I used to work in The accomodation blocks for Birmingham University during my uni summer holidays, doing maintenance work to get the rooms ready for the new students to start.

One day I was in the office and took a call from the well-spoken parent of a soon-to-be student. It went something like this:


me: Hello?

parent: Ah hello there, my daughter moves into your accommodation shortly, but we were wondering, how long is Fresher's Week?

me: Erm, it lasts about a week, madam.

parent: Oh, err, ok! Bye!
*click*


Superb.
(NuFab, Wed 24 Mar 2010, 22:49, 3 replies)

Before departing for Glastonbury one year
my friend gave his bank card to his mum. It was before the days you would be able to get a cash machine there and he didn't want it in his wallet in case he lost it.

"Put that somewhere safe for me, until I get back please," he said.

So she stuck it to the fridge with a magnet for the weekend.
( Mystery_Bob, Wed 24 Mar 2010, 22:35, Reply)

In a Tesco Metro...
I heard a teenage girl shout across the shop: 'what do potatoes look like?'

(sorry for lack of length)
(Scary, Wed 24 Mar 2010, 21:59, 1 reply)

A friend of mine used to see a girl
who was a walking stereotype. Blond, Air Hostess, about as intelligent as a bowl of Weetabix. I would feel bad for making fun of her, but she was an unpleasant bitch as well.

She displayed her ignorance many times, but the one that really got me was a conversation that went...

"So where have you been flying this week?"

"Oh - just back and forward to Italy"

"Where abouts in Italy?"

"Amsterdam"

I feel sorry for the passengers if she is ever responsible for evacuating her plane.
( Mystery_Bob, Wed 24 Mar 2010, 21:56, 1 reply)

Foreign Dosh
One weekend, not so long ago one of my chums and I traveled up to Scotland for a wedding. It also happened to be the first time said friend had been to this particular corner of Britain.
Once we'd arrived at our hotel we wandered to a nearby petrol station to stock up on pot noodles. After paying for my provisions I look round for my friend who it would seem was reluctant to approach the counter, and was looking decidedly nervous.
Me: "What are you doing? Come on!"
Friend: *looks sheepish*
Me: "Well? What are you waiting for?????"
Friend: "I'm confused... can you use normal money here?"

Uhhh...?!
(Peek_a_Boo forgot how fun B3ta was until, Wed 24 Mar 2010, 21:54, Reply)

Daft:
My 26 year old other half currently believes that Gherkins are pickled Sea-Cucumbers. My sister, until the age of 18, believed that Haggis were small furry animals, who lived in the branches of trees in the Highlands, and that they could only be shot during the 'Haggis Open Season', which began on Burns Night! I despair...
(Bob Frapples is de-lurking on, Wed 24 Mar 2010, 21:38, 3 replies)

Ambiwlans - Has dumbing down gone too far?
For those of you that don't know pistonheads - I posted this:

I saw this yesterday near Scun.thorpe (for the swear filter) - has dumbing down gone too far?



Or have I missed something?

www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&t=519297

And have spent nearly two years having the piss taken out of me...

I am a moron. It's official.
(james_tiger_woods is going to start his killing spree on the, Wed 24 Mar 2010, 21:25, 10 replies)

Checkout excellence
...occurred on Saturday in M&S. The belt wasn't moving, so the industrious trainee reached and stretched progressively further along it to retrieve the assorted groceries. I reached across and moved the plastic that was obstructing the beam that switches the belt on and off.

She smiled, I think in gratitude, although her ability to utter the phrase 'thank you' was I fancy disabled by her belief that she looked upon a sort of god...
(Good old boy just like yer grandma!, Wed 24 Mar 2010, 21:24, Reply)

Hiking in the New Forest when i was a scout
John who was taking us on the hike had brought along his girlfriend
so when i wake up and go to the fire i smell burning rubber and say

me "Can you smell burning rubber? what would that be from?"
John "probably a bottle"
me "Cool im going to see if its melted"
John "Best if you dont do that"

took me awhile...
( Gawain the oven safe flan tin willy bum fart poo, Wed 24 Mar 2010, 20:43, 1 reply)

Cheddar Gorge
I was once in a moderately unsuccessful band. Our moment in the sun came when we were invited to be the opening act for the Michael Jackson experience, an event taking place in Exeter City FC stadium. Anyway, we had to drive from Hatfield to Exeter, passing signs for the famous (in the UK) “Cheddar Gorge” on the M5. Pointing out the sign, we manage to convince our 22 year old singer that "this is where all Cheddar Cheese was mined". “Where did you think it came from?” we laughed at him, "from a cow?". He believed cheese was mined at Cheddar Gorge for about a week. He also picked up some very inferior porn when sent him procure some from a service station.
(smarty_pants, Wed 24 Mar 2010, 20:41, Reply)

Merkins again
Tourist came into the local one day taling loudly to his mate.

"I've just been to the bar next door, they're selling some goddam awful fake Czech Budweiser, they can't even spell it properly".
(Yellow Car is now red, Wed 24 Mar 2010, 20:29, 3 replies)

Eddie Izwho?
BBC3 is just showing Eddie Iz Running, the program about Eddie Izzard running 43 marathons

My (idiot) son has just said "I swear his name is Eddie Izzard not Eddie Izrunning"

I swear that nothing in this country is going to work when the next generations are in charge of it.....
(jono_h, Wed 24 Mar 2010, 20:08, 14 replies)

Today at work
I was at the printer talking to a colleague of mine who is a lovely man and not generally prone to acts of rampant stupidity. He told me he had just stood holding a door open for a wheelchair-bound colleague and got quite miffed when he refused to go through it. Apparently it had taken him a good 30 seconds or so to click that the door he was holding led to (and only to) the stairwell.
( yes yes yes man oi mate, someone's writtten 'bum' on your neck, Wed 24 Mar 2010, 19:35, 1 reply)

Danny
First posting ever, be gentle...Ignorance in the context of "completely ignorant of how the world actually works, and what anything actually is".

Wavy lines back to about 1980, when we were 16~~~~~~~~~

Me and my pals Dave, Tom and Paddy were off camping for the weekend in deepest darkest Yorkshire, in a field up near Grassington. Much fun, especially waking up piss-wet through at the lowest part of the tent where it leaked during the night, but fun indeed. And Paddy meeting Bendy Brenda was quite amusing also. Anyhoo, we were joined by Paddy's brother Danny, and his mate Horlicks (who only ever ate seeds. Strange chap).
Now, Danny was a lovely feller, friendly, eager to please, and thick as twelve toilet seats nailed together. Examples of "Derr" included ...

Walking through the gorgeous Yorkshire Dales, and announcing with heartfelt sincerity "This is a real field, this is".

Believing that we might have been trespassing (on a public bridleway), advising us what to do should anyone coming along actually see us "Just tell 'em we're looking for Jim". Nope, none of us has ever known anyone called Jim.

Describing his recent adventure visiting North Wales instead of meeting his pals as arranged in Blackpool ...
"Well, I were at the station and the train came in and I thought it were going to Blackpool."
"So, Danny, what did it say on the destination notice on the board on the front of the train? "
"Dunno, something in Welsh"
"So why did you get on it? "
"'Cos I thought it were Welsh for Blackpool".

Ah me, happy days. He married Dave's sister in law in the end. Bless.
(WaveyDavey, Wed 24 Mar 2010, 19:18, 4 replies)

Ignorance of celebrity
is something I wholeheartedly approve of.

My dad just cheered me right up a few minutes ago whilst watching a documentary about Judas Priest on TV.

"Listen to his voice. He sounds just like Jamie Lee Curtis" he said.

"Eh?" He didn't sound anything like her.

"No, no, I mean Tommy Lee Jones."

Again, I stared blankly.

"Him that does Oops TV."

That'll be Justin Lee Collins, then.
( baw__bag contains traces of nuts on, Wed 24 Mar 2010, 19:10, 3 replies)

Rubber trees...
Not mine but told to me by a Malaysian van driver on the way from Penang to Teman Negara rainforest.
He had been taking an American tour party on a similar trip when they drove past a rubber plantation (Imagine neat rows of thin trees tapped for their resin).

"Wow, your forests here are so well organiZed" commented a woman from the tour party.

"Oh no, those are rubber trees" the tour guide replied

"Rubber trees? They sure look real to me" said the woman as my tour guide applied hand to face...

That's how stereotypes begin.
(lurkylurklurk swings more, Wed 24 Mar 2010, 18:46, Reply)

I asked my sister
what she would like to do if she won the lottery.
She said "I'd like to become a property typhoon"
Then when I was finished laughing, "What? I think i'd be good at it!"
(Roopy all is not what it seams, Wed 24 Mar 2010, 18:42, Reply)

Chesterfield Man
Back when I was a fresh faced 16 year old I managed to get duped into joining a YTS. (£45 a week but the prospects when you complete your training are excellent yadda yadda). Despite being interested in admin work, I ended up working in a small independent photographic store. (I'm glad I did in the end as the boss was an utter legend who showed me many important things that were not included in the course training - like how to fuck about at work and get away with it. I once remember him addressing a little old lady who came in with a box brownie camera in a carrier bag asking if it was worth anything. This used to happen alot so when the old dear popped the carrier on the counter and asked 'I wondered if this was worth anything', Quint immediately said 'Sorry love, they're free if you walk upto Tesco' Predictable but fuckin pant wettingly hilarious if you're a 16 year old who's never dealt with the public. Quinton, if you ever read this, I owe you a lot!)

So, to the question in hand (eventually). Bear in mind the shop was laid out with numerous display cabinets filled with cameras, lenses, photographic paper etc. Basically, it looked like a camera shop cos that's what it was!

One Friday evening about ten to five and we're getting ready to close the shop. Some random bloke bursts through the doors with a pair of trousers over his arm, stops, looks around at all the equipment and says "Are you a tailors?". Awesome!

(Quint had his own name for this brand of customer, he called it Chesterfield Man, in reference to the caveman like stupidity and the unfortunate abundance of this type of customer in my home town.)
(jedi bastard, Wed 24 Mar 2010, 17:55, Reply)

0-idiot in 30 seconds...
When I was at college a classmate asked me what car I had.

"An Astra" I replied

"How big is the engine?" he asked

"Ooh, about, this big I suppose" says me, holding my hands about 3 feet apart....
(KatNap, Wed 24 Mar 2010, 17:24, 2 replies)

Words of Wisdom - Bush classics
Totally blagged but I couldn't think all of them, there are too many -

"The vast majority of our imports come from outside the country."
- George W. Bush

"If we don't succeed, we run the risk of failure."
- George W. Bush

"One word sums up probably the responsibility of any Governor, and that one word is 'to be prepared'."
- George W. Bush

"I have made good judgements in the past. I have made good judgements in the future."
- George W. Bush

"The future will be better tomorrow."
- George W. Bush

"We're going to have the best educated American people in the world."
- George W. Bush

"I stand by all the misstatements that I've made."
- George W. Bush

"We have a firm commitment to NATO, we are a part of NATO. We have a firm commitment to Europe, We are a part of Europe."
- George W. Bush

"I have my own, strong opinions - but I don't always agree with them."
- George W. Bush

"We are ready for any unforeseen event that may or may not occur."
- George W. Bush

"For NASA, space is still a high priority."
- George W. Bush

"Quite frankly, teachers at the only profession that teach our children."
- George W. Bush

"It isn't pollution that's harming the environment. It's the impurities in our air and water that are doing it."
- George W. Bush

And my all time favorite:

"Public speaking is very easy."
- George W. Bush

"Americans ARE sacrificing - i mean, we're paying a lot of taxes"
- George W. Bush
(bROKEN aRROW PUA HVI Master, Wed 24 Mar 2010, 16:47, 9 replies)

A young lady by the name of Gemma
I told her I was going to my brother's New Year's Eve party.

"Ooh. When's he having that?"

Face. Palm.
(Miraclefish How appropriate, you fight like a cow, Wed 24 Mar 2010, 16:33, 1 reply)

I might sue her for making my head hit the desk at that speed...
I'm friends at Uni with a girl whom I shall respectfully nickname 'C'.

Now, C is a 22 year old, third-year law student who successfully managed to live and work in a South American country for a year when she was 18, and who will be going to do a (part time) postgraduate law course in that London in September. She has a good part-time job working in the legal department of a bank, and has been headhunted to manage a team in a bank when she's in London. When she is qualified, she plans to go work on Death Row appeals in America.

She asked me how many thirds were in a whole last week.
(BelladonnaAnodyne Melissa's gonna wet herself, I swear..., Wed 24 Mar 2010, 16:32, Reply)

My cousin grew up in the Black Sea region.
Now I probably need to explain first: all the jokes that the Brits have about the Irish, the Germans about the East Frieslanders, etc, the Turks have about the people from the Black Sea. They are known for setting up signs by the roadside saying "rest area and cafe 100 m behind you." You get the drift.

Now my fair cousin imbibed a fair portion of that genius, and also inherited a lot from "that" side of the family. We lived together for a while when at university and were known for eating well, even in the mornings. So it came to pass that we got up one morning, tired and sleepy (and possibly hungover), and she offered to boil eggs.
"OK", I said, disappearing to the bathroom, "remember the boiling time is eight minutes."

Note here: this is for those gourmands like myself who like the white real solid and the yolk still liquid. Chuck the little buggers in the boiling water with a little pinprick in their bums against cracking, lift'em out in 8 x 60 seconds. 9 if they are very big or directly out of the freezer. 7 if they are tiny.

Anyhoo.

A quick shower, dry-off and make-up session later, I wandered into the kitchen to see the water bubbling merrily in the pot. And the eggs abandoned on the kitchen table.

"Why didn't you cook those?" I asked.

Her answer?

"You said the water had to boil for eight minutes..."

Not quite awake yet, sure, but. Still. Boiling the egg water for eight minutes?

Edit: It has just come to my attention...
that a freezer "freezes."
I should probably have called it a fridge.
Ah well. Time to go smoke a homosexual male.
(joansie, Wed 24 Mar 2010, 16:04, 3 replies)

It's all done wiv magnets, innit?
We were talking one night about the Earth's magnetic field, and how it periodically reverses polarity. One lad was strugling to keep up. As we wondered if the field decreases to nothing as it flips, he saw his chance to make a contribution.

"I hope not, otherwise we'd all fly off into space!!"

We looked at him, gave ha-yeah-good-joke kind of nods. He looked back blankly. He was serious. He really did think, bless him, that we, and everything else on Earth, was held in place by magnetism.
(North Utsira South Utsira, Wed 24 Mar 2010, 15:58, Reply)

American Electorate
We were promised hope, change, the most transparent and ethical administration ever. We were promised no lobbyists, and bipartisanship. We were promised that America would be proud. We were told the war would end, domestic spying would end and jobs for everyone. It was a new day! Hallelujah! Some looked to his lack of business, administrative and legislative experience and cautioned against creating a cult of personality; they noted his dearth of military experience and his open association with racists and terrorists.

What we got was staggering unemployment, a cabinet full of tax cheats and lobbyists, deals cut behind closed doors to buy (with taxpayer money) the allegiance of the weak. The war was put into overdrive using the same policies that were decried for two years on the campaign trail; domestic spying actually increased and we were promised there was no expectation of privacy in mobile phones, email or social networking: something that would have led to the lynching of his predecessor.

Anything bad that happened was blamed on his predecessor, even though he spent two years saying that despite those issues HE HAD A PLAN to remedy the same. It seems like the plan was to put his buddies in power, a little elite politburo that mocked the blue collar, gave money to friendly corporations (read: political contributors), vilified opposing corporations until they paid their extortion money and bowed to every tin pot dictator known to man (but not the Queen, ohhh no).

Stupid poetic justice!
( BrokenCoccyx doesn't mind if you grope on, Wed 24 Mar 2010, 14:49, 35 replies)

And another one.
I see some daft things at work, one of my favorites;
Young lad came in to the shop to ask if we had anything that would take scratches out of his (motorcycle) helmet. Upon seeing the helmet some more explaination was needed.
"How did you scratch it this bad- all over?"
"I washed it. In a washing machine."


Had a similar one when a mother was in with her son buying him a helmet.
"Don't go scratching your name in it like all the other kids."
WTF?
( Blind Meach Cautiously optimistic, Wed 24 Mar 2010, 14:42, Reply)

Finally- I remembered this one.
This was in a G.C.S.E. exam (geography). My friend M and I were not really 'into' school, particularly when it came to geography.
One of the questions was "Name one of the principal uses of iceburgs."

His answer, in all seriousness, was....





Ice cubes.
( Blind Meach Cautiously optimistic, Wed 24 Mar 2010, 14:35, 14 replies)

Merkins
A few years ago I was on holiday off the coast of Florida. My kids befriended a 15 year oldish American lad, from quite a well-to-do family. After discovering we were from England he said to me, "speak some England to me."
"What do you think we're speaking now?" I said.
"English" he replied.
"Well where do you think English comes from then?" I asked.
His reply?
"Well, I'm from California and that's where English is spoken."


.
(MichaelLinge (ywc), Wed 24 Mar 2010, 14:26, 6 replies)

Stereotype?
Was working on a building site and had to move some manhole covers. An old Irish bloke was helping me lift them into a van.
"It's not the weight of them - it's just that they're so damn heavy" he said in all seriousness.
(MichaelLinge (ywc), Wed 24 Mar 2010, 14:18, Reply)

Another school tale from the enlightened east of London
Oh dear, once upon a time in geography we were dealing with grasslands comparatively in South America, Africa, central and eastern Europe. We were looking at composition and types of grasses. Welshman was yakking on, and got the teacher`s attention, "You, Davies, If we are looking at a green field of grass, can you tell me what we might call any brown we see here?" "PATS? miss". Cue laughter including her.

Clarkie got done in a lesson on the middle east`s political geography , Israel v Palestine " What does PLO stand for?" "Port`o London Orfority?". Mind you he was confused by the term Persian gulf and asked "they play that there then?".

Those 3 events did happen It took 20 minutes to remember the wording of the last,edited after several iterations.
(tootired Is searching for a funny sig, nothing good so far, Wed 24 Mar 2010, 13:43, Reply)