My Bloody (Cheap) Valentine
It was February 2006. I had been with my girlfriend for nearly four years. She was from Archangel in Northern Russia. She was funny, clever, and very pretty, and I hadn't even needed to buy her off the internet!

To give a little bit of background, she was the daughter of, what I subsequently discovered to be an arms dealer (could have been worse, I assumed he was Mafia). He owns a house in Archangel, a flat in Moscow, an apartment in Paris, and a small chateau in the South of France.

They rub shoulders with French aristocracy, high ranking members of African governments, and he has a permanent account with the Sultan of Brunei's favourite taxidermist.

What I'm saying is, not exactly begging for loose change in the street.

Lovely people though, they always made me feel very welcome, and very drunk. Her dad was slightly prone to ostentatious displays of his wealth, but that I took as characteristic of his poverty-stricken upbringing turning to post-Soviet prosperity fairly rapidly.

They seemed pleased that I was making their daughter happy, and had brought her out of her shell a fair bit, as she was very shy when we met.

Unfortunately, four years in the relationship had started to get, if not stale, then definitely slightly brittle.

Tempers were frayed a lot of the time, and each other's little quirks and foibles that we had found endearing in the early stages, now lurked just below the surface, like floaters in a festival loo.

For instance, she would pull me up on drumming on my knees along to a song.
I would question her need to wear a jumper in bed.

"Christ sake woman, you're from Russia! Doesn't it get down to -40° there?"

"It's different kind of cold!"

I'd been drinking heavily, her mood swings were becoming worse and worse. She would criticise my lack of ambition, that I wasn't more romantic, and my cynicism amongst other things.

I thought, Right! I really want to salvage this. I'll pull the stops out for Valentine's Day. Now this was a momentous decision for me. I hate all Hallmark holidays with the same venom I reserve for paedophiles, rapists, and Kerry Katona.

I booked a table at our favourite restaurant, I bought her flowers, a box set of Nina Simone who she really liked, chocolates, wine, and a massive card with bunnies and all cutesey shit that she used to coo over.

On the day, I watched, proud as an expectant father, as she opened the gifts. I poured a glass of wine, basking in my own glow, and then told her I had the table booked.

She fairly beamed, gave me a kiss that was certainly the most passionate she had deemed to bestow upon my unworthy countenance in some time, and produced a small parcel, wrapped fastidiously, with a little bow on top.

To my shame, I did the full 'Oh, you shouldn't have...I really wasn't expecting..' charade. I may even have gushed a little (not like that you dirty fuckers, I wasn't that excited).

I opened it with maximum respect, teasing myself a little, my breathing becoming slightly ragged both in anticipation, and arousal from the kiss.

I finally removed the presesnt from it's packaging. Was it jewellery, a nice chain perhaps? A pricey hipflask? A decoratve paperweight? A scale model of the Ground-Effect Lotus '79?

It was.....

Hands trembled, eyes widened.


......a block of cheese.

Now, in all fairness, despite all the evidence to the contrary above, I'm not materialistic.
I hadn't expected anything amazing, particularly expensive or dazzling.

But a block of fucking cheese?

On inspection, it was particularly nice cheese.
It was stilton with cranberries, encased in a thick red wax in the shape of a loveheart, suggesting some thought had gone into it. It was a good cheese, a fragrant cheese, a cheese you would present to visiting royalty and assorted dignitaries.

Still a cunting block of fucking bastarding cheese though!

I feigned delight, I hugged the love of my life with every iota of enthusiasm I could muster from my shocked core, kissed her perhaps a little too hard, and led her to the bedroom (making sure I got something out of this unmitigated disaster).

Typing this, I feel like a right ungrateful sod, as she had put thought into it, but I was still gutted like a turkey in Bernard Matthews' kitchen.

Length? Two months after that incident.
( Boss Keloid Got your mother's maiden name tattooed on my arm, Tue 28 Oct 2008, 21:13, 24 replies)

I have a friend
who never pays for a round when we go to the pub as she says she doesn't earn that much working in a fetish club as a submissive.

Well, she's always complaining that she's strapped for cash.

/coat.
(Rakky (forgot her password) The muffin maverick, Fri 24 Oct 2008, 12:32, 12 replies)

My nan...
Years ago, I guess I was about 12, I went to visit my Nan for dinner, but for some reason I was running late, so by the time I let myself in, she was already eating, and, honestly, this plate of meat she was eating was huge, absolutely huge, and my Nan was only a skinny old thing. I actually commented on the size of her meal.

‘I know, but by the time I got in, I was so hungry I felt like I could eat a horse’ she said.

And to be fair, judging by the size of the plate she had, I almost believe that she actually was.

It seemed kind of odd though, because she’d been shopping with my Mum that afternoon and my mum had taken her to lunch at some chain tacky steakhouse thing, Bernies Grill or whatever and had come home moaning that my Nan had had the largest, most expensive steak on the menu. She said something like ‘I don’t know how she did it, but I may as well have just bought her the whole cow’.

Although thinking back, she always did have a voracious appetite, I remember when I was younger we’d been to a Jamaican market somewhere around Brent Cross or somewhere and she’d gone to a food stall and ordered a massive goat curry. At the time I found the idea of goat curry repulsive, but she scoffed it all down in seconds, literally just opened her throat and it was gone.

Still, I shouldn’t have been surprised that she ate the curry given that she lived near a Korean restaurant that was widely rumoured to sell dog meat if you had the right connections, and apparently my Nan did, or at least claimed she did, cos she was always bragging about eating it.

What with that and her willingness to eat take away from the cheapest Chinese on the street, I guess there was nothing that phased her. You know the type of take away I mean, where everyone believes that the serve cat instead of chicken.

What’s absurd is that she also had a taste for the finer things. If someone else was paying she loved nothing better than a stuffed pheasant or some other game bird. She could easily eat a whole one.

My favourite story though, was when she was on holiday somewhere exotic and came back saying she’d eaten tarantula. Christ, my stomach churned at the thought of eating a spider.

Shit, sorry, I am waffling, the point is, despite her food extravagances, she was as tight as a gnats proverbial, she refused to spend even the slightest amount of money on basic hygiene products for example, so her house was this filthy fly ridden dump of a place. Really disgusting, always things buzzing around your head, had to keep swatting them away from your mouth and stuff, it was grim.

When she died after, basically, eating herself to death, it was discovered that she had a tapeworm, hence her appetite.

And how had she contracted that tapeworm?

She’d swallowed a fly.
( scarpe We Stole Bikes, Fri 24 Oct 2008, 11:34, 18 replies)

Mum's looking after the pennies......
I was in the second year of high school getting changed back into my uniform after P.E. A quick glance around the changing room and I noticed that my shirt was a different shape round the bottom to everyone elses and it seemed to button the opposite way also. Left handed shirts? No. Mum had been sending me to school in my elder sister's old school blouses. Even taking the time to unpick her name tag out of the collar and sew mine in.

Fast forward a few years and I thought I'd be clever and raise the blouse issue at a family get together to highlight her tightwad ways. Shame it backfired as Mum countered my story by telling everyone that as well as wearing blouses at school, the "trunks" that I would wear to my swimming lessons when I was about 7 or 8 were infact hand-me-down bikini bottoms.

Scarred for life I tell thee!

*pop*
(smithe-ingelby-smithe, Mon 27 Oct 2008, 13:24, 6 replies)

Things were getting tight in B3taland

( TGB checking Off Topic is still shit at, Thu 23 Oct 2008, 17:45, 10 replies)

Revenge of the Bill Payer
I have never enjoyed talking on the phone, hate it in fact, but my two younger brothers (Steve & 'Detective' Des) took to the "wha y'doin?..naffin, wha y'doin...nowt. Wha y'doin after?.. school of phone usage like drugs to ravers. This was pre cellphone, so Dad stumped up for the Bill.

Anyhow, after another 250 quid quarterly bill from BT, my Dad snapped, and...

installed a payphone...
in the house....
in our front room!!

He soon figured that he could alter the time per pound rate, ramping it up so a quid lasted for a minute. So phone conversations for my Brothers became ..

Hi.. no!! SHUTTHEFUCKUP!! I'll see you in 20 at *beeepbeeepbeep* fuckfuckFUCKFUCK!!...DAAAAAAAD! (Steve puts another 10p in) "No Spooner SHUTTHEFUCKUP!! meet at Macdonalds in twenty.. Which one? The one in *beeepbeeepbeeep* fuckfuckFUCKINGCUNT!!"

This angst and frustration was just the ticket for my Dad. TV was replaced by watching the Brothers try and cram a 20 minute conversation into 10 seconds, made more difficult because they found it difficult to be heard over the sound of my Dad pissing himself laughing at them from the sofa.

We kept the payphone for a couple of years, my Dad still says its the most fun he ever had with us.
(micmac is happy as a pig in shite, Sun 26 Oct 2008, 4:55, 10 replies)

Fall From Gracies...
I was 12 and living rough in London. Most nights I dossed down with the large group of homeless guys by Waterloo Station; there is safety in numbers and it helps to keep warm if there are more of you. I got particularly friendly with this one guy who called himself Maggot. No one ever got a clear reason why he was called Maggot, but the rumour was it was because his willy was unusually small. Either way, it didn't matter to me, I'm not homosexual and neither was he. What I liked about him was he didn't drink. He was one person I could talk to sensibly. He kept me as grounded as was possible under the circumstances.
After a couple of months of pretty much only talking to each other we had best part of each other's life stories off each other. At sixteen, he'd had quite an interesting life so far. What captured my imagine the most were his tales of the orient. He used to tell me about Tibet an awful lot and, with his youthful exagerations, it sounded magical; this whole flat country up a mountain. A beautiful mystical kingdom in the sky. Eventually he got bored of me asking him to tell me the same stories night after night. He decided, he told me, that we would go there. Homeless and broke I asked him exactly how we would manage it and he proposed being stowaways. It seemed stupid at first. No one gets away with being a stowaway these days, surely. Well, when you have nothing to lose and are too young to get in any real legal bother, it is surprising how cocky you can be. Furthermore, if you are cocky enough, it is surprising what you can get away with.
The train ride was easy enough. We travelled mid day, and back then guards mostly only worked during rush hour. It was the boat that presented a problem.
We had chosen to bum around on boats until we got that far because, well, it was the only option; airports are far too secure to stowaway on planes. We went to Portsmouth dockyard first. It was a shockingly easy journey to France, but nowhere near as pleasant as the stowaway stories you read as kid make it seem. We hid in a container, it was as simple as that. We found an unlocked one and hid in it. We didn't know exactly where we'd end up, but we figured if we could get to Europe it's all landmass until the Orient so it had to be easy.
Well, between rat infested cargo containers, jumping on and off trains that were moving and not being able to beg for not knowinig the languages, it was not easy, but it was possible.
We got beaten up by xenophobic local homeless a few times and a few times we got accepted by them and given food and shelter. I turned thirteen in Turkey. I fell in love with a girl for the first time in Russia and I couldn't even talk to her. I travelled accross Kazakhstan without washing once. Which, frankly, seemed to be the way to do things there as a foreigner. Every white person I met there smelt of sweat and shit and had the lines in their faces brought out by the ground in dirt.
We'd had trouble eating in Kazakhstan due to food poisoning and things only got worse in China. There simply wasn't enough food for the people who lived there, let alone a couple of foreign homeless beggars. Maggot got sick. We were kids and we were scared and we didn't know what to do. We figured if we asked for help we'd get in trouble as we'd heard all sorts of horror stories about what happens to the homeless in China. Thinking he was dehydrated, we made sure he drank a lot, but the water was puddle water and, looking back, probably only made him sicker. He died in China. I had to leave his body where he died; an alley in China. I couldn't find the alley now if i wanted, I'm not even sure what town we were in. I've never known what happened to him. Frankly, the only interesting thing about him to whoever found him would have been that he was white. People died on the streets a lot there.
Suddenly, the adventure became very real. Up until then it had been a game. It had felt like I could wake up and it would all turn out to have been a dream. But not anymore. I was in China, with no means of getting home and no one to even talk to.
That was when I bumped into Bill Owen. I was asking anyone who looked vaguely English if they knew how to get to Tibet. The only person who talked to me, the only person who made eye-contact with me, even, turned out to be Bill Owen (Last Of The Summer Wine's Compo). It was freaky when I realised who he was. By then he was buying me breakfast in an English theme café. He got a cagey version of my story so far (I wasn't ready to tell ANYONE about Maggot, for example) and decided he'd take me to Tibet.
He was there on holiday in a camper van, essentially bumming about, so the trip to Tibet was no skin of his nose. Tibet, to my young eyes, did seem as magical as I'd imagined. In the gift shop on the way out, I asked Bill for a chocolate bar shaped like a roulette wheel that had "I went to bet in Tibet!" on the wrapper. They were reduced to 25p as they were short dated. He said "No", the tight arsed cunt.
( baldmonkey a frothy foul-smelling vaginal discharge, Fri 24 Oct 2008, 14:52, 13 replies)

Psycho Ex Story #8430753948
As some might know, I spent some time being blackmailed into a relationship by the spawn of satan in female form. Amongst her long, long list of negative attributes (which will not only fuel my qotw answers for weeks to come, but also keep most of Britain's psychiatrists, and maybe exorcists, in business as well) was her spectaular mean-spirited tightness.

Back at Uni, I was in a rather successful ska-punk band, which fizzled out a bit after graduation. Come the 2005 Indian Ocean Tsunami, I picked up a copy of a tabloid only to see the face of our trumpet player staring back at me from the front cover. Yes, he was missing, presumed dead somewhere in the Indian Ocean.

I had a word with our singer and we agreed to get the band back together as a tribute to him. More than that, our singer organised a whole load of bands to play in a largeish venue in Brixton that we had hired out. Entry was £4, plus £2 if you wanted a CD with the song we had recorded (as an irreverent ska-punk tribute) to him.

When we arrived at the venue it was an absolute wreck. A wild party had been thrown the night before and the floor was covered with rubbish, and the odd patch of vomit. The staff were nowhere to be seen so we spent three hours on our hands and knees getting it into acceptable condition. A few hours later, the audience and bands started to arrive, and we busied ourselves sorting out the sound and lighting for them, as we were due on stage last.

I'd just sorted out a glitch with the PA when someone came up to me and said there was a bit of a disturbance at the door and would I be so good as to sort it out as...

...oh no...

...it was my girlfriend causing it.

Yes, psycho bitch was refusing to pay and demanding to be let in on the grounds that she was only there to see one band (mine) and that as my girlfriend she should be let in free.

To a charity gig.
That I had put my back out to help organise.
That was a tribute to someone she knew quite well.

Add to that the fact that she was unemployed and I was subbing her money, so she was refusing to pay my charitable concern with my own cash, and swearing at the bouncers I had helped recruit (they were working for free) in the process.

To avoid a scene, I paid her admission myself. I'd never been so ashamed of her, and that's saying something, seeing as she'd once thrown a bowl of chili con carne at me at a friend's party because she thought I'd got myself more cheese on top than her (getting her own fucking chili, was, of course, out of the question).

And to cap it all, I took a look in her bag while she was distracted. She'd stolen one of the CDs.

p.s. the trumpet player turned up alive and well in India, lacking any memory of the past two weeks, because he'd spent the time boozing it up in every bar in Calcutta while the British Consulate tried to sort him out a passport and a trip home - all unknown to us or his family. He's now one of the very few people who own a copy of their own posthumous tribute single.
(Axeman Jim, Fri 24 Oct 2008, 23:20, 8 replies)

Granny karma
My gran is a miserable, tight fisted, mean spirited old boot who has made my mums life hell for the 25 years she has been married to my old man (it's his mum). She frequently dries out tea bags and re-uses them, scrapes the mould of a bit of bread and eats it and has been known to chow down on some of her dogs biscuits if she has nothing in the house to eat. She also used to try to feed me pedigree chum when I was a kid as it was all she could "afford". When, aged 7, I offered her my pocket money to buy some bacon she smacked the shit of me. Lovely woman.

Anyhoo, the old dear lives in a rather nice semi-detached house just outside of Glasgow, which my dad pays the mortgage on. Her next door neighbour is a lovely old lady known simply as Mrs Gibb (hi Mrs Gibb!). Every day Mrs Gibb toddles the half a mile or so down to the shops to get some groceries and her morning paper. Every morning, without fail, my gran goes through Mrs Gibbs bin for any bits and pieces which could be used, in particular the previous days paper. Yes, she is too tight fisted to pay the 35p or so for the current edition of a newspaper. Now I would like to point out here my dad gives her about £800 a month which she takes quite happily on top of her pension so she may not be stinking rich, but she certainly isn't poor. He also pays all her bills, phone, gas, leckie etc.

So, after about 2 years of silence being maintained between us, due to the dog food abuse, I thought I'd pay her a visit one morning. You know, have a cup tea and some dog biscuits, see if the old bitch has mellowed at all so I made the arrangements to call round the following morning.

The following day I made the journey over there. As I came up the driveway I became slightly aware of a soft banging sound coming from the side of Mrs Gibbs house. I decided to have a quick investigation, being the nosey sort and everything, only to be greeted by the sight of a large green, wheeley bin rocking back and forth, emitting muffled cries of help and a pair of 73 year old ladies legs waving frantically in the air.

Yup, she had been so keen to get to the day old newspaper and a half eaten bar of chocolate from the bottom of a bin she had fallen head first in there, and was unable to get out. I obviously pulled her out, which was rather difficult considering the pain I was in from laughing so much. She promptly told me to piss off before retrieving the paper and chocolate and walking back in to her house and locking herself in.

A touch harsh? Probably. Very amusing? Fuck yes.

Length? About 5 foot 5 whilst stuck in a bin.
(Holy Cremola Foam Batman will be back on, Sun 26 Oct 2008, 16:31, 10 replies)

right here we go...
I'll try not to rant (much). I have a problem with meanness. Not your Mr Trebus types who have known real suffering then spend the rest of their lives so damaged they're unable to throw anything away. www.guardian.co.uk/news/2002/oct/05/guardianobituaries Neither would I dare criticise anyone on a slender budget trying to eke their funds out appropriately – God (and the bank manager) only know I could do with some of that thriftiness. I’m the first to admit I am as my sister puts it a ‘scatter cash’. I earn a small fortune - all of which I invest in having a bloody good time. I know I’m rubbish with money but at least I know how to enjoy myself. Boom and Bust – ‘no pockets in a shroud’ ‘you’re a long time dead’ says I.

Tightwads? I hate the pettiness of it all - often causing embarrassment or offence over a few coppers. In fact (and this WILL annoy the tight arsed fuckers) if I’m tidying around I often chuck coppers in the bin. I hate the smelly pointless things – what’s worth buying that costs 1p? You're right – fuck all! No one is duped by 4.99 - it’s a bloody fiver. I hate copper coins. If it weren’t for the fact I’d look like an arrogant prick, I’d refuse them in my change. Those ‘leave a penny’ trays in garages are brilliant. As are charity tins. I know I’m not going to take the damn things back out of the house and the time it takes to count and bag a tenner’s worth of those fetid little buttons is time that frankly I am not prepared to waste.

Personally I can’t be arsed with designer trappings and all that crap, but I eat and drink well and enjoy a comfortable standard of living. I like cars for the driving pleasure "Oh! its only got two seats - its not very practical is it?" It’s my money why shouldn’t I? Isn’t that the reason we all slog away in jobs when we’d rather be sitting on a beach somewhere pleasantly expensive?

My real issue is with people who are simply mean just for the sake of it and really relish the miserable self-denying drudgery of it all. (like this bloke www.b3ta.com/questions/write.php?parent=286159 ) What is the point of a supposedly money saving activity that takes up more precious time and resource than the meager fiscal reward it generates? Gloating over a tenner saved annually by consistently fiddling 2p from every trip to the petrol station just singles you out as plain sad www.b3ta.com/questions/tightwads/post286023 hovering over the pump pissing off the queue behind just to get just that extra 2p for free. Life is actually too damn short. I simply can’t understand the attitude of those who scrimp their dull little lives away, swathed in Rigsbyesque knitwear shuffling around gloomy damp homes only to leave the loot to some bunch of crass distant relatives who immediately spunk it on UPVC faux Georgian conservatories and trips to Torremolinos – which no doubt would have the (newly) poor old stiff whirling in their laminate 'budget' coffin grave had they known what would happen to their carefully accrued funds.

But they are NOT harmless old goats. For example - people who don’t tip appropriately don’t deserve to eat out. I live in Dubai now, it’s a real eye-opener – it seems to bring out the worst in people. There are rich people here sure, but its the tightwads that would love it. Labour is dirt cheap. There is also a very apparent class structure (people can also be quite openly racist). But the penny pinching abuse of those who can be abused is staggering. There are people here who subsist on truly appalling wages – I leave, what to them, seems like huge tips because I am lucky enough to be able to afford to. I do it quietly and anonymously where ever possible. I have had to bite my lip in disgust at the attitude of people over here. “fuck em – he’s only and Indian, bung him a Dirham” (about 65p) a fucking Dirham! for waiting all night on a bunch of braying obnoxious drunken ex pats paying more for a pint than they earn a day? Is that the world the Tightwads want? I had some poor Indian bloke shuffle up to me recently and spin me some yarn he had been injured on a building site – he then proceeded to lift his shirt to display some alarming cobbled together chest drain and bandage tomfoolery while clutching an empty pack of medication for good measure. I guessed at the time it was a scam, but fuck it, I gave him the money anyway – if his life is so shite he has to stoop to that then as far as I am concerned he can have the cash regardless - I cant see him using it to refurbish his yacht.

There are many sorry tales on here of tea bag recyclers, those who drive miles to save a few pence on fuel and those who have inflicted their tightfisted misery on their families to the extend of driving them apart.

If you must fritter your life away worrying you may have recklessly squandered the odd penny or half pint of sour milk – at least do it at your own expense (or lack of it). Don’t inflict your embarassing tight-fisted gloom on friends and family. You’ll end up wealthy miserable and alone.

Sorry for the rant. Flame away – probably the only heat you get.
( spimf ™ is whoever you want him to be, Sat 25 Oct 2008, 15:55, 39 replies)

Jimmy Willis
is a somewhat obscure footballer who used to play for my dad's team, Leicester City, in the early 90's.

I was firmly of the opinion that Leicester City in general, and Jimmy Willis in particular, were useless and crap (I supported those legends at Wimbledon, so a glory-hunter I was not).

After one piss-take comment too many, my dad bet me £20 that Jimmy Willis would play for England one day. I accepted.

Jimmy retired from playing in 1997, and after a brief stint as manager of Bamber Bridge FC has now left football altogether.

Has my dad paid up? Has he fuck. He claims that Jimmy could conceivably come out of retirement (he's 40) and play for England, and that he will not pay me until it is physically impossible for Jimmy Willis to play football again, by virtue of being dead.

Seeing as my dad is 20 years older than Jimmy Willis, and at no point has been a professional athlete, the chances of Jimmy Willis dying before my dad are about the same as him playing for England.

My dad's a tight-fisted arsebiscuit, and I know he reads b3ta now and then. Pay up, you tight fucker!
(Axeman Jim, Thu 23 Oct 2008, 17:55, Reply)

My grandfather
My grandfather was without doubt the tightest person I have ever met.

His expenses were ridiculous, he could live off £15 a month for food quite comfortably, and that would be it. He'd complain that the postman had stolen his premium bonds cheque if one didnt arrive every month.

Christmas times were always fun. I'd buy him a bottle of whiskey, and be given a can of lynx in return.

One year my uncle received a pea-green shirt from Marks and Spencers, which he returned as it didn't fit, to find that the checkout wouldn't even recognise the barcode as they'd stopped making it 10 years previously.

My cousin phoned him for a 5 minute lift when his car broke down, only to find that once they arrived he was charged the petrol money.

We'd often joke about his tightness.

He died a couple of months ago. Really unexpected, an operation that went wrong.

Each of his 11 grandchildren, including me, received £12k. My mother and aunty received £100k each, plus his house to share, worth roughly £220k.

I feel guilty that he spent less on food every month than I would on a night out drinking.

I miss him.
( Regger, Fri 24 Oct 2008, 2:03, 1 reply)

She fell with a saddening thump
As she stood over the railings, the school yard, looked empty. The singing, the teasing washed over her like a putrid river.
Her bendy legs arched around the gate. The rusty old padlock, while not the most recent technology, certainly did its job and prevented her from falling into the swirling rapids.
"Here comes Paul Proudfoot!" they shouted, as the fledgling teacher lumbered from the old red doors and towards Mary. She was far to busy to even notice him looming in her shadow as she leaped from the walls edge and grasped at the old wire fence, she regained her poise and realised that she had actually done what none of the others had managed. She had crossed the river.
"I'm peeing! I'm peeing!" she yelled as she stepped to and fro, hoisting her apparel into the air.
Shocked the matron watched as she micturated at will. Holding for a moment then, with added gusto firing an arch of golden sunshine all over the petrified others.
"...and I’ll tell you what else!" she boomed, "I'm shitting!, I'm shitting!" she croaked, as she forced a nidorous budgie out of her puckered onion and grabbed it with her enormous dick skinners.
"Take that society!" she wailed, and threw clump after fetid clump of contaminated she-sludge at child and teacher alike.
"Mary Poppins come down from there this instant!" bellowed Mr Arkwright, a man who's frame was intimidating enough not to be trifled with.
"What on earth is the meaning of this you wretched urchin?" his weary face had turned an eloquent shade of violet.
"I shall do as I please!" she warned "I have gone quiet mad as a result of Mr Proudfoot's incessant and often brutal sodomy of myself and my loyal friends" she revealed.
"We know not of what which you do refer too Mary, honest we don't!" shouted all the other children in unison.
“Really?” she queried.
“Honest we don’t” they replied immediately.
"Then perhaps… it was a most peculiar dream, a reoccurring dream, a video taped dream, an oily dream. . . the buggery. the tears, all in my head? Yes! that's it, all in my head!" Mary smiled her million dollar grin and smudged a fresh line of lipstick across her bloated face. Mascara ran from each weepy peeper and into her now gaping maw.
"Chim chimney...chim chimney chim chim cheroo" she wailed...
She fell to her knees and emptied the remains of her bowels into her muddy stockings.
"Buuuurrt? BBBUUURRT!!?"
But Burt didn't come, no one ever came.
Mary's eye's bulged and snapped from side to side, her mouth contorted and her throat began to swell.
She manically gestured to the others for help as the beginning of a behemoth of feces poured from her flapping gullet and onto her hands in front of her.
She wailed at the sky a stream of feculence slopping clump by clump into her cupped hands which mangled the turds like fresh bread.
...or I may have misread the question.
(jindodsdadsdogsdead I am not stusut79, Wed 29 Oct 2008, 16:14, 10 replies)

I hate seeing food wasted, I hate seeing supermarkets or shops pour all their days leftover fresh produce into bags and dump it in the bin,
I much prefer when they sell it for less when it's late in the day or give it away in the last 10, enough folks will still want their dinner at dinner time and only old folks and/or the very poor ever wait around for the slightly spoiled food, your average working man will not be doing that, and it also gives the staff something nice and fun to do at the end of each day.

So already from that standpoint you can see how the following story would upset me.

I knew a few homeless folks in York, just guys I'd got talking to on the street and liked and occasionally helped out, one was quite proud of managing without charity, soup kitchens and such, he didn't like them, so finding food was a priority for him. He was also quite a neat and polite fellow, you wouldn't immediately guess he lived on the street.

He told me he used to get the leftovers given to him by a local bakers shop (of the type like Gregs but I forget it's name) but they had a change of management and now they put it in the bin instead.

So my friend started to wait by the bin and take it back out, so they stopped using plastic bags and tipped the produce in directly, so he started laying down fresh newspaper first over the other rubbish in order that he could recover at least a pasty or two, but they then got wise to that and started pouring bleach over the produce once dumped to render it inedible no matter what he did.

Why? To stop one homeless man from getting a free meal once a day. How selfless of you.

Oh and I just remembered a similar one, I had a mate who everyday had a sandwich for his tea in my local pub, he was retired on a good pension and this was his daily treat, it came with a salad that he never ate so if I was around he would let me have that as at the time I was a veggy, and as I've already said I hate seeing good food wasted and it would otherwise be thrown (it wasn't exactly a meal I'd just nibble on it whilst we chatted).

However, after seeing this happen a few times, one of the barstaff started getting actually enraged at this, he would come across and berate me for 'taking food I had not paid for' and try and remove the salad from under my nose, even though my friend was right there and had paid for this and given it to me, 'it's our policy that people should only eat food that they themselves have bought here'.

I ended up having to ask my friend to just ask them not to make him the salad anymore.

What is it with some folks about other people occasionally getting something nice or needy for nothing, why do some folks get so upset about that and seem to take it as a personal slight? Especially when it's only going to be wasted or destroyed otherwise, what's the problem?

It's just some kind of bitter spite I think.
( ..wil, Sun 26 Oct 2008, 11:02, 28 replies)

I'm so cheap
that I buy Home Brand Wheat Biscuits instead of Weet-Bix, Black and Gold Cola instead of Coke, and Blink 182 instead of the Ramones.
(apeloverage committed the vile act of onanism on, Wed 29 Oct 2008, 8:54, 5 replies)

Webcam alert
I know someone who set up a webcam facing his leccy meter, so he could instantly shout at his kids to turn off whatever they had just turned on if it started to go any faster.
(turtles head is touching cloth poked a dwarf on the forehead at, Thu 23 Oct 2008, 19:52, 5 replies)

Moosies
Miggyman's story reminds me of a far off time, when i would work the summers to bugger off and live in the mountains for the winter, fornicating, drinking and snowboarding.

This being the early nineties, the resort printed the same ticket for every day of the week - the only thing that changed was the dates (obviously), and there were no bar codes or scanners on the hill, ergo it was almost impossible to discern a valid ticket from the next, regardless what day of the week it was. It mostly fell to the liftie's eyeballs to bust you or not, and they being usually as hungover as we were or annoyed at watching everyone else steal all the fresh, didn't give a rat's ass anyhow.

With this in mind, I neglected to buy a season's pass when I arrived, and dutifully collected all the spent passes I could find, from friends, people leaving for the day, or just in the parking lot where most of them would end up. I would then proceed home, and with my trusty scalpel doctor a pass with the extra numbers and the like to make a pass with the applicable date. Result!

This went on for weeks, and I soon had an illicit business in doctoring passes for others ( covering the bills for alcohol and fornication... er wait). The snow gods were pleased and and life was good until....

...near the end of a great day, almost the last run, a liftie asks to see my pass whilst on the top chair and I am promptly busted and asked to leave. In good humor I comply ( was amazed it took so long to be busted in the first place), riding down to the middle chair, where I was chased by some twat on a snowmobile who stopped me and told me I was to walk to the bottom ( insurance, liability etc). A little miffed but in no position to argue i trudge off, following a cat track where i become hopelessly lost. It was getting dark. People were going home. I started to think I might have to hole up for the night...

...when through the forest I see some fresh prints on a path that turns ninety degrees from my vision. Wooyay saved! methinks, hop on the trail, turn the turn, and end up face to face with a male moose, no farther than a couple of feet away from my nose, a good six and a half feet tall, staring at me and huffing, stance a tad to aggressive for my liking. Behind Moosie was his wife and kid, browsing by a nearby stream. As slowly and non threateningly as i could, I backtracked and crouched under a bush while Moosie followed me and stared at me for about an hour before wandering off. Needless to say I was scared shitless, survived to tell the tale, and buy my passes to this day. Don't be a tightwad or think you're clever whilst doing so or a moose will eat your face.

Apols for length but it was bloody cold after a while.
(goorf, Wed 29 Oct 2008, 21:32, 2 replies)

Another sad au pair story
I too worked as an au pair, for the pathetic sum of £35 per week when I was 17. The family I worked for were incredibly wealthy, and I moved to Paris with them for 3 months.
At 5'2 and about 7 stone I wasn't exactly a greedy bastard, but they inexplicably wouldn't feed me properly. They expected me to feed myself out of my £35 a week, but as I was only given time off for one afternoon, it was almost impossible to buy any food.
I couldn't eat with the parents, so was often stuck in the kitchen with 3 kids under 6, and had to eat their leftovers! As I often cooked their supper, I'd put bits aside for myself. It's really shocking remembering this.
I had to share a bedroom with their horrible 6 year old kid. I was allowed 5 hours off a week.
The last straw came when I had to go on holiday to the south of france with them.
Stuck in the middle of nowhere, I was not allowed to use the phone in the chateau we were staying in, to find out my A-level results.
So I asked for a couple of hours off, and walked in the baking midday sun into the nearest town, and rang my mum. My results weren't ready, there was a cock-up. 'Ring back at 3 o'clock, they think they'll be ready then'.
So, you guessed it, I walked back to the chateau, got on with more chores, then, again, left at 2 to get into town (they had a car and it would have taken them 5 minutes to drop me there) and finally got my A-level results. My mum and best friend whooped down the phone, I had done brilliantly, against all expectations.
I walked back, and into their extended boozy family lunch.
'How did you do?' the mother disinterestedly asked.
I smiled broadly and told them.
The nasty little six year old sneered at me and shouted 'That's nothing, I got a gold star in my English test at school!'.

When it was my time to leave them, they wouldn't give me the £50 I needed to get the train and ferry home, as they'd agreed in the beginning. So my wonderful older sister, who had come to pick me up on her way back from a trip with friends, paid for me to get home.

I laughed with total relief and hysteria all the way home.

I've never met such a miserable, nasty bunch of losers in my life. Even the baby was a miserable cow. Apparently the kids grew up to be very troublesome and out of control.

Good.
(picmaestress, Mon 27 Oct 2008, 13:09, 4 replies)

Not exactly money tight but... (smile!)
One day, at a bus stop there was a girl who was wearing a skintight miniskirt. When the bus arrived and it was her turn to get on, she realized that her skirt was so tight she couldn't get her foot high enough to reach to step.

Thinking it would give her enough slack to raise her leg, she reached back and unzipped her skirt a little. She still could not reach the step. Embarrassed, she reached back once again to unzip it a little more. Still, she couldn't reach the step.

So, with her skirt zipper halfway down, she reached back and unzipped her skirt all the way. Thinking that she could get on the step now, she lifted up her leg only to realize that she still couldn't reach the step.

So, seeing how embarrassed the girl was, the man standing behind her put his hands around her waist and lifted her up on to the first step of the bus. The girl turned around furiously and said, "How dare you touch my body that way, I don't even know you!"

Shocked, the man says,

"Well, ma'am, after you reached around and unzipped my fly three times, I kinda figured that we were friends."
(Murran_Butchstansanger Good bye Tony, R.I.P, Sun 26 Oct 2008, 7:44, Reply)

my Mum's incredibly tight
which saves me a lot of money on prostitutes.
(apeloverage committed the vile act of onanism on, Sat 25 Oct 2008, 4:12, 3 replies)

leatherback
The old bird living opposite my nan is a right old tight cow. She's on a water meter, whilst her next door neighbour isn't. She goes round his house with a bucket which she fills from his outside tap every morning so she can use it to flush her loo (which only gets flushed once a day after her morning poo). Talk about old ladies houses smelling of piss.

Her grandaughter came to stay for the week - the old cow lives at the sea-side. Her grandaughter had been given some spending money for the amusements, days out etc, the family knowing how tight she was and therefore unlikely to splash out on the kid herself. Her grandmother took this off her at the start of the holiday as 'keep'. Poor kid never left the house most of the week until my nan heard about it (saw the kid in her jimmy jams literally crying with boredom and frustration) and played hell. That kid never wanted for anything the last couple of days thanks to my nan taking her out and when her dad (old cow's son) found out he went apeshit.

The icing on the cake for my nan was when the old cow went on holiday for 8 weeks after christmas to Benidorm on the old wrinkly winter escape paid for by the winter fuel allowance and the benefits for the imaginary disabilities she had. She left my nan a key to her house so she could water plants etc. Anyway, it was freezing cold, proper Northern England, North Sea fucking cold and she'd not left any heating on. My nan, scared of the pipes freezing and bursting put it on that winter setting, you know, the one with the snowflake that just keeps it above brass monkey level - we're certainly not talking tropical here. Anyway, old cow phones up mid stay and has a proper Mary at this and demands her heating be turned off

"I'm not over here to be wasting money on heating over there, are you going to pay for it, are you, ARE YOU?"

My nan marches over there, turns it off and didn't notice anything awry until probably two full days after the pipes had burst (remember the water meter)as the water was leaking from the back of the house. Apparently, her back garden looked like a skating rink and her carpets went from sodden to crunchy depending on the time of day.

My nan literally, like Tena Lady literally, pissed herself laughing when she came back off her holidays and was confronted with the aftermath.
( no longer a user, Mon 27 Oct 2008, 7:15, 4 replies)

Starvation
My mum is psychotically tight. Always has been always will be.

This example springs to mind.

When I was 8 years old, mother took me and my brother to see a demolition derby & stunt driving show. My dad was working, so he dropped us off at around 2pm and would be returning at 9pm to pick us up. There was an associated fun fair, but obviously there was no chance of getting a few pence for some rides, so we didn’t ask.

It was winter, and as the sun went down it got bleedin cold. By 6 pm lunch seemed a long way off and the cold accentuated the feeling of hunger. All around us people were tucking into steaming hot dogs, and warming their hands on hot drinks. The smell of all this food was driving me crazy, where ever I looked people where wolfing down greasy goodies.

I couldn’t take it anymore. I pleaded “Please mum, I’m starving! A hot dog, a bag of crisps anything, please!”
“Your dad will be here in a couple of hours and I can make you something at home” She replied.

“Please mum, I’m so hungry I feel sick, please”

“No”

I continued moaning halfheartedly, knowing it was futile. Then something amazing happened. She took her handbag from her shoulder and reached in. ‘She’s going for her purse…I don’t believe it…she’s going to buy some food…YES YES YES’. After rooting around in her bag for an age she triumphantly pulled out a single stick of slightly grubby looking Juicy Fruit gum. We had a third each and at the time it was the most miserable moment of my young life.
( Ring Of Fire A petty, drooling belming butthurt retard., Fri 24 Oct 2008, 18:09, 7 replies)

Moors
Briny tears cascaded like greased kittens from the limestone of my jagged cheeks, further moistening the already turgid snout of my deceased canine lover who lay, rug-like on the cold laminate floor alongside my worn moccasins. Were they tears of sadness? Of joy? Was it something to do with my nipples? My glans? Probably. But that did not stop those kitten-tears from bouncing lifelessly, emptily, down, down...

My routine was set. I had to keep up appearances, keep up with the Joneses, keep my pecker up, keep it real, keep on keepin’ awwwwwwwwwwwwn. And that was exactly what I did. I hooked the lead to the putrid hound’s collar, the aged mechanism screeching momentarily into the soggy depths of my downy ear. I tugged lightly. My late quadrapedal sexpiece moved slightly under the strain. With some exertion, I thought, we could still undertake our morning exercise without attracting unwanted attention from the neighbours.

I threw the door open, granting the morning light unrestricted access to my foisty interior for the first time in over three weeks. I yanked on the lead and off we went. The gnarled beast trailed behind, following me sidewise and scuttling over the stones and debris. How long had it been since my sweet’s final breath? Six hours? Three days? How long had I been so entranced by Culkin’s face in a Hello magazine retrospective and abandoned all of my adult duties, my human urges, my basic mammalian twitchings? Too long, it seemed. The sorry creature dragged behind, gathering all of the Earth’s leavings in its useless groin. We went on like this for several miles, myself resolved to adhere to our established path. So, up hill and down dale we shuffled, struggling for the most part.

Sheep observed and ravens swooped.

In a secluded area of the North Yorkshire Moors I was just about spent. I lay spinewise beside my grizzled fuckspaniel and raised my arms heavenward.
“Roy!” I howled (for God had been generous enough to tell me his Christian name during a prior, somewhat flirtatious exchange). “Extend thy divine appendage and guide thy son, I beg thee!”

I screeched like this for some hours, hugging and tearing at the ever-loosening flesh of my once betrothed. No reply came from the sky. I sobbed, I wept and I jostled with my member for sweet, empty comfort on the cold twilight moor, but the agony would not subside. I was almost prepared, spiritually and sexually, to suffocate myself in the now-exposed pancreas of my bedraggled he-dog-lesbian. But then the unexpected happened.

I had been aware of a loitering ewe for some time. It had been sidling hither and thither since my first wail of despair, and now it approached in earnest.
“Is this how it shall end, Roy?” I croaked. “Hast thou no more dignity in store for me in death than thou hadst in life?”
I had barely spat forth the last syllable of this roaring sentence when the full force of an ovine onslaught unexpectedly struck me flankwise. The sidling sheep had turned keen, brave, bold, and it had reckoned without the remnants of my manpride. I threw an uppercut, a left jab, a right hook, a sod of earth and the beast fell to the mossy ground, smote beneath the fierce, unforgiving clouds of the northern sky. It was only then that I noticed the zip running from chin to groin upon the pulseless bleater. Reluctantly, I tugged at the manmade fastening, not daring to believe what I knew would prove to be true. As I unzipped the fleece, the true nature of this beast was revealed.

“COLEMAN!” I hollered into the clouds. “WHYYYYYYYYY?”

When there was no moisture left in my face I looked once again at my pitiful victim. Never again would he ask me what I was talkin’ ‘bout. That was bad enough. But worse was the realisation that I would one day stare into the vengeful eye of Gary Coleman’s lover, Macauley Culkin. For then I would surely know unspeakable pain.

On the way home I passed a tramp. “Big Issue?” he pleaded.
“Fuck off, greedy bastard!” I replied. “You’ve already got a bag full!”
“Tightwad!” he retorted.

I pray for his soul.
(stusut79, Fri 24 Oct 2008, 2:18, 7 replies)

Snapped not an hour ago at the Dumfries branch of Lidl

Don't all rush now, will you?
(ubergeekian, Wed 29 Oct 2008, 14:36, 12 replies)

How to Live for Free (ft. Fred Flinstone)
Society tells us we have to pay for everything. This is bollocks, and I'd encourage you to pay for nothing. Not theivery, now, but plain and simple freedom. I can't be arsed posting a longer message than this is already going to be, so in essence, here's a list teaching you how to live for free.

Shelter:
Squat. Squats are not derelict buildings, they are simply buildings housed by persons who do not own or hold a formal lease for the building. Britain has the greatest squatting laws in the world - use them before our political party (singular, because New Labour are just Tories wearing make-up) snatches them away.
Not all squatters are punks or crackheads, some of them are just extremely savvy economical entrepreneurs. The best of them live right next door to you; they have a car and all the keys to their house, and without owning it or paying rent, they can legally occupy it. Here's the wikipedia article on squatting. Have you any excuse to still be paying your rent or mortgage, really?

Of course, there are other things to worry about when living in a squat. You'd need to consider that the house is just a shell: yhere's no water or electricity. That you're officially classed as homeless if you wanted to get a job. That you can't receive post. You can't have a phone line. You can't plant flowers in the garden. You can't inform the police if someone is messing around on your property. Oh, wait, what's that Fred Flinstone?



These are all urban myths, and aren't remotely true?! Hey, thanks! Yabba-dabba-doooo!

Water & Plumbing:
Get a squat. Failing that, use any number of public bathrooms in Tesco or any place like that for giving yourself a quick scrub - if you're sly and manage to keep your clothes clean - which is a whole other problem - nobody's going to throw you out. If you put enough forethought into it, you can get away with anything. Public drinking fountains are great to drink from and store bottles of water from. Alternatively, unless a public toilet specifically states to not drink the water there, drink away.

Clothes:
I'm assuming you're not naked. Getting clothes isn't what's important here, what is important is cleaning the ones you have. You know that water you got from the taps? You know the soap they have there? Stick some of that in a bottle. A tiny bit will go a long way if you really put your back into scrubbing it. Of course, keeping things looking sparkly new isn't important, what is important is keeing them looking clean. Ironing is unneeded for most modern clothes but you'll always find something that does need it. Now, you can always sneak into a hotel and use the trouser press in an open room - I promise, the first time you get away with it, you'll feel like James Bond. After that you tend to become disillusioned with the whole Hotel security thing. We're still assuming you're not in a squat though. Being in one and having an iron tends to sort out most of your problems.

Food:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freeganism

Cigarettes:
Public ashtrays, whether they're on the top of a bin or mounted on a wall. Learn to love them. Sure, you'll get ash on your hands, but pick up those butts and drop as many of them them in a plastic bag as you can. You can roll up the tobacco left in them with blank newspaper, which isn't as pleasant as cigarette paper but it burns near as well, and you can reuse the butts if you really want, though I'd recommend shelling out a handful of pennies on filters.

Alcohol:
We've all seen The Real Hustle, and we all know what proposition bets are. I'm sure we've all tried them at one time or another, and general wasted an hour or two with them. Again, with a bit of forethought though, you can get pissed every night you want if you just put some time in to think up some generally clever propositions. The greatest thing about these are that they're such a pop-culture phenomenon that most people will instictively accept the bet. With an arsenal of these up your sleeves, and a familiarity with other propositions to defend yourself against, as well as what will be called an arsehole attitude to taking and not giving, then you'll be drinking for free for a long time to come. This part is mostly directed at men. Women have a much easier time getting free drinks - and if you're one of the women who doesn't get free drinks and takes offence at this comment, then you're a fool.

Money:
Work, you can work for the big issue, you can get a proper job, you can sign up at a temp agency and get day work. You can beg too, if you really want. Getting money for doing nothing isn't easy, though you need look no further than Heat magazine to find out the secret of this trade.

Books:
Library. Often, too, second hand book shops will give books away that just aren't selling. Don't be afraid to ask, Bernard Black isn't real (note: Bernard Black may be real), and most of them are happy to give away a tattered old copy of some Jim Thompson or Camus or Greene book, just make sure you know your authors and the kind of book you like to read. You won't find any Dan Brown there, and for a good reason too.

Nights out:
All hail the BBC, and the live recordings are far better than the shit that ends up being broadcast.

Internet:
Libraries, again. Alternatively, if you have a laptop, you'll be able to get into somebody's wireless. You're probably stealing internet already.

I'd write more but I've got bored. If you've anything to add, feel free to do it in the comments, I'll update as I can. Also, do read the comments for more debate.


Edit1: Some people have made objections to the above, and I wouldn't want to preach, so please don't take my word as the be-all-and-end-all, I'm sure you wouldn't anyway, but here we go:

Leeching off society.

If everyone lived like that, there would be no society for you to ponce off. No houses to squat in, no hotels to sneak into, no public bathrooms or water fountains, no libraries or BBC recordings or pubs where you can scrounge a free drink. All of these things exist because they're funded by taxes and consumerism - which you claim to eschew.

I'm all for recycling and using things that would otherwise go to waste, even freeganism for those with such low standards they're happy to eat gone-off food out of a bin. Good for them. But what you're describing is leeching off society.


Of course, no society could sustain a population living off of each other's castaways. However, you, complainer, have decided not to do this. There will always be a majority in your favour, a majority that thinks paying for things affords security. Leeching implies sucking the life from society, as if freegans and squatters had their hands in your pockets, when in actuality, we're stealing out of rubbish bins, and, again, living in unused houses. If we work, taxes are being paid, if we don't work then we're a whole lot less of a drain on society than underclass (not working class, I do specify) scum. Burberry'd up and claiming as much benefit as they can - and yet squatters get the bad reputation. This whole attitude, though, "leeching" on society... we ARE society, as are the under class, the working class, the middle class, the upper class. This is what society is made of. If you're upset at being taxed blame the taxman living in his mansion, not the kid with a broken leg getting free care from the NHS.

Now, I'm not squatting personally, to explain my views on this, which aren't universal. I don't want to preach, because there's nothing more annoying than a loud hippy. But I do believe it boils down to a choice: either you accept your own disenfranchisement (i.e. lack of impact on the larger society, nullified right to vote because, let's face it, any fucking tool can vote, etc.) and decide that your guilt over the shortcomings of other people in our society is no excuse to not profit from the aforementioned shortcomings, knowing, as you do, that you are solely responsible for yourself, OR, you decide that your mortgage/job isn't that bad, you can get by on your wages, and your standard of living would be much increased than it would if you were living in a squat and eating free. The standard of living thing is debateable: a lot of squats are furnished, and everyone knows that milk has a Display date and a Best By date. Nothing is stopping you keeping your job.

Of course everyone can't do it, everyone can't be the Prime Minister, everyone can't be a doctor. But if you appreciate how small and irrelative John Bull living in Hackney is, then I'm sure you'll understand, objectively, how small and irrelative you are to society at large. Your decisions will not bring about the apocalypse, they affect YOU, not society. You have no responsbility for the wellfare of others beyond what the tax-takers demand. Mind you, I have a world of bones to pick with people who are proud of being taxpayers, but another time maybe. I'll try and keep to the topic as much as possible, eh? Also this is getting interactive, like a blog post. Nice discussion all the same, and my apologies too for any ineloquence on my part and clumsy repetition of a statement in order to convery some sort of grand point.

All of this sounds like far more effort than just having a job and buying stuff. Not that I'm knocking it, mind you; I'm just very lazy.

It's about saving money, and that does require some effort. However, if I was making enough money from my job to buy stuff without going through all of this, I wouldn't bother. But one does tend to get caught up in this delightful romantic view of themselves as a poor rascal, naked but for his quick wits and lack of high courtesy, as opposed to common courtesy, and scruples.

I have never heard such a load of tripe...
Apologies in advance for length, but this has really annoyed me.

You are advocating the blatant abuse of the system, not to mention the fact you are also advicating running what is, in effect, a Short Con racket in order to gain free drinks.

Yes, there are such things as squatters rights, but they were designed mainly to protect tenant workers' whose landlords could turf them our without notice merely by changing the terms of their lease, etc. They weren't designed to let a bunch of theiving dog-on-a-string dole scroungers take up residence in someone's property just because it is vacant whilst they are away on a long holiday (this has been documented more than once). Houses may stand empty, but there could be a reason for that - the owner might be trying to save up the money to renovate it, or get planning permission to do work on the property. But that's ok, because your "squatter" can just kick the door in and make themselves at home at the expense of the owner and/or the taxpayer. All the time, causing untold damage to a property, bringing an area down and attracting the usual detritus of smackheads and crack-whores that go along with the average "squat". Yes, there may be pleasant hard-working squatters, but there might also be likeable fascists - both are rare as hens' teeth and the odds are you're going to encounter one of the other sort.

It's this attitude of freeloading that gave us the New Age Traveller - or tree-hugging veggie-pikeys, if you read the Daily Mail - who are happy to sign on, or use NHS doctors, but don't want to pay tax, rent, or National Insurance. Or work. They know their "rights" to the letter and milk the state for all they can, before they move on to the next pitch and let the local residents pay to clean up the damage, rubbish and effluent they have left behind. But that's ok, because they are likely to be middle-class homeowners in a nice area, so fuck 'em, right?

In this country, under the laws of the Magna Carta, you are entitled to renounce your citizenship and become a Free Man of Great Britain - you aren't liable for tax, no law other than Thou Shalt Not Steal and Thou Shalt Not Kill apply and you are allowed to claim, I believe, 2 acres of land for you to live and graze animals on. Of course, you'll need a passport to go to work and you won't be able to use the NHS, call the police if you are robbed, or send your kids to state school, but if you don't want to be part of society, then I suggest that this is the only morally correct route to take. And yes, you can legally grow Marijuana on your land at that point.

The fact is that stealing supplies form public washrooms increases the expenditure on such facilities and, in effect, means they are more likely to be closed down if budgets need to be trimmed. If you squat and steal utilities, all that happens is that other law-abiding citizens are forced to pay increased bills to subsidies your existence. You become, effectively, no more than a parasite, bleeding resources out of a society, whilst mocking those who are providing the things you are stealing for their stupidity. I honestly don't know whether to pity you for your naivety, or loathe you for your arrogance on the subject.

Yes, a free night at the BBC is fine and enjoyable, as is asking if the tatty old books that are about to be binned could come your way instead - that's fine as it doesn't hurt anyone, neither does eating leftovers out of a bin if that's what you so desire - if you want to catch typhoid, salmonella, hepatitis, or god knows what from second-hand food, you go right ahead.

There is no "romance" to such an existence - if you're able to support yourself via work, then you're a prick if you freeload in such a way, if you are truly destitute then Social Services and the rest of the State you seem to dislike so much will provide housing, an income and a route to gainful employment. If you really want to live outside of society, then become a tramp. Don't leech and expect those of us who end up paying the cost, either directly or indirectly, to applaud you for it.

Oh, and before you respond, think on this - my Uncle served 25 years in the military - Marines, Special Boat Service and other branches. He fought in Aden, spent years in the jungle of Belize, saw action all over the world and gave everything for his country. It broke his mind and once he de-mobbed he lived as a wild man on the Surrey Downs, because he couldn't be around people - he'd seen and done things that no-one should be forced to. He never signed on, never squatted, did odd jobs for cash and once every three months walked to Portsmouth to get medical treatment and pick up his military pension from the naval base. He truly lived by his wits (building shelter in the woods, trapping rabbits for food, etc) and, aside from turning up noisily drunk after his mothers' funeral, never harmed anyone. When he died, even the Police turned out in dress uniform to honour a man who gave everything he could for his country. He had nothing, yet he had his pride and the respect of the entire town. Compare that story with that of your drink-scamming, house-stealing, work-dodging schemes and then ask yourself why anyone would condone your suggestions.

Chad.
(sorry., Wed 29 Oct 2008, 14:18, 20 replies)

Not really on topic, but I'll post this here anyway.
I've gotten a couple of people asking me about how the story of Emmett's house ended. (If you have no idea what I'm talking about, the original story is here. Follow-up is here.) The story is a deeply personal one, but what the hell- I shared a lot of deeply personal stuff when I first wrote about it. So here it goes:

I had finally decided that I should go back and rescue his dishes and such for Goodwill, as I had already taken everything that seemed to be salvageable that I could use, and found the door to be shut and locked. Apparently my comings and goings had been noticed by someone. Taking it any further would have been breaking and entering, and I had no desire to be arrested.

That, however, was not the end of the story.

About a week later I started dreaming about Emmett. In my dreams he was short and wore his horn rimmed glasses, and was very upset about something. Then one night I dreamed that I was back in his house and walking through and he was on his bed, covered completely like you would see in a TV show where they show a corpse. As I approached he sat up and whipped off the covering and started yelling at me, and I woke up with my pulse trip hammering.

I knew what I had to do at that point.

A couple of nights later I went out at about midnight so that I wouldn't be seen, parked a quarter mile away, then walked to his house with my pack of things. I walked up the driveway, and could feel him inside that house, still angry and hurting. I put on a necktie that had been his and walked around to the back of the house, then walked back to the front and asked him to come out to the porch. I felt him there with me as I did so. He was angry that I had not kept my promise to take out the rest of his stuff.

I stood there for a time talking to him, getting him to realize that it was really just all stuff, that I at least would always remember him and would honor him. I had a small cauldron with me and lit some charcoal in it, then added some sage, some rue and a few other things as we spoke, and then I took out a small plastic box that had his medals in it (he had been part of a band of some sort, possibly in the Army) and a bracelet with his name engraved on it, and used a trowel to bury it under a flowering tree in his yard. I then told him that he could keep an eye on me if he wished, but that it was time to let go. I could feel his anger ebbing as I spoke to him, and I called for someone to guide him home.

The best way to describe it is that I felt something slowly draining away, that he started to feel peace and acceptance. I told him that I still have his glasses and that I keep them in my workshop so he can keep an eye on me if he likes, and he seemed to like that. Then he left.

I have been by the house since, and it's now just another empty building. He's no longer in there. But when I'm out in my workshop he's there with me, and I swear I've seen someone looking through the glasses that are now sitting on my tool cabinet.

I think he's finally at peace.
( The Resident Loon Not a demographic. Do not measure., Wed 29 Oct 2008, 12:35, 21 replies)

Tight uncle Colin
When I was about 11, me and the family went to visit me gran, who had other visitors already. Me uncle Colin was there, a well paid manager in a car factory, having a chat to gran and grandad as we turned up. Colin says hi to all of us, then announced that he can't stop and has to go.
Gran says "You've not seen Jeccy and his sister in ages or visited them over Xmas, give them some money!"
He looks at us sheepishly then sticks his hand in his pocket to eventually fish out 20p. He passes 10p to myself and my younger sister and says in a serious voice "Don't spend it all at once both..."
Me gran (who incidentally was half his size) went mental, rammed her hand into his pocket and fished out his wallet while Colin stood there terrified. She rather too quickly gets to the notes and powers £20 out before he could say anything.
"There you are both, thank uncle Colin" says gran.
"Fank u uncle Coooolin..." says me and me sis.
Colin tried to say something, mumbled a bit under his breath and eventually weakly managed "No probs....um bye all" and legs it.
Me gran smiled, waited until he was out of earshot and said to us "20p? Tight assed bastard."
Profits :D
( Jeccius Steam Borderlands 2 junkie, Fri 24 Oct 2008, 17:24, 2 replies)

My friend told me this story once....
My friend is one of these people who tells you every grimacing detail of his life no matter how explicit or humiliating the detail is..

This is one story he told me.

He's had a skin full of ale and ended up back at a girls house, he's fair game, gets her into bed but she informs him it's the time of the month and the most he is gonna get is a hand job. Anyway, she gives the old soldier a bit of a tug, before he decides he is pissed off with the false promises. So he storms out of bed and gets a taxi home.

He gets home, still bladdered from the night out and decides his little altercation has left him still feeling a bit horny. So he puts a porno on the tv and proceeds to wank him self dry into a piece of toilet tissue.

He reckons he hadn't had a wank for a while and he said there was a good old clump of man fat in the tissue (i know, he's very graphic)

Anyway, he goes to sleep.......

Next day, he wakes up, and like the morning after any decent night out, you need a beer shit to sort you out. So he get's up, and takes a shit, he then realises that he has no toilet paper or anything of that description in is house. The only object that he could conceivably wipe his arse on was the tissue filled with his own spunk. Guess what ladies and gents.....Yep, he did it, he wiped his arse with the tissue.

After telling me the story I said to him, what if someone came into your house that night and murdered you. There would have been a murder trial with proper autopsies taking place and your poor mother would have to listen to evidence stating samples of her sons seaman were found in his own anus.

Classic - the most genius form of recycling toilet paper, wanking and shitting, two of life's finer pleasures
(Sir_Digby_Chicken_Caeser [email protected], Wed 29 Oct 2008, 15:31, 9 replies)

How we defeated the tightwad
Blah blah, office of four, every friday pub for drinks, one sod never bought his round.

So far so dull. We did, however, manage to defeat the problem by inventing the fax machine sweepstake.

Our office fax machine was frequently spammed with air conditioning/car/computer/other sales faxes, so we instituted a sweepstake with one category each, and the person who received the most faxes having to buy the first round on friday.

It took him over 3 months to realise we were sending faxes expressing interest to air conditioning companies.
( prince-igor si tacuisses, philosophus mansisses, Fri 24 Oct 2008, 15:15, 1 reply)

11 million in the bank, but...
Now, I have nothing against tightening your belt when finances are low, and depriving yourself of those lovely pastries on display when doing the weekly supermarket shop...

HOWEVER, when the deprivation is not you, but your 9 year old daughter, and you have 11 MILLION in the bank, AND you've just spent a rumoured seven figure sum on what can only be described as a new pet, that is a little different.

I worked for a rich family as a nanny/slave for a while, and their adorable 9 year old daughter (who was incidentally always dressed in hand-me-downs from relatives) loved painting. So she and I would while away the hours making Blue Peter inspired card models, and painting them with acrylic paints. This because her parents were too cheap to ever give me free rein to take her nice places.

Whilst out in town one day I happened to venture into WHSmith, who had a set of acrylic paints, 24 different colours, reduced from £16 to £3.60. Great, thinks I, the little girl will love these! I get back and check with her mother it's ok to buy them for her.

Now this woman has a reputed £11 million in the bank, drives around in a top of the range range rover, and likes horses. So much so that she is rumoured to have spent a 7 figure sum on her latest acquisition.

Her response?

No.

I explained how cheap they were and how the little girl needed them for the stuff we were doing, but the woman continued to put up such a fuss OVER £3.60!!! ..that I decided to screw her, pay for the damn paints out of my pittance of a wage, and give them the girl for her birthday. She was delighted.

I also told the mother to shove her job up her arse pretty shortly after that too.

Oh, and since leaving the job I still chat to the little girl regularly, as she often calls up for help with her homework - because her mother can't understand it.
(Psyche finishes work at the end of June! Yay!!!, Fri 24 Oct 2008, 10:36, 3 replies)