking in the grey matter department, and told me of some cracking faux pas they had all made in the past. Also of the frankly shocking lack of consideration to their welding and running repairs (I haven't "done" buses in the 20 odd years since).

Apart from keeping the knackered fleet of green dirge-transporters in fine fettle, they also did a lot of lorries, trucks and petrol tankers.....

**I was 15 and desperate to appear cool at this point, so smoked like most of my school - so did the entire bus work force so they let me smoke with them**

See where we are going yet??

Basically, we get a call out to the petrol storage area outside of an industrial estate where I live. 2 sets of gates, warning signs everwhere, and tanks full of arsonists nirvana everywhere.

Who gets out of the support truck next to the site manager, and 3 staff - and tries to look earnestly at the skyline, pluck a Dunhill from the packet and light the twunting thing (with hazard warning signs, no naked flame signs etc everywhere)??

They rugby tackled my arse to the floor - being called a dumb shit by the guys who back at the depot didn't do much for my confidence for a while.
(Growbag Pointless, Fri 19 Mar 2010, 15:57, Reply)

A friend of a friend of a friend
of a friend etc, believed that if you were in a hot air balloon, and it failed whilst hundreds of feet above ground, sending the basket and its occupants plummeting to their QUICK BUT MESSY DEATHS, you would all right "as long as you jumped out just before it hit the ground."

Dktr S
(Dr Skagra glorious glargzhem, Fri 19 Mar 2010, 15:53, 10 replies)

You're making that up
I witnessed this:
A business analyst explaining to a marketing person about how we derived some clever bit of functionality.

"So we take all the locational data and using an algorithm plot set the zoom level of the map."

Marketing person
"You just made that up!"

Analyst
"What? What did I make up?" (looks slightly hurt)

Marketing person
"Algorithm - that's not a real word!
( Razor What the fuck - a sig?, Fri 19 Mar 2010, 15:53, 1 reply)

this is your mind off drugs
a friend of mine once worked in a job that required a driver.
his driver for this particular evening was alan, a thoroughly nice bloke in his late sixties. he arrived at my mate's house a little early, so he came in for a cuppa. my friend's brother was there, along with myself and my friend's partner. friend's brother was rolling a joint. alan watched him putting the weed in, rolling and licking the joint, then putting the roach in.
"my, that's a long cigarette," alan remarks. "is it a capstan?"
i know he's never smoked, but still, wtf?
( Smash Monkey lowering the tone of the whole internet, Fri 19 Mar 2010, 15:53, Reply)

What's in a name
A close relative is a head teacher at a small North Yorkshire primary school. She has commented how in recent years the names of some of her charges have become more and more bizarre. Or at least in terms of the spelling and pronunciation.

Things came to a head just before Christmas when she was angrily confronted by the mother of one child at the end of a day.

"Can you PLEASE get my daughter's name right, she is coming home very confused. Stop calling her Siobhan, her name is Sigh-Oh-Ban."
(TalkbackStuck making obscene phonecalls since, Fri 19 Mar 2010, 15:49, 11 replies)

Germany's legal system is very different to our own
I have an ex, and her name will be withheld for now.

I was talking about the way laws change between different European countries, "for example, in Germany, public drunkeness is met with a small tax refund".

"Really?"

"Oh yes. It's because the German economy relies so strongly on beer."

I had her convinced for a while. It's not fair cos she wasn't stupid, she was just a bit gullible. I still hold it up as one of my finest moments though.
(StapMyVitals wouldn't mind a bit of that, Fri 19 Mar 2010, 15:49, Reply)

Dinosaurs
I was at my ex-girlfriend's house a few years back. her granddad had popped in for a cuppa and chinwag. To show how long ago this was, we had recently watched a video (or DVD - I can't remember now!) of Jurassic Park. GF's Dad says to grandad "It was a really good film Len, do you want to take it and watch it"?

In his cockney drawl he declines, saying it is all a bit far fetched, and that he only really likes films that are true to life, and not into that science fiction stuff.

"But, you know - cloning, DNA engineering - it's not really that far fetched is it?" GF's Dad retorts.

"Maybe, but Dinosaurs? Come on, that's as bad as Aliens and Ghosts isn't it".......
(Growbag Pointless, Fri 19 Mar 2010, 15:46, Reply)

The finest legal minds...
...in a seminar on my MA Law course, and one of my peers comments that "isn't the moon bright this evening".

Eyes followed her gaze and there was silence.

Until someone broke the spell, "That's the sun".
(Garnett, Fri 19 Mar 2010, 15:44, 2 replies)

Not the most stupid, but the most recent.
I sometimes wonder if these places only have the outward-bound line.

*Actual phone call

- Hello, I'm calling from ****.
- Ok?
- Do you have a website?
- Yes, I'm a web-designer.
- Do you need a website, though?
- ... No, I'm a web-designer...
- So, you wouldn't be interested in a website then?
- Ngnn

In those situations I'm sure the intention is to stupify people into letting them unwind their sales speil regardless. I'm waiting for a phone call where some sparky young thing offers to breathe for me. It's just a mater of time.
(wasps Optic Cockles, Fri 19 Mar 2010, 15:39, 2 replies)

Managed to convince a friend of mine
that the "boom operator" on the film credits was the guy who set off the explosives.

Also, I tried the "between me and my brother, we know everything" joke on her, and actually told her that my brother knew about 6 things in a row before finally explaining the joke.
(Axeman Jim, Fri 19 Mar 2010, 15:38, Reply)

New fangled fax technology
A colleague asked me if she should take a copy of her fax because she thought it would disappear down the fax line.
(Jose Rodriguez, Fri 19 Mar 2010, 15:37, Reply)

The Young Ones
WE were watching the University Challenge episode of the Young Ones,when my missu turned to me and asked...

"Who was Monk D'Wally D'Honk anyway?"

*open mouthed & lost for words*
( Fathter Puddytat Kill Kill dat widdle boid is mine on, Fri 19 Mar 2010, 15:35, 1 reply)

Taxi driver ....
The fiance and I going home in a taxi one night after an evening at the local boozer. Accompanied by his guide dog and my white stick, so it's fairly obvious we're not exactly endowed in the eyesight department.
I say, "Are you hungry ? I'm starving."
"Yeah," says he, "What have you got that I can eat ?"
I consider my mainly empty fridge and reply with a laugh, "Well, I had a 15 kilogram sack of dog food delivered today."
He laughs at the joke.
Then the taxi driver says, straight faced, "Do you ever get your food mixed up with the dog's and eat dog food by mistake ?"
We are momentarily stunned by this ignorance (or at the assumption that someone could believe "blind" equates with "genuinely stupid") and then I say, with a valiant (I thought) effort to remain polite, "Well, no, because out food doesn't come in a huge sack, for a start ..."

I find it scary that someone so utterly mong-some is in charge of a motor vehicle !
(womanwhocanonlylivewithdogs, Fri 19 Mar 2010, 15:33, 5 replies)

Blame it on the jetlag
When Ballunatic and I were travelling back from Tokyo to Birmingham in 2005, we had to change flights in Paris. We had been flying for 10.5 hours already and had managed very little sleep. For it to be evening again when we were re-boarding the plane at Charles De Gaulle was very confusing for me.

Settling into my miniscule seat, I turned to Ballunatic and said "Remember that time in Tokyo, when X happened?". He replied

"Yes. It was this morning."

It ruddy was as well. I looked a plum duff!
(Mrs Ballunatic counting calories, not votes., Fri 19 Mar 2010, 15:29, Reply)

One from the ex.
We were both playing poker at the time and discussing percentages. She then pops up with "What's 5% of 100?"

Automatically, I answer before realising just what the hell she said. It wouldn't have been funny if it wasn't for the fact she has A Levels in Maths.

She's now a teacher. That school is doomed!
(TheUnthinkingMinority needs some new music to listen to., Fri 19 Mar 2010, 15:25, Reply)

On phone to a restaurant
Me: Hello, I'd like to reserve a table for Friday night please.
Him: We can reserve a table for you, sir, but we can't guarantee that it will be available.
Me: Well then it's scarcely a reservation then, is it?
Him: Well, sir, Friday nights are very busy here.
Me: I know. That's why I'm trying to reserve a table.
(Axeman Jim, Fri 19 Mar 2010, 15:22, 1 reply)

What do you say when
someone reckons that a kid threatened with a knife at school should be allowed by the staff to carry one themselves for their own protection?

Also, that torture is perfectly justified when interrogating possible terrorists ("so, they were *all* confessed terrorists then?" "Yep.")?

I'm thinking of someone who, in his early twenties, has only just learnt how to use a can opener. "Just", as in "they can just about use it", as well as "very recently".

"but it doesn't work! The lid dropped into the soup! Surely that's not meant to happen! It must be broken."
Somethings broken all right.
(Naughtius Maximus Stuck on the blog, desperate to log out., Fri 19 Mar 2010, 15:19, Reply)

Italy
The missus once asked me if Milan was the capital of Italy.

Wouldn't have been so bad but we'd just got off a train at Rome station and were stood under a sign which said "Welcome to Rome - the capital of Italy" in 4 different languages.


I had a moment in Biology in Year 11. We were dissecting cow's eyeballs and I didn't think that my scalpel was particularly sharp so I tested it on my palm.

It still gets a bit twingey when it's cold but on the plus side I've got an extra-long luck line.
(Milo Minderbinder, Fri 19 Mar 2010, 15:09, Reply)

Omaha
Last summer me and a friend Scotty travelled across the wilderness that is the usa. One night we stopped in a small town/city called Omaha we stopped at the mall and went to get a TGI Fridays two amazing things happened in here.

Me - can we have a table for two please.
Them - where are you guys from?
Scotty - Manchester
One of the waitresses - Madagascar?
Scotty - no Manchester England.
The same waitress - ahh i knew Madagascar wasn’t a real place



At the same place the same waitress asked if we had this new thing called pasta before.

- Mid America fun! -
(t3hgeneral, Fri 19 Mar 2010, 15:01, Reply)

Sexual Ignorance
A few years back I was indulging in drunken conversation with a lady friend when inevitably the subject matter turned to sex, and in particular, our favourite things to get up to in the bedroom. Having confessed to enjoying having her nipples lightly bitten, her labia being stroked with lace and to loving the sensation of frozen peas being pushed against her pulsating pussy, Melody was eager for me to regale tales of what I had got up to the bedroom and what I enjoyed the most. For the next half hour or so, I went into great detail of what had really got me going between the sheets, and mentioned the following:

Beetroot Enema – I had first tried this at the tender age of 16 with my first proper girlfriend, an 18 year old gypsy girl named Rosie, who was born an hermaphrodite. She would blend up 4 or 5 beetroot, mix in some ginger, and then induce the liquefied goodness into my rectum using a hose pipe and a bike pump. Then slightly burning sensation was, well, sensational, and in no time my burping worm would be engorged and ready for action. I explained to Melody that I had indulged in beetroot enemas a fair few times since.

The Lizard – Wendy Halflove, the girl I left Rosie for, suffered from extreme psoriasis. Nothing gave her greater pleasure than me rubbing a pumice stone all over her naked body. Her toes would curl, and she would dig her fingernails into my shoulders as she came; I wouldn’t even have to enter her, it was the pumice that did all the work. This made sex less of a chore for me; I would merely have a wank once she was ‘finished’. However, I would be covered in flaky skin at the time, resembling a giant lizard. I have always made sure I have pumice in my top drawer since. Melody seemed confused by this but I carried on....

Floater – Quite simple really, I had some great experiences with a 24 stone gothic woman named Medusa. I would take a bath, and she would squat on the side and defecate into the water. The thing that turned me on the most was watching the foul faeces leave her; it was the way her buttocks would slowly separate and the brown goodness would appear, like a tiny mole poking its head out of the ground. I would listen intently and she strained and lay back blissfully as another bog-trout joined me for a swim. Medusa also introduced me to the wonderful world of sploshing, although sometimes the sessions would be cut short and she seemed to have an overwhelming urge to eat most of the food.

Month-OId Water Balloon – This is something that really got one of my exes horny. I had dated Abigail when I was 20 and at the time it didn’t do anything for me, but since I have had many a wank about it. For one month, I knew that every morning would begin with a blow job. First though, I was made to go for a piss, but not shake off much of the excess. Abigail loved it when my foreskin retracted and a few droplets of urine escaped and trickled down my shaft. She would then work me into a frenzy with her mouth, using her hand to aid the process. I was under strict orders to ejaculate into her mouth, which I did. She would then spit the contents of her mouth into a small sandwich bag, put an elastic band on it to seal, and place under her bed. She did this every days, for 30 days, until she had enough of my putrid spunk in the bag for the next stage of her fetish. This simply involved me throwing the bag at her so the contents would explode all over her. By now, Melody was looking perplexed.

The Matisse – Denise Glover, a 40-something I picked up one night at my local introduced felt pens to my nocturnal activities. We would draw pictures on one another’s intimate areas with the pens; it was fantastic foreplay. I remember drawing a face on each of her breasts once, using her hardened nipple as the nose. Denise would write naughty words such as ‘cock’ on my stomach, and then draw an arrow to my actual cock. Alongside this, she would write poems about what she was going to do with it. It was great fun, although I was caused great embarrassment in a public toilet one time, when the gentleman next to me spotted my fluorescent orange bellend which I had forgot to clean. After sex, we would clean the filthy words off each other in the shower, which often resulted in more sex. This led to more foreplay, and the felt pens would come out again. It was a vicious circle; we once had sex for 72 hours non-stop.

I looked at Melody, having poured out my most personal sexual experiences. “Have you tried any of them?”, I asked. Melody looked dumbstruck, and her jaw dropped a little.

“Erm, no”, she wimpered.

No?! No?! I couldn’t believe it! She’d never even heard of the sexual practices I’d mentioned, despite being sexually active herself! What an amazing display of ignorance on her part.
(Monkey the Chicken Twitter: death_stairs, Fri 19 Mar 2010, 14:54, 11 replies)

Cat noses...
I once told my sister (aged about 15 at the time) that velvet was made of cat's noses. They killed them, cut the noses off, and stitched them all together to make velvet. And that was why velvet was usually black. She still believes it to this day (in her 20s). Sigh.
( Bathory, Fri 19 Mar 2010, 14:48, Reply)

tonyhrx has got me thinking... and I don't expect it to end well
OK: so electrical current flows from positive to negative; meanwhile, the electrons flow from negative to positive.

Electrons have mass. Not much, but some. They'll be influenced by gravity.

Presumably, then, this means that they flow downhill just a tiniest bit faster. pari passu, this implies that current flows a little bit faster uphill.

So here's my ignorant question: would it be more efficient to build power stations in valleys?
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Fri 19 Mar 2010, 14:43, 14 replies)

Electrical gravity
My sister was doing her nut in one day. She was looking at the wheel in the electricity meter, which was whizzing around like the clappers. So she decided to turn EVERYTHING off in the house to see what was using all the electricity.

So she turns every thing off, and the wheel is still spinning.

Frustrated, and some hours later she decides to phone the electricity company.

After a fruitless conversation, the electricity person asks where the meter is located.

"In the basement!" says my sister.

"Ahh. That's where the problem is" replies the electricity woman.

"When you turn off the electricity, it take a bit of time for the electricity to sink back down the wires to the basement, and that's why the wheel is still spinning."
(tonyhrx, Fri 19 Mar 2010, 14:39, 3 replies)

Not sure if this should be classed as ignorance, but seeing as so many on here are also just momentary stupidity...
We were at a wedding and sat at the table where, after the meal, I kept seeing lots of people get up and walk round a corner and not come back for ages. So I ask the wife:

Me: What's round that corner?
Mrs Fuxtix: I think it's the entrance to the outside.
Me: Erm, so you mean the "exit" then?

Another instance of the wife not saying the right thing was at her work where apparently she was being rather fussy about some new designs of a product:

Colleague: You being a bit anal over this.
Mrs Fuxtux: Yeah, well I like anal.

Cue guffaws around the office and one very embarrassed wife.
(FUXTIX Not my words, Carol, Fri 19 Mar 2010, 14:29, 2 replies)