Tradition
I never light a cigarette from a candle because it means a Norwegian sailor will die. I have nothing against Norwegian sailors (with their cool roll-neck pullovers and their pointy blond beards) so i use a lighter instead.

Unless I don't have a lighter. In which case I'll quite happily murder 20 sailors a night.
(donksta, Fri 29 Jul 2005, 12:01, Reply)

The tradition of bizare or obscure names on b3ta
CarolVorderman'sBumTurret

Pfft. Made me laugh.
(G.Eusebio ...Fentruk from the long past..., Fri 29 Jul 2005, 11:59, Reply)

The third light thing
"when passing arond a light for ciggies put it out before the 2nd/3rd and re-light (alledged WW1 thing?)"

I believe it's to do with snipers being able to aim at the light and get off a shot by the third cigarette. Therefore the third light is considered unlucky as it may result in your brain being splattered over the person giving you the light. Quite how this applies in the local (unless you drink in a REALLY rough pub) I don't know.
(Throbbe, Fri 29 Jul 2005, 11:48, Reply)

In response to the 'has been' effort
every big family dinner we have (there are a few) my dad will flick a pea off his plate and say 'what's that?'

Everyone will roll their eyes, curse their own birth and chorus 'an escapee'.
(unholysmoke, Fri 29 Jul 2005, 11:40, Reply)

DrSoloManiac
A friend of mine has the same tradition, and has recently got me to do the same. Also apparently if you offer cigarettes to someone of the opposite sex (or same if that's your thing, I guess) and they take the lucky one... well, you can fill in the rest.
( laminasni isn't., Fri 29 Jul 2005, 11:25, Reply)

SPASTIC LEQUEER
I can't help but noticing a Guiness in the picture ypu posted... That's not in your 'Drinks limited to' list, is it?!
(Banky fucking Edwards, Fri 29 Jul 2005, 11:15, Reply)

school traditions
I do love a good tradition, and when I came to England I went to a private boarding school for the 6th form (age 16-18 to all the yanks). Sadly the usual abusive traditions were stamped out with PC-ness (they built character!!) like 'the gauntlet' where younger children had to run through a course made up of thumbtacks, pillow cases with books in and beatings from hockey sticks. However the most common tradition was the naked challenge (running around the school naked). If you heard the familiar sound of bare feet slapping outside your window you knew you'd see the drunken boys from our year running in all their glory (although the glory was significantly shortened due to the cold weather). My friend also got me obsessing over stepping on 2 drains for good luck and avoiding 3 drains as they were bad luck...until one day I pushed my sister into oncoming traffic trying to get her to avoid 3 drains...
(biteme_52, Fri 29 Jul 2005, 11:13, Reply)

Punnage
3 personal traditions

1 - Every time I hiccough, I immediately say "pocracy". As in Hicc...pocracy.

2 - Every time I see a new dog I call it "stoyevski". As in "look at this cute little dog...stoyevksi".

3 - Everytime I answer a QOTW, I think to myself a clever quip about length and/or girth, but then don't post it, because I'm sick to death of them by now.
(nordicapollo, Fri 29 Jul 2005, 11:11, Reply)

grrrr
the tradition of fucking length jokes on this board! stopped being funny weeks ago.
(pin_head, Fri 29 Jul 2005, 11:10, Reply)

Magpie
I guy at work has a strange one, every time he sees a magpie on its own he has to salute it and say 'Morning Mr Magpie'. Apparently it is good luck.
( Terry Oblong There's nobody here but us chickens on, Fri 29 Jul 2005, 11:04, Reply)

When I...
open a packet of ciggies I take out the first one and replace it in the pack upside down, and don't smoke it till last.

That way the "lucky" one doesn't give you cancer...
(DrSoloManiac, Fri 29 Jul 2005, 10:59, Reply)

The long winter evenings just flew by.
Heres a couple of weird traditions from my younger days.

Going on long car journeys with the whole family, me and sister would play the bridge game. Basically, once a bridge was spotted on the horizon, we would both start to raise our hands, saying "up...up...up...." right until the bridge passed over us. By this point our hands should be touching the roof of the car, where we would both say "Touched it". Trust me. The journey time just flew by.

Another one, somewhat related to this, when we arrived at the caravan site we visited pretty much every year, Low Field Farm at Filey, North Yorkshire, the farm buildings were all on the side of the road/lane leading to the camp site as you went in. In one of the farm buildings was an advert for 'Calor Gas'. It became quite the game going into the camp site to be the first to spot this and shout out 'clr gs' or some variation there of, before my sister did the same. Funny thing...we never played this game on the way out of the camp site.

And finally....this one I just can't stop myself doing. Remember the *old* University Challange theme tune with the timpani stabs? I kinda miss those. So I add them myself. Its disturbingly satisfying to add a 'ba-ooom' where they used to go :-)

Do I know how to party, or what?
(TC, Fri 29 Jul 2005, 10:58, Reply)

Annual celebration
Every year on December 25th my family get a tree and decorate it, and exchange gifts. We call it "Browser's Annual Celebration".
( browser still relating boring anecdotes into a void on, Fri 29 Jul 2005, 10:56, Reply)

Oh god more traditions
I have to say most of these posts would qualify as OCD, mine included, but I have more.....

[1] Everytime I hear an ambulance I am compelled to say.....

"He'll never sell ice cream going that fast"
[copyright Morcombe & Wise]

This is in no way anything to do with the tired old bandwagon re; no ice cream = Greensleeves!

[2] When I hear a bell or alarm, such as those on domestic appliances, regardless of where and when, I always say...

"Tea's ready"

even the kids have picked up on it now.
( Fire & Forget it's the only way to be sure, Fri 29 Jul 2005, 10:46, Reply)

every christmas
...we have a robot pub crawl around Reading. It generally involves dressing up in Duck tape, tin foil and egg boxes, then touring the three (count em) Wetherspoons pubs.

Robot drinks are limited to: ladyboys (lager, G&T, Baileys), turbo spritzers (white wine, Smirnoff ice and double gin), and loudmouth soup (Tennants Super and cava). It normally ends with us being sick in our helmets (fnarr fnarr).


(spastic_lequeer, Fri 29 Jul 2005, 10:37, Reply)

I know that most of this stuff isn't tradition but...
1. Every 1st of the month we say "pinch punch first day of the months and many happy returns" and the person replies "a punch and a kick for being so quick" and you do the actions (I'm sure you all know this one though)
2.Everytime I'm in a car on the motorway I either imagine that either a motor bike is running along the side of the road or a gorilla is swinging from the lampposts, I nearly always have to do this when I'm in a car. Also I found out that my twin sister did something similar and we had never discussed it with each other. Spooky!

So there are my traditions, can't be bothered to make any jokes about length...girls don't have any!
(fshingcat lurker- Don't mind me, Fri 29 Jul 2005, 10:28, Reply)

My Dad and I
taking every opportunity to quote Knightmare quotes, especially "Ooooh, nasty". Once said that when we heard of a chap who went diving, head first, off the top of a local multi-storey car park. The looks from Mum certainly suggested she wasn't impressed!
( Uncle Tom I command thee to wibble, Fri 29 Jul 2005, 10:26, Reply)

Superstitious Traditions
Seeing as we're branching off into superstitions I'll tell you about a mental woman I work with.

Firstly, if she sees anybody who's opened a packet of crisps at the bottom, she'll snatch it off them, selotape up the bottom and open the top before handing it back to them.

Secondly whilst walking into work with her she suddenly started yelling about something.
"What's up?" I asked innocently.
"I just stepped on a crack." She replied sounding distraught. "Now I have to keep my fingers crossed until I see a dog." Wtf? As if this wasn't bad enough, she's a typist which is pretty difficult with crossed fingers (which you'll now all try to do like I just did). Thankfully there's a picture of a guide dog the office sponsored just inside the building so she managed to work wthoit lookiomg loike a moneger.

(Try it, you know you want to.)
( Gleeballs is mostly made out of chocolate and hate., Fri 29 Jul 2005, 10:21, Reply)

Weird tradition of mine
Every time I see a herd of cows I always say to whoever is with me "look a flock of cows" and await the response of "herd of cows" only to reply "yeah of cause I've heard of cows, there's a flock of them over there" sad but has kept me entertained for years.
(creeper Hiding under your bed with a teaspoon, Fri 29 Jul 2005, 10:14, Reply)

Every second Thursday
at 8pm my wife and I dance to ourselves singing the theme tune of Red Dwarf.

I don't know why other than it makes us happy
(ElGatodeBarco, Fri 29 Jul 2005, 10:05, Reply)

whenever my girlfriend drops
a glove, she says she can never pick it up herself or else it'll bring her bad luck.
This provides me with great amusement, as I frequently throw her gloves on floor and refuse to pick them up, causing her to ask total strangers to pick them up for her.

If there is no-one around to assist, then she will allow herself to pick them up, so long as she can touch some wood in order to 'cancel out the bad luck ?!'
- Luckily, watching her bend down to pick up said glove turns me on, so there is never a shortage of 'wood' around for her to touch :)

length? its like a fucking tree trunk.
(nappy rash, Fri 29 Jul 2005, 9:57, Reply)

Hooray for Eastern Europeans
I was discussing Easter with a very nice Czech girl I met once. As you would imagine, I was very interested to discover that it's a Czech tradition to chase girls around and whip them with willow branches every Easter. Why don't we have traditions like that?
(user_requested_deletion, Fri 29 Jul 2005, 9:54, Reply)

Everytime
I think about breasts my willy gets big.

Damn!

Please forgive my length.
(timberwolf0122 is turkey volume guessing man! Guessing the volumes in terms of turkeys since, Fri 29 Jul 2005, 9:37, Reply)

I had forgotton about that one
ah Cheese rolling, what could be more fun than getting pissed and chasing wheels of cheese down a hill...





_{you just remembered The Game}
(Anduril, Fri 29 Jul 2005, 9:33, Reply)

..just thought of another one..
..saying to my gf/friends "Hey!" and pointing when we pass a field full of hay..






*ROAR*
(CarolVorderman'sBumTurret, Fri 29 Jul 2005, 9:24, Reply)

I live in 'the hood'...
and we play 'the car game' too when we out drivin'.
Every time we see a Hummer with blacked out windows, we have to hold our guns sideways and shoot someone in the face in a pimp-my-ride-gansta-styley.


er, bling.
(nappy rash, Fri 29 Jul 2005, 9:20, Reply)

My personal tradition is..
To say to the Toilet "I must break you.." in an Ivan Drago/Rocky 4 voice before I go for a poop.

...also roaring like a tiger after most sentences *ROAR* - see! *ROAR*

MS

..apologies for the roar *ROAR*
(CarolVorderman'sBumTurret, Fri 29 Jul 2005, 9:17, Reply)

yellow car, mini-nip
yellow car is too well known to need explaining. mini-nip is basically the same as most of the other car affilliated games. you see a mini, you pinch someone. if you see a yellow mini, you pinch and punch someone.

also, every year, the youth group i'm part of goes away twice: once for our own weekend away, and again for a big christian festival caled spring harvest down in minehead. anyhow, over the last two years or so, it has become something of a tradition to wedgie each other as much as possible on the final day. the people who tend to get it worst are nathan, one of my peers, and andy, one of the leaders. we've managed to break two pairs of andy's pants. winner...
(notjustahatrack peeling a sausage..., Fri 29 Jul 2005, 9:00, Reply)

New Year...
...just read the one about letting the new year in too - we used to do that in my house as well, but with bells on.

On the first stroke of twelve, one of the us (had to be a male - usually me as I was the youngest sibling and therefore deemed the purest-of-heart of us - meh) would leave by the back door carrying a mince pie, a 50p peice and a glass of sherry, make my way around to the front (to the sound of several groups of people singing 'auld lang syne' nearby - genuine warm fuzzy moment), and knock on the front door. Upon being let in with a kiss from my mum, I took a bite of the mince pie, a sip of the sherry and handed the 50p to my mum. Then we had hot-pot (kind of like beef stew with a suet crust on top) - my mum makes blinding hot-pot as well.

I still did it for a long time after I moved out of my folks' place, but can't do it these days as I live in a second floor flat - I miss it :)
(thatblokeoverthere not quite as much an arsehole as I thought, Fri 29 Jul 2005, 8:59, Reply)

Been reading the...
...ones about performing certain actions whilst out in a car and you see a yellow one/paddy wagon/landmark etc. My mate and his missus have three kids and play 'pinch beetle' which is a variation of the same, only when they see a VW Beetle etc etc et al.

They were giving me a lift somewhere once, and introduced this game to me - I suggested a variation in jest, named 'slap audi' - kind of like 'happy slap whoever's nearest to you if you see a TT'. Months later, my mate is still cursing my name after his kids slap the sense out of each other, and his missus out of him, every time they see one.

Oops - well, it was in jest :)
(thatblokeoverthere not quite as much an arsehole as I thought, Fri 29 Jul 2005, 8:41, Reply)