Man proposes, God disposes
I went to university at Royal Holloway, a bit of a strange place.
The main building was a replica of a French chateau, and had a huge gallery with a lot of rather valuable paintings in.
One of them was this:

Strange picture of polar bears eating people from a shipwreck, with the caption "Man proposes, God disposes".
Pretty unsettling really.

Come the exam period, the gallery was one of the rooms used as an exam hall.
The stories went that is you ended up next to this painting, you'd fail your exams, go insane, kill yourself or die.

There must have been something to the stories, mostly bullshit, but it was a weird, creepy feeling that you got from just looking at the painting for a minute, let along having to sit there staring at it for three hours.

When there were exams there they ended up covering the picture with a Union Jack, to stop people freaking out.
( Cawl, Tue 8 Jul 2008, 13:04, 5 replies)

!
One of the weird things is - the animal on the right looks like a camel with a lion's head.

Who was sailing the ship, Doctor Dolittle?
( browser still relating boring anecdotes into a void on, Tue 8 Jul 2008, 13:24, closed)

Well, well, well....
My sister went to Royal Holloway, and told me about this painting.

Apparently, one of her friends was just starting one of her finals when there was a loud bang and the Union Jack fell off the painting. In a silently concentrating exam hall this caused a mass conniption, as you can probably imagine. Not least from the people sitting next to it who were convinced this was "a sign".
(richardm, Tue 8 Jul 2008, 13:46, closed)

I visited Royal Holloway when I was choosing my uni options
Have you seen the tv movie "McGuyver and the seach for atlantis"? it's in that (with Brian Blessed no less).

They also use Battersea powerstation, but it's supposed to be Russia.
( Colonel Dracula Two manky hookers and a racist dwarf, Tue 8 Jul 2008, 14:11, closed)

Someone I work with
went there and claims that the story that went round during her students days was that the curse had sent a previous student mad and caused them to commit suicide at their exam desk by sticking pencils up their nose.

Makes me think of Blackadder Goes Forth. Wibble.
(Innogen, Wed 9 Jul 2008, 11:51, closed)

Yeah, I'm a Royal Hollowegian too
I knew the stories, and saw it covered it up when I had exams in the picture gallery, and always wondered if it was covered up due to superstition (the story I'd heard involved the pencils up the nose), or whether there was a more down-to-Earth explanation for it. However, I never asked because I was either too busy shitting it before an exam or too busy getting pissed afterwards.
(JohabMorelli is spenging merrily away, Thu 10 Jul 2008, 13:12, closed)