wierd...
its not me but a friend of mine. when we walk down the street she has to walk on every manhole/grate cover and spin around. as you can imagine this becomes quite irritating on long walks.but i have turned it to my advantage and do everything in my power to not let her step on them at all and she gets all grumpy like she's going to have loads of bad luck or something and then she starts hitting me and i just laugh at her and she just gets more wound up so i do it more and we fall out for ages.its sort of a tradition or may be she's just mad and i'm an evil wind up merchant.
(come2whereimfrom .co.uk, Thu 28 Jul 2005, 16:36, Reply)

Essy. I agree
Sorry to ruin the nice thought though...

Sorry about the lack of length.
(G.Eusebio ...Fentruk from the long past..., Thu 28 Jul 2005, 16:32, Reply)

B3ta traditions..
I'm guessing that either everyone is well behaved, or the mods are finally cracking down on the facile double entendre signoff 'tradition'. Hurrah!

Just stick to kittens, chaps, kittens are always cute.
(EssY, Thu 28 Jul 2005, 16:25, Reply)

every christmas
we listen, while decorating our tree, to "jaan pehechan ho," a fantastic indian swing song by mohammed rafi. twice. (maybe thrice)
(schnurricane, Thu 28 Jul 2005, 16:23, Reply)

please please please
tell me how "three of them" can be misinterpreted - i don't get it!!!
( rachelswipe with a fork, Thu 28 Jul 2005, 16:21, Reply)

if anyone in my family says the phrase "three of them"
they must get punched.

you'd be surprised how often the phrase gets mentioned.

it all started, i believe, long ago, when my brother said "three of them," my mother misheard him, interpreted it wrongly, and smacked him upside the head.

[the original mis-translation of "three of them" has been lost forever to the sands of history.]
(schnurricane, Thu 28 Jul 2005, 16:20, Reply)

Mademoiselle Violette
You're doing the wrong thing with your egg shells.

Once you've finished your boiled egg, you have to put a hole in the bottom so the witches can't use it as a boat and go and bother sailors.

"Never leave your eggshells unbroken in the cup,
Think of us poor sailor boys and always smash them up."

I don't do this. Honest.
(Pachey, Thu 28 Jul 2005, 16:19, Reply)

ATTN BOOGLYSTICKS!
Unbelieveable! Another Westminster b3tan!

Being a scholar (straightens imaginary tie) I have to do all sorts of weird shit. One tradition is going into the Abbey every Monday night at 9, and performing plainchant for 10 minutes wearing a gown. Think that's bad? The other one is attending a service in Westminster Abbey one Sunday a term. In a morning coat. Last time, this clashed with a 10km charity run in which I wanted to compete, so I waited till the service was over, threw on some trainers and proceeded to run 10km, over an hour late, in full morning dress. Got the photos to prove it.

This still goes on in 2005 - I am still there.
(Mr_Jums, Thu 28 Jul 2005, 16:18, Reply)

Mancmonkey
Good to see that the old traditions are being carried on today, keep up the good work fella!
The stockport and district league was always the funniest !
(Betty Boothroyd's Love custard Tourettes at the KOB, Thu 28 Jul 2005, 16:18, Reply)

Ginger nut elbow cracking make-a-wish challenge.
As a child, my mother told me that if I could crack a ginger nut biscuit into exactly three pieces by holding it in one hand and hitting it with my other elbow, I could make a wish.

Presumably the implication was that the wish would be granted, but since I never actually managed to break a ginger nut into three pieces with my elbow, I never found out.

No one I've ever met seems to be aware of this tradition.

I still attempt it every so often. But not in company. Ginger nuts are great. Especially when red-haired people ask what kind of biscuit you want.
(wingnutkj, Thu 28 Jul 2005, 16:11, Reply)

BadGirlActsGood/Dentressangle
I do exactly the same thing as you - But instead of horsey's, I was on a BMX riding along the fences.
Yes, I think drugs are to blame...

Bob Todd the Groincrusher/The Archbishop of Can'terbury/Mademoiselle_violette,
Dentressangle you say? I shall start doing this with the added bonus my company provides there datacomms so I get to speak to the employees!
Shall be saying "yay dentressangle" under my breath from now on.

Plus the obligitory holding breath under tunnels/bridges.

Other oddity is when I was young, If I ever played the Muppets Record on vinyl (Which I still own) and played the song "HuggaWugga" my younger brother would strip naked, throw a pillow down and round as fast as he could round it.
He stopped doing it before puberty I should state.
( -:Coop:-, Thu 28 Jul 2005, 16:10, Reply)

Following on from Betty B below
We still do the Sniper joke when someone falls over, but whenever someone spoons the ball over the bar we shout "Luther!". If it's particularly bad you get a "Vandross!"

I have no idea why.
(mancmonkey, Thu 28 Jul 2005, 16:06, Reply)

we
start playing Christmas music at Thanksgiving...

Erm, not that I'm American or anything.
(icouldbeahero, Thu 28 Jul 2005, 16:06, Reply)

and the winner is....
news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/cornwall/4337475.stm
(The Duke of Pontefract, Thu 28 Jul 2005, 16:04, Reply)

Bob Todd the Groincrusher / Mademoiselle_violette
Norbet Dentressangle!!!!

Rock on, I've been a fan ever since i drove by a large depot in the south of France full of them... hundreds I tell you, hundreds of the lovely red beauties.

Oh what a wonderful name to bestow to a haulage firm. Is anyone else a fan?
(The Duke of Pontefract, Thu 28 Jul 2005, 16:02, Reply)

During the match !
When playing football over many years, if anyone,particularly the opposition, shot, way over the bar, all our team would shout, in the best tommy Cooper tradition " spoon -- Jar--Jar-- Spoon !",
Also if any player fell over without being tackled, evryone would shout "Sniper " then piss themselves laughing!
Football's a funny ol' game.
(Betty Boothroyd's Love custard Tourettes at the KOB, Thu 28 Jul 2005, 15:56, Reply)

Weird Village
My ex girlfriend used to live in a village in Cheshire where every spring they got all the kids of a certain age to dress up as crow's and dance around in some bizarre paganish ritual.

Its the sort of place without a through road, so you don't have to go there unless you really need to, so even though I lived about 5 miles away I used to get looked at like I was from Mars.

They still do it now I think, but the kids have knocked it on the head so now its the adults that dress up instead, its getting a bit like the Whicker Man but without ritual slaughter (i think).
(El Cabron, Thu 28 Jul 2005, 15:54, Reply)

Actually rather nice...
First of all, I did my undergraduate degree at Oxford. I have never worn tweed, and most of the people I met there were a good laugh. However, if anyone wants to make some sweeping generalisation about Oxbridge, far be it from me to stop them.

Anyway, in 1845 a 'Merkin (I think he was from Kentucky) visited the college. He was horrified that when he tried to order a "mint julep" after dinner, the barman had no idea what he was on about. He consequently left a nice big endowment so that everyone in college could have a mint julep once a year.*
Consequently, every year on June 1st, several big trestle tables are set up outside the dinner hall and everyone gets a pre-dinner drink.

Two important things to note:
- there are two dinner sittings at this college
- the college staff have a few themselves while setting up, so they're unlikely to spot you coming round again. And again. And again.

By my second year, we'd discovered that if you rush early dinner, you can get approximately eight of these in before they clear up, which is useful knowledge indeed for a poor student such as myself.

Incidentally, the camp 'n' tweedy lot drank the endowment dry in the 1920's, but the college approached the descendants in the 80's and said "this was nice, everyone in England loved you guys because of it, why not renew the endowment?" and they did. Suckers!

* A mint julep is a mizx of bourbon, mint, crushed ice and sugary water. Depending on the mix it can be utterly foul or quite nice. And until I bothered looking for the linked Wikipedia article, I had no idea it had prompted the invention of the drinking straw. The silver/pewter cup bit is bollocks, though.
(/tweed)
(user_requested_deletion, Thu 28 Jul 2005, 15:50, Reply)

All sorts of traditions around Xmas
No opening pressies till after the Queen's speech, listening to "Carol's from Kings COllege cambridge" on 24th December etc, enduring sister, & brother in Law, visiting on Boxing Day.
(Glen Moranjie, Thu 28 Jul 2005, 15:48, Reply)

Champagne and Cork
Yeah... my family do that too... Place a coin in a chmapagne at special times. I thought we were the only ones! I was told it's an old actor's tradition. Celebrate the best times with champagne and then keep a sovereign in the cork for when times are hard. Kinda like an emergency drowning your sorrows fund!

Corks symbolise buoyancy.. fact!
( emergency_pants Today I smell of... tea tree, Thu 28 Jul 2005, 15:46, Reply)

When i was little
we used to holiday in Wales alot. EVERY single car journey down to Wales we were made to listen to Neil Diamonds Greatest Hits all the way there and back.
This went on for over 6 years.

I guess it was the combination of too many visits to Wales and too much Neil Diamond that made me the person i am today:

I am now a cross-dressing sheepshagger who eats soil and fingers cats.

And i fancy Mo Mowlam.
(nappy rash, Thu 28 Jul 2005, 15:44, Reply)

Manchester - Blackpool
When I was a kid we used to go to my grandparents in Blackpool every other weekend. On the journey, just as you're leaving Manchester, on the motorway there are two tunnel/bridges that you drive under. It became tradition, to do a cheer/wahey type of thing the whole time we were under the tunnel. The exact same on the way back too. I must have been well impressed with tunnels and lights when I was a kid.

Even to this day I still HAVE to do it every time I go to Blackpool. No matter who is in the car, whether I'm driving or not, it's like my entire body is just screaming to do it.

Other tunnels and bridges, they're just crap.
(mancmonkey, Thu 28 Jul 2005, 15:35, Reply)

oddities
when im on a long and boring journey as a passenger....i do as i used to do when i was little...

..pretend im on a horse and gallop along all the grass verges, jumping over ditches and fences.

yes, it is a problem on the motorway...

and yes...too many drugs clearly has an adverse effect on sanity.
(Oops....did I say that out loud cos I really bloody want to., Thu 28 Jul 2005, 15:35, Reply)

HarrytheMole......
.....are we related???!!!

Every family holiday to France, we'd spend the entire journey saying "duck!" followed by "quack quack" as we passed under motorway bridges. As we live near Liverpool, this would mean at least 6 hours in the car, shouting "duck", each way of the journey, every year.

Actually I guess we can't be related - our one and only family holday CD is Joseph and his technicolour dreamcoat.....
(emma_fisi, Thu 28 Jul 2005, 15:34, Reply)

Every week (or so)
Consume some beers + screen wash, then victimise the most drunk/stoned person present by reciting:

"you remind me of the babe"
"what babe?"
"the babe with the power"
"what power?"
"the power of voodoo"
"who do?"
"you do"
"do what?"
"remind me of the babe"
... and repeat til someone passes out/vomits/cries. It's tradition now.
(DrLego, Thu 28 Jul 2005, 15:31, Reply)

Every 7 years
the people from our village had to walk round the bounderies of the parish I lived in on dartmoor and each time we got to a marker stone bounce the youngest member of the party on it??
( weekendsession, Thu 28 Jul 2005, 15:22, Reply)

The Moai
Actually my family does the champagne cork/coin thing, and I know a few other folk who do so as well. On my 21st my mum gave me the cork+coin from the bottle opened when I was born. I think, unfortunately, that my scorn showed through as I would much rather have had a FULL bottle...
(scunnydelight, Thu 28 Jul 2005, 15:15, Reply)

Girlfriend's dinnertime
We also had to put on show at my grandad's Clapper, only just every Christmas (thank God). Goldilocks and the Three Bears was the worst.

My girlfriend's family find it entirely impossible to have a meal without mentioning either squittening (eye socket sex for those of you not in the know) or her mum's past drug use, if not both. It's a little daunting to any outsiders until you get used to it...
(darkmavis86, Thu 28 Jul 2005, 15:10, Reply)

Family holidays in France...
...involved long car journeys. Oh dear...

Unfortunately the first time we went the only CD we all agreed we could listen to was the Grease soundtrack. For some reason that one stuck, so every time we went back (and once we spent pretty much a day driving) it was Grease all the way. With us singing along at the top of our lungs. I still can't watch it now.

Oh, and whenever there was a bridge, one of us would shout "DUCK!". Everyone else would shout "QUACK!". Then we'd all duck until we were through the bridge.

Was that the sound of a cherry popping?
(HarryTheMole whatever's on my finger is going in your mouth, Thu 28 Jul 2005, 15:07, Reply)