Not my story...
...but one of my favourites.

Many years ago, some of my friends used to do the rubber-sword live action RP - dressing up as orcs and running about in the woods hitting each, that sort of thing.
One Sunday a group of four or five were driving back in a van from an event where they had been playing Knights Templar when, driving past a bus stop, they happened to see some bloke pushing a girl about.
I often wonder what went through the minds of the bloke and girl as a battered transit van pulled up next to them and a gang of knights in shining armour piled out. They restrained the bloke, hailed a cab and paid for it to take the girl home, and then gave the man a short homily: "Remember, son, hitting women is wrong - and we're watching", before leaping back into the van and screeching away.

I wish I'd been there.
(davywavy, Thu 14 Feb 2008, 12:19, 9 replies)

This is my brother's story...
A few years ago when my family was still council estate scum, my brother was lucky enough to be bought a brand new racing bike for his birthday.

Now, my brother loved like that more than a human should love a method of transportation, and more often than not he'd be either riding, cleaning, or fixing his two-wheeled, pedal-driven wonder.

Anyway, one day, my bro is walking back from school (they didn't have bike sheds and he didn't want to risk a TWOC-ing) when what should he see but some kid riding HIS bike up the main road towards the shops our kid had just departed from.

Of course, my bro wasn't too pleased about that, and at once legged it towards the approaching youth and questioned why he was riding his pride and joy:

Youth: "I'm borrowing it to do my paper round"
Our Kid: "I don't think so, give it back"
Youth: "Piss off or I'll kick your head in"

It was at that point that my bro shouted for help, and luckily enough there was a bit of a bruiser walking past who came over to assist...

Bruiser: "Give him his bike back"
Youth: "It's OK, I'm his brother, I'm only borrowing it"
Our Kid: "No he isn't, he's nicked it"
Bruiser (seeing our kid starting to cry): "Give him his fucking bike back or I'll do something you'll regret"
Youth (laughing at the whole situation): "Honest mate, I'm his big bro" (turning to youth) "Aren't I?"
Our Kid (now in floods of tears): "No, you're not, I want my bike back"

At this point the youth is shoved off the bike by the bruiser, my tearful brother gets his little friend back and witnesses the bruiser giving the youth a bit of a slap as a form of vigilante action.

So, justice done, you might think.

Well, hang on.

Firstly, the bike 'theft' wasn't the crime.

Why?

Because it was me on the bike.

Yes, my brother pretended to some stranger that I nicked his bike (which I was genuinely borrowing to do my paper round on), and to top it off witnessed the bloke giving me what would warrant Actual Bodily Harm in a court of law.

The aftermath?

I kicked the shit out of my brother when I got back after my paper round. After I told my mum (yes, she of the wardrobe out of the window post), he got a bit of a hiding off her too.

Harsh, but fair, no?
(scentless_apprentice takes two bottles into the shower!, Sat 16 Feb 2008, 21:50, 4 replies)

And somebody else's
Not mine but a friend's. Said friend was a hardcore Trekker. And one year he found himself at a convention in full uniform.
Since there had been reports of things going missing the con had asked volunteers to patrol the halls. Naturally this was done in full uniform, replica phaser on hip.
So, on the last night, my friend and his partner came round a corner to behold a proto-chav fiddling with the lock on a hotel room.
He saw them, panicked and legged it.

And that was when the other Trekker whipped out his phaser and shouted "Stop or I fire"

Yes, he stopped.
Yes, he put his hands up.
Yes, the guys down at the nick probably spent the rest of the night laughing at him.
(Big D, Thu 14 Feb 2008, 16:51, 5 replies)

World's dumbest paedo
Not a particularly entertaining title I’ll grant you but I was technically one of his victims.
...
Well it started that way
...
sort of.
...
As a snotty teenager I went to a lads grammar school, named after a renowned churchman, in a southern cathedral city with public school delusions of grandeur. Rugby, Latin lessons, the whole shebang. Generally it was a tolerable time but it included being subjected to “character building” cross country runs. I’ve no doubt it did me the world of good in terms of fitness but fuck me was it dull.


Consequently any source of entertainment that popped up on these post lunch perambulations around the city in question attracted me, and a number of other little scamps, like flies to shit.


On one such afternoon, when the games fields were allegedly too wet for practice (bollocks, the PE staff were just too hungover to do anything) we were sent on one of the longer routes around town that cut through a park in the city. After the grumbling had subsided off we trotted like the good boys everyone new we were.


An hour and a half in and we were approaching the home stretch through the park. Now the park was always a chance for the less well mannered of us (i.e. everyone) to walk, have a fag and generally arse about as the teachers never bothered getting out of their cars when keeping an eye on us (This subsequently changed after the events below).


So it happened that five sweaty teenage lads, all in T-shirts and rugby shorts and furtively smoking Marlboro lights were approached by an odd looking chap in a trench coat. Up he walks and mumbles something about never having seen such nice looking young men and he’d like to show us something. Eyebrows raised we said alright, and low and behold the mack was opened to reveal an extremely skinny and extremely naked body with possibly the worlds smallest penis putting on a brave but futile show. Now I know that had I been on my own this may have been pretty bloody disturbing. As it was, after a second of incredulity, I creased up laughing. My mate A, who was something of a wit by schoolboy standards, managed to stop smirking long enough to pronounce that his was much bigger than that and he was only 12. The would-be molester was not best pleased with our lack of shock/interest/terror/pleasure in having seen his shriveled cock and proceeded to try and grab the nearest, and smallest, of us, S. Now S was a slight blonde lad with angelic features who had all the mothers cooing and would soon have all the girls fainting. It was only us, his mates, that new him to be an utter utter bastard. The dirty old man found this out when he grabbed S by the T-shirt and then immediately had to let go after S put his cigarette out on the fellas hand.


Screaming and cursing he backed off slightly and started to describe in graphic detail what he was going to do to each and every one of us. As teenage lads we were impressed by his use of the common vernacular and, had in been directed at others, may have been tempted to offer a round of applause. As it was we decided that this particular specimen of oddity was best bought to the attention of the local plod. So A gets out his mobile – God bless technology hey? – and rings her majesty’s finest. Now him of the cocktail sausage knob realizes what we’ve done and decides it might be time to vacate the area with some alacrity. We don’t want our prize getting away however and fall back onto lessons learnt in biology (see kids, it is useful), more precisely a pack hunting approach. The five of us surrounded this lunatic and whenever the opportunity arose we’d dive in and trip/kick/wallop the weirdo. This culminated with a piece of artistry from S and the biggest of our clan, R, that saw S bait the unfortunate wannabe kiddy fiddler to the extent that he lost track of R who preceded to administer, on the run, possibly the biggest boot to the knackers I have ever seen. The word “atomic” was bandied around afterwards in reference to the ultimate wedgie of the same name.


So it was that two officers of the law turned up to find a middle aged man dressed only in a somewhat tattered trenchcoat, socks and shoes, in a foetal position with five teenagers from the local “posh school” around him. The local paper’s headline “Bishops boys crash flashers parade”.
(DarkHarlequin putting babies on spikes since, Fri 15 Feb 2008, 17:29, 4 replies)

Bar Room Battles
.
Due to my penchant for the odd pint I've witnessed, and been in, quite a few bar room brawls. But my favourite happened in Redcar, North East England.

Redcar is rough but, the place I was based, Eston, is even rougher. It's the sort of area where anyone with more than one ear is a cissy.

Anyways. I was staying directly across the road from where I worked in. It was a pub. A *really* rough pub and the downstairs bar was populated with some of the finest knuckle-draggers you've ever seen.

But I can fit into almost any environment and I was soon a regular and could be found propping up the bar after work. I got to know a lot of the local meatheads and they soon found out I was a computer consultant and they soon found out I'd fix their systems for beer. So it soon became a regular fixture, me at one of the tables happily de-porning systems ( me missus will kill me...), removing virii and spyware and installing cracked software for them.

So all was well with the world. Then, one night , there was a pool match with another pub and it kicked off. A massive bar-room brawl with cues being used as clubs, chairs and tables flying across the room (often accompanied by flying teeth) and fists, boots and heads being used with abandon.

The bar staff just scuttled to the safety of the lounge bar and soon I was the only spectator - literally, everyone in the bar was involved in the fight. Of course this couldn't last for long and a meathead, having dispatched his opponent, by throwing him through the toilet doors, came looking for his next victim. Me.

He saw me standing alone at the bar and started to run across the room towards me. I saw him and did my famed "deer in the headlights" impression and prepared to defend myself when a mighty roar came across the room.

"DON'T TOUCH THE GEEK!!!!"

It was the head hardman. The hardman's hardman and I'd fixed his machine for him several times and he didn't want anyone interfering in his free computer support.

Cheers
( Legless Mister Stabby - shanks for the memory, Sat 16 Feb 2008, 0:49, 10 replies)

Good Cop, Bad Cop
Emvee's tale of chav harassment reminded me of this one. Names haven't been changed for once. It was how we dealt with a mate who was being victimised.


Long ago and far away, when the moon was red and the rocks were soft I lived in Manchester, in Hulme. I was pottering around one day when a mate arrived, in a bit of a state. He'd been robbed.

He lived alone in the infamous Crescents and he been woken by the sound of his balcony door being forced. Grabbing some clothes he ran downstairs to confront the burglar - although what he expected to do was anyone's guess as he was an unhealthy Vegan who couldn't punch his way out of a wet paper bag. The noise he made coming down the stairs alerted the thief who legged it back onto the balcony and then jumped onto the neighbouring flat's balcony, which was deserted and derelict, and then stood there laughing at Pat and taunting him.

"I can fucking come round and rob you anytime I fucking want and there's fuck all you can do about it" giggled the thief. Who was, predictably, a smack addict. Pat recognised him - he was a bloke who lived a couple of floors down and was known in the area as nasty piece of work. And Pat realised he was right. There was nothing he could do. Hulme in those days was pretty much a no-go area for the police and, besides, it was Pats word against the smackheads. Bringing the law in would have just resulted in being seen as a grass and wouldn't have achieved anything. So Pat came to see me with another close mate of ours Jon.

So the three of us had a cup of tea and decided what to do. Intimidation.

I went to my weapons stash at the front door (hey, this was Hulme. Everyone has some sort of self defence kit propped up by the front door) and selected my favourite equaliser, Rottie. So called because it was big, it looked mean and it would really fuck you up if you pissed it's owner off. It was an old oaken table leg. Nice round knobbly bit at the bottom coming up to a big square bit at the action end where I'd screwed in a few round headed bolts. It was a work of art.

So the four of us, me and Rottie and Jon and Pat headed off to mete out justice, Hulme style. We hardly needed to discuss our roles and Jon and I had done this in the past. It was to be classic Good Cop, Bad Cop.

And so we arrived at the smackhead's flat and knocked. No answer. So Jon tried calling through the letter box. Still no answer.

Now we knew he was in 'cos we'd seen movement at the kitchen window but old smackhead had decided that we weren't the sort of callers he wanted that morning and was lying low. Time for plan B.

I stepped back a couple of paces and launched myself at the door. My boot hammered into the lock with my full weight behind it and the door shivered. It was reinforced like a lot of flats in Hulme. Someone had fitted a decent solid door and locked it with what we called Swastica bolts. A central handle that controlled four bolts that went into the door frame at both sides and the top and the bottom. I looked at Jon.

"Doubt if I can get through this mate - we might need an axe"

"Give it another go" says Jon.

So I took another few paces back and launched myself again.

CRASH!!!

The lock and the door held but the door frame didn't. The whole thing tore from the surrounding wall and crashed into the flat and landed right at the feet of a dazed looking smackhead. Another couple of inches and it would have crushed his toes.

So there he was. 7 feet away from me and holding a wicked Rambo style knife. Grabbing Rottie I jumped inside and swept the knife out of his hand. I was roaring like a roary thing (note to self: must work on metaphors) and he backed away from me and scuttled into the front room with me right on his back. A sweep of Rottie took out his stair rails and a back sweep smashed his telly with a satisfying explosion of glass.

"Come here you ugly fucker, I've got a message for you" I yelled.

"Legless!!" barked Jon. "Leave him. Let me talk to him first"

I backed off growling and then smashed Rottie into a nearbye table.

"Say what you have to then leave him to me" I slavered.

Pat then came into the front room.

"Where's my fucking money you twat!!" he screamed "I want it all back or I'm letting Legless loose on you..

Smackhead was in shock now. His quiet morning shooting up the proceeds of last nights robbery wasn't meant to go like this. I mean, every time he'd robbed someone in the past he'd gotten away with it. This couldn't be happening.

Jon was talking to him now, quietly explaining that if the money wasn't handed over, right now, he and Pat were leaving and he'd be left alone with me.

"I haven't got it!!" smackhead wept "I spent it last night..."

Then I burst back into the front room.

"Tie the fucker down" I snapped at Jon. "I've found a car battery. I'll pour the acid all over his hands. That'll stop the thieving shit."

"Calm Legless, calm.." said Jon. "You can have him if he doesn't give me the money"

"But I haven't got it" wailed the smackhead. "But I'll get it. I'll get it by tonight"

Pat and Jon had a quick conflab and I smashed a few more items.

"OK. We'll give you one more chance......"

"BUT JON!! YOU SAID I COULD HAVE HIM" I yelled... "I HAVEN'T PUT SOMEONE IN INTENSIVE CARE FOR MONTHS!!!"

"Back off Legless. We only want the money back. If he doesn't get it by tonight then he's all yours...."

I walked up to Smackhead. I pushed Rottie into his face, gently tapping him back to the wall. Then I held it against his throat. He was shaking like Michael J Fox.

"Look at me" I said. "look very fucking closely at my face because if Pat doesn't get his money back, this will be the last thing you see before I pour battery acid into your eyes."

He couldn't speak, he was just nodding then the smell of piss hit me and I saw a dark stain spreading down his legs.

I walked away. Stopped and smashed Rottie into the wall leaving a big hole.

"I'll be back...."

Aftermath.

Then we went up to Pats flat and I dropped Rottie off and we retired to The Spinners for a pint.

"Think he'll get the money?" says Jon.

"Nah" says Pat "But I don't think he'll rob me again so there's a result"

Later that night Pat arrived at my flat lugging a carrier bag full of cans.

"Heh! I got my money back and then some..." says Pat.

Now it turned out that the smackhead had a famous brother. He was a guitarist with the band, The Fall, and Smackhead had called his big brother up and begged for help. The brother had arrived at the Smackheads flat and found him in a hell of a state. Shaking, crying and terrified for his life. Over the next hour the full story had come out. How he'd robbed Pat. How this gang of thugs had broken his door down and beaten him to within an inch of his life (lying fucker - I didn't touch him) and how they were going to come back and blind him with acid.

His brother listened for a while and then made the following offer. He'd go and see Pat and pay him his money and he'd get Pat to call the hounds off but only if Smackhead went into rehab. He'd pay for the treatment but this was his last chance. Fuck up and the next time he'd wash his hands of him. Smackhead agreed and the brother went to see Pat and paid him. They had a spliff together to seal the deal and the brother said:

"You know, this is probably the best thing that could have ever happened to our kid. The way he was going he'd be dead by Christmas...."


Jesus. That was a bit of an epic.

Let the flaming begin......


Cheers
`
( Legless Mister Stabby - shanks for the memory, Wed 20 Feb 2008, 1:41, 14 replies)

OAP Terror!
To set the scene, a couple of years ago I was happily sat in my car in the car park of my local Tesco reading a book while waiting for the wife to whizz round and grab a few foody essentials.

I was parked a few spaces away from and opposite the "parent and child" reserved spaces and so had a perfect view of what unfolded before my very eyes.

With a squeal of rubber and a cloud of exhaust smoke a very nice very new looking BMW M3 screeched into one of the "parent child" places
and out gets a fairly big bloke (big & buff rather than big & fat) with the cliche shades, baseball cap, designer gear etc.

He starts to walk away from his car when he is apprehended by what I can only describe as a shorter version of Foggy from last of the summer wine. An old feller well into his 70's, military bearing walking with a brass topped cane.

As it was summer I had the window down and so could just hear the jist of the conversation. The old feller tells the steroid freak off for parking in a child space when he is obviously without the required child and asks him to move his car. Steroid freak then proceeds to lose it with the old feller shouting screaming and swearing at him and prodding him in the chest for a good minute or so before he turned round and carried on walking into the store.

I was shocked, the old feller was shocked and was just stood there for a fair few seconds white faced and imobile.

I was just about to get out of the car to see if he was ok when I found out why he was just standing there ... he was waiting to make sure steroid freak was out of sight. The old fella then walked around the BMW and with his brass topped cane put a deep dent in every body panel, a couple on the roof, took out the rear light clusters then walked off past me giving me a huge wink and a grin as he went past.

The wife was back a few minutes later and I told her what happened ... she laughed and made us wait until steroid freak came back so she could see his reaction.

He cried

He cried a lot

He cried a huge amount in fact, but not as much as my wife. Hers were tears of laughter mind you!
( RadG Drinking Mojitos in the sun, Thu 14 Feb 2008, 14:56, 14 replies)

In a very similar story to shegetz one
I was Mugged in Nottingham... sorta.

I was drunk; incredibly so- the type where you lean against a wall, loll your head about and laugh at your own reflection in the mirror- and I had my phone out texting some girl I had met earlier (probably with "secks pls" or some other derivative.)

Tall, black very gangsta looking dude walks up to me. He's a living sterotype, he looks like one of the cosby kids- so I laugh at him.

"Give me ya phone!" he says

"naaah" I say

"Nah you don't understand mate... give me ya fuckin phone!" he replied, getting pretty angry

drunkenly I entered a giggling fit- "YOU give me YOUR phone! Hehehehehe!"





"...N-no?" He said, actually looking hurt.


"WELL then," I say, and stumbled off

About twenty seconds later I realised he was trying to mug me, and cried.
( KernKraft Gosh, there isn't much noise outside today, Sat 16 Feb 2008, 17:50, 2 replies)

Alright then...
...as I've said, I've seen a fair bit, and no small slice of it from my own family. Fancy a bit of length? Okay then.

An auntie of mine, passed away now, hooked up with a very nasty man named Johnny some decades ago. An ice-cold and more than fairly sociopathic petty criminal with anything-goes attitudes to offensive weapons, human rights, lawful conduct and general morality. She and her daughter endured him for a number of years until she let him know it was time to leave by sweetening a cup of tea made for him with slug pellets. She ended up telling him before he drank it - he made his displeasure visibly clear on her, but he left.

Of course, he was a pariah amongst the family for ever after, and turned up here and there mostly to terrorise younger members of the family. He never bothered any of the blokes though because most of them were big lads, and a number of them either squaddies or ex-squaddies. All that stopped at least for one cousin, who had suffered Johnny's attentions pretty much throughout his adolescence. He was mostly grown up when playing pool in a local pub one time when Johnny walks in and spots him. Of course he starts up with the grief, which this time ends with Johnny on his back on the pool table taking repeated blows from a pool cue with fondest regards from my cousin. He made his exit at his soonest opportunity but came in again about half-an-hour later offering my cousin 'outside', but he wasn't an idiot and he had had the misfortune to come to know this bloke well. 'What, have you got your knife now? Look, I'm a lot bigger now and you can't beat me with your hands anymore which says it all so just fuck off'. And with a curt 'This isn't over mate', Johhny did exactly that. That family member didn't personally have any more trouble with him, so in addition to everything else he was full of shit too.

The next time I heard of him, and the first time I got a close look at him was when my brother had hooked and shacked up with this quite frankly appalling smackhead witch from down south, moved up here because of trouble for her and hers down there. She's another story in herself, but her bad judgment is a factor here as one time my brother arrived back to find Johnny sat in the living room skinning up some hash he'd just bought. My brother was naturally WTF but didn't dare ask the mean bastard to leave. It went pear-shaped thanks to a mate of my brother's, who stole Johnny's weed off the table when he went for a piss. Johnny looked to my brother to explain it, and this being Johnny, my brother chose to avoid what would be a very painful inquisition by escaping out of the window. This only strengthened Johnny's resolve, and so my brother came home to us, completely shit-scared. I've mentioned this time before briefly in another post, but it's at this point my mum got involved. {MUM-RECAP; career mother until we grew up, has taught karate locally with my stepdad for decades, has a respectable Dan grade herself and working as a high school teacher now} Johnny and my mum stood there in front of this daft bint's house just out of reach but squared off all the same whilst my mum tried to talk some sense into him - they both knew perfectly well who one another was, and so I think neither wanted it to really come to blows. My mum could probably have handled him, but even if she had, he would still have run into my stepdad by no accident not long after and probably never been the same. My stepdad didn't break much bread with the family at large and thought my brother was a waste-of-space, but anyone who even tried to hurt my mum would be dealt with most efficiently. I was stood off to the side the entire time, more than a little anxious but ready to jump on the fucker's back if he went for my mum - I was only about 14 at this time, and a bit of a softarse. But my mum, my amazing mum managed to convince this psycho that my brother didn't do it, and set him on his way peacefully for what was possibly the first time ever. The freakiest part of that part is that from then on, my mum became the only human being in our knowledge that he regarded with any respect. She said he told her 'You're the only person that's ever talked straight with me'. Strange how some things turn out.

Unfortunately, he was no less of an aggravation to the rest of the family. A couple of years later another aunt, a well-loved and regarded matriarch in the family passed away. After the memorial service we had arranged to take the lounge room at a local - the very same local and very same room where my cousin had vindicated himself some years before. We were all catching up with one another as you do at funerals, when one of the girls piped up to say that the lads (referring to the squaddie contingent of the family, who'd been taking a quiet pint at the bar) had spotted Johnny in the other side of the pub, he'd spotted them and been observed asking about them of the bar staff. Minutes later, he came into the lounge side and took up next to the lads at the bar, offering them a drink. They refused, he persisted, they explained the situation and indicated that the family would like some space. His response? 'Yeah, I heard.' Not a flicker of sympathy or sorrow. Then he started to insult our recently departed. Well, he tried, but he didn't finish the first attempt before one of the lads, in from out-of-town to pay his respects reached over and smacked him, telling him to get the fuck out. Again, he left with a 'This isn't over mate.' and this time we locked the door after him. Sadly though this time he meant it.

About 40mins later another one of the lads, an uncle who had retired from the army to live nearby a couple of years previous, got a call on the pub phone from his hysterical daughter at their home. A few of the kids were too young for the pub so this daughter had been selected to babysit them at their house for a couple of hours. She was 13 or so at the time I think, but a level-headed girl. Not so much so at this moment though as she screamed at her dad to please come home, which he did very quickly with a few others to find the front window and door window smashed with broken glass and screaming children being very much the motif. My cousin had heard a knock at the door so had gone to answer it with the youngest of her charges in one arm. A 'mean looking' man at the door asked if this was the house where {her dad's name} lived. She didn't know him as up to now she'd spent most of her life on one army base or another abroad with her mum and dad, so she confirmed it. At this, he picked up an empty milk bottle from the step and drew his arm back to throw it right at her. My cousin screamed, slammed the door and ran down the hall with the baby in both her arms now, but she wasn't halfway before the milk bottle came through the door window, smashing both. He broke the other window with another bottle and chucked one more through that before he ran off, with my cousin and four little kids terrified on the inside. The police were called once we’d calmed the kids down, but we knew they'd find him by accident if at all. So we made enquiries of our own.

This actually did make the last time that Johnny bothered us because of another uncle, in the family by marriage to the same aunt who had endured this guy as a partner almost 20 years earlier. This uncle was a very quiet man, mostly an unknown quantity but making an honest living and good as gold to my aunt and her daughter, when to be honest both could try the patience of a saint at times lol. He found out where Johnny was hiding the evening of that same day, but instead of alerting the rest of us he got a tyre iron out of his car and went the short walk to where he was. He knew the people who lived at the place where Johnny was and they knew why my uncle had paid them a visit - everyone knew we were looking for him. They asked my uncle to take it easy and let him in. He walked in and came upon Johnny sat on the kitchen table laughing with a spliff in his mouth. My uncle pulled the tyre iron out and whacked him in the head with it, smacking him on his back on the table and near-knocking him cold. He was still awake though as my uncle used the tyre iron to break one of his arms and both of his kneecaps, pointing out as he lay there on the table screaming that it's not as easy to terrorise someone who isn't a 13-year-old-girl, but if that didn't do it, then he'd soon find something more final to solve the problem. He paused only to apologise to the couple there for the trouble before walking back home. The hospital involved the police, but they found that not one soul would tell them who did it - not even Johnny. Given our own recent complaint against him, they easily put two-and-two together I'd expect (if probably not guessed exactly who it was because it surprised the hell out of all of us), but I’d say the police no doubt thought of it as a problem they no longer had to solve and were secretly grateful. This man really was a piece of work, and this here has barely scratched the surface of even his unsavoury endeavours, so they were aware of him with some clarity and detail. I'll admit, they were aware of some of us too for a number of reasons but none of us were ever like him.

And like I say, after that he never troubled any of us again. He died of Meningitis a few years later, so that's a factor more recently I suppose. No-one I know has missed him. Once.

But do you see? I've not only witnessed crimes more often than I can actually recall, I've witnessed crime storylines, and some that span decades.
(thatblokeoverthere not quite as much an arsehole as I thought, Sat 16 Feb 2008, 13:33, 8 replies)

In which Teenage Chickenlady Made a Solicitor Look a Fool
My Finest Moment - The Court Story


Many months passed after the flashing incident and the wheels of justice ground slowly in Thatcher’s Britain (yes, these were the Thatcher years).


The culprit had been caught and charged but only after I had positively identified him in his school car park running to his parents’ car – he refused to do an ID parade but foolishly ran right in front of the unmarked police car where I was waiting to pick him out.

The day arrived for me to have my say in the local magistrates court – juvenile of course. I went along in school uniform with my Vice House Captain badge proudly displayed (come on, this is Chickenlady – did you expect anything less that a Vice House?). I was accompanied by my dad – he didn’t even need to take time off work, what with being a non-uniform rozzer himself.

We were ushered into the staff canteen and plied with tea and custard creams while the prosecution lawyer explained what would happen. Of course, I already knew - I had grown up watching Crown Court.

I was excited – I had spoken to my headmistress (Sister Mary) and offered to tell the entire school about my experience during assembly but sadly she told me it would be unnecessary. Now I had the opportunity to perform, as it were, in court!

As I was the prosecution witness I got to go first – called to the stand and just like Crown Court I read out the promise to tell the Truth, the Whole Truth and Nothing but the Truth, while laying my sweaty palm on a battered King James.

The prosecution lawyer stood and asked me to tell the court, in my own words, exactly what had happened on the day in question. I recounted the tale pretty much as in my previous post, although I did leave out the Kafka and Freud remark. He asked me some questions about details and then sat down.

Then my potential nemesis the defence lawyer stood and smiled with reptilian superciliousness – I believe it’s a module on most law degrees these days.

“Hello Miss Chickenlady. That was a terrible experience that you went through. I do hope you’re not finding today too stressful having to stand here and tell us all about it.”

*Thinks – Are you kidding?

“No, not at all, I’m fine thanks”

“So, you are in the Sixth form at the convent. You look a fit young lady, and I see you’re a Vice House Captain. Which teams do you play for?”

*Thinks – I know where you’re going with this sunshine and it’s a pathetic line of questioning. Richard Wilson wouldn't have done that in Crown Court.

(Yes, before he was Victor Meldrew he had been a barrister for Granada TV)

“I’m on the debating team” Ha! Take that!

Lawyer looks a little crestfallen. “Not netball? You’re a tall young lady – I would have thought you would make a good goal shooter! Haha!”

*Thinks – piss off – I can’t catch and I can’t throw

“No, I’m useless at sport” (Not entirely true but school didn’t let us do yoga, hiking or competitive arrogance, although I was on the competitive talking, sorry, debating team).

“Oh. But of course you go and support your school when they’re playing against other teams don’t you? Especially as you’re a House Captain.”

*Thinks – you can still piss off

“Erm, no actually I live a long way from school and get the school bus each day so I don’t attend any matches”

*Thinks – and why on earth would I? Just to watch the brainless bimbos running around and showing their knickers while chucking a ball at each other? (Although it had been known for me to watch the local boys’ school play rugby, but that’s another matter entirely….)

“I see. Now you said in your statement that the road was deserted for that time of day. Are you normally outside school at around 2.30?”

*Thinks – I can see what you’re doing here too…bloody hell, you’re a crap lawyer

“On a Friday afternoon I’m usually walking up from the boys’ school at that time – I take one of my A levels down there, so I know that normally it’s busy” Ha! Foiled you again!

“Do you know any pupils from my client’s school?”

*Thinks – you’re clutching at straws now mate

“No, no one. I live twenty-five miles away – that’s why I was catching the bus”

“Oh. Thank you. No more questions”


Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear. That’s what fifty pence and an old bus ticket gets you these days – a lawyer who can’t even better a seventeen year old (I’d had my birthday by then).


Soon Granny (the owner of fifty pence and an old bus ticket now passed to said crap lawyer) was called to the stand and she quietly perjured herself in the very best Ealing comedy style: “Yes sir, ‘ee wos wiv ‘is dear old gran all the time. 'Ee's a good boy 'ee is”
But isn’t that what grannies are for?

Then Mum got up there and if ever the cliché Rabbit in the Headlights was personified it was this poor woman. Except she didn’t appear to have even the gumption of a rabbit – a harvest mouse was nearer. She too perjured herself, nodded a great deal and whispered that her dear son would never do anything like that to a nice young convent girl – he’s frightened of girls you see….And she appeared frightened of the entire world.

Father of the perv remained at the back of the court room throughout and he was perhaps the most interesting character.

He was over six foot tall, still had the look of a 1970s striking worker who hasn’t seen a hot meal in months, Del Boy car coat in grease brown, Teddy Boy hair slicked by latent dirtbag and brylcreem, and the memory skills of a doting parent on the opening night of the school play when their child has the leading part.

Finally said perv was called and his treatment by the fifty pence bus ticket lawyer was similar to mine with the prosecuting lawyer – “Just tell us your version of events son, all everyone wants to hear is the truth, okay?”

Perv boy’s eyes flick over to Father who nods in encouragement. Perv boy begins to tell the story of leaving school early because he goes to keep his dear old granny company and granny lives in the other direction from the bus stop and he didn’t even walk past it and he didn’t see the young lady and he's never seen her before today and he's an honest boy who never lies and he's good to his granny too, honest.

His eyes continued to flick to Father.

I look over at Father….yes; he really is the doting parent, why he’s even helped his beloved boy to learn his lines. In fact he’s reciting them along with Perv Boy.

I nudge the police officer sitting next to me and nod over towards Father. The police officer sees and nudges the other officer sitting next to him. One of the magistrates sees us nudging and nodding – think Churchill on speed (the insurance dog not he of WW2 and cigars – although I dare say he also did a fair bit of nodding in his time, but was of course more known for sticking his fingers up at the Nazis).

The magistrate then realises what’s going on and starts his own nudging and nodding.


Soon enough it was all over – the magistrates retired to decide on Perv Boy’s fate and I went off to eat more custard creams with the friendly rozzers.

We were called back within half an hour – the magistrates had also had a custard cream or two while deciding the outcome I dare say.

The verdict was as everyone, except Perv Boy and his family, had expected – Guilty.


I returned to school high on biscuits, smugness and a rather short lived belief in the fairness of the British Justice System.
( chickenlady b3ta's very own Elizabeth Taylor, Wed 20 Feb 2008, 21:26, 7 replies)

there's a gang in my area
who've been going around stealing hearts.


(apeloverage committed the vile act of onanism on, Sun 17 Feb 2008, 5:15, 5 replies)

Vigilante Santas!
On Christmas Eve about two years ago, me and five mates decided to dress up as Santa and do a pub crawl round the town, and after a couple of hours drinking we were on our way through the town and noticed an rather large group of people gathered outside Boots, so we wandered over like the Santa mafia and had a mooch and there was some crackhead goin nuts at one of the boots staff (a lovely young lady called Sophie as we later found out) and those guy was totally jacked up and REALLY going postal at this poor lass, the crowd of people had gathered to watch! standing at the door watching this twat yelling and (trying) to hit this poor girl! we couldnt believe it! so we pushed our way through and entered the shop and dragged this prick out by his arms and legs and dumped him on the floor outside the shop, to this day i still chuckle about it, this guy is out of his face on drugs and he gets thrown (literally) out of a shop and when he looks up he spots a load of Santas telling him to fuck off and not to come back (or he'd get a piece of coal that year) he got up and ran off round the back of the shop straight into the arms of a copper who had been called previously and was promptly arrested.

Spot on!
(The Reverend annoying the regulars since, Thu 14 Feb 2008, 12:57, 4 replies)

On how I nearly fitted into this QOTW....
A couple of mondays ago, me and my friend C (shes female and noticibly so) had been out for a wee bit of drinkage in the fine town of manchester (joshua brooks if your interested).
The early hours were upon us and after my dismal failure to pull this chunky lass and C having a massive argument with her mate, and we both decided to call it a night. So off we went to the bus stop and hopped on the first bus heading our way.
The bus eventually arrived and we hopped on. The bottom was fairly full so we headed up to the top, there were only us two sat at the front and three scabby looking guys at the back. About 30 seconds into the journey an unshaven mess appears at my shoulder and announces (in its best chavspeak) "You want any blow mate?"
I didnt, and informed him thus. He apparantly took objection to this and responded with this (stunning) bit of repartee: "Then give me all your fucking money"
Being in a rather inebriated state (and fairly convinced this bloke was a gnome) I just nodded and continued staring blankly at him. The threats continued for a few more moments and I eventually realised I was being mugged. Deciding I liked my face very un"slashed" I got out all my money (about 4 pounds in change) and duly handed it over.
About 3 minutes later (after an ignored attempt to steal my phone) the kindly gent retires back to his seat and starts cackling with his fellow man-gnomes. The bus pulls over a few seconds later and me and C decide to ge the hell outta there.
Man-gnome chooses this moment to look up and notices C, looks very confused and hurried up to me.
"Shit sorry mate, didnt realise you were with a girl."
Now its my turn to look confused (this may have showed in my expression) as manchavgnome proceeds to reach into his pocket and pulls out all his change and hands it to me.

Yes, thats right, I got a refund on a mugging.

Actually I made about 1.50 on the deal.

I think that makes me Jesus...

Apologies for length, it would be longer but im still confused.
(big king bob Lord of the Ska, Mon 18 Feb 2008, 23:28, 5 replies)

In which Teenage Chickenlady does not swear or run away
Many years ago when I was still at school I had the misfortune to witness a rather unpleasant crime.


I was in the Sixth form and allowed to leave the school grounds early if all my classes for the day had finished – this was a very strict girls’ convent school and therefore we were not permitted to come and go as we pleased – imagine Prisoner Cell Block H with posh Home Counties accents and marginally better haircuts.

So one Friday afternoon I was waiting outside the school for the bus into town. I was alone, in uniform - my very sexy pea-green uniform which could usually kill all teenage desire at sixty paces. The main road was deserted.

A boy from the local comprehensive school walked up to the bus stop and stood next to me. He was truly something to behold – remember Plug from The Bash Street Kids in the Beano? This lad was his ugly brother – buck teeth, protruding ears, googly eyes and all in all a face only a mother or a plastic surgeon could love.

He stands there next to me with a sports bag held in front of him…and then it starts….the furtive tugging. I knew exactly what he was doing and had to try very hard not to laugh at the sheer ridiculousness of it – here at a bus stop, on a main road, in broad daylight right outside a convent school!

But also I felt a little fear and hope that he would stop or go away or the bus would pull up right now.

It didn’t.

He spoke to me, “Can I kiss you?” Said as he moved the bag away to reveal an open fly but the mouse had run back to its hole.

“No! Go away! Leave me alone!” I replied with all the indignation and arrogance of a sixteen year old Chickenlady. He stepped forward and put his hand on my backside.

He was about the same age and height as me but must have weighed around six or seven stone to my nine – if I’d roundhoused him with my school bag I could have at least winded him if not done some serious damage…but I was a nice catholic schoolgirl, privately educated and brought up to believe that the pen is mightier than the sword – perhaps I should have stabbed him with my left handed osmiroid fountain pen.

But instead I did what any good girl does,
“Stop it please or I’ll scream. Now leave me alone!” and stepped away.

Why didn’t I run back into school? Well then I’d miss my bus and this oik was not going to make me miss my bus!

He stepped back and resumed the frantic tugging behind his bag whilst leering at me.

Like a magician he removed the bag again but rather than announcing “Tah Dah!” he drooled, “I fancy you.”

And there it hung, the second erect penis I had ever seen (I’m not counting the ‘plumber’ flasher as I thought that was pink piping).

I looked at it.

I looked at him.

He looked pleadingly at me.

“Go away! Leave me alone! I’ll scream!” I shouted at him – no swearing and no running away – I still find that odd looking back at my younger self.

We stood like that for what seemed like hours – every so often he would deflate like a bouncy castle at the end of the day, the bag would go back in place, his eyes would glaze over and his right arm would pump like a barmaid at a beer festival, except faster. Then the bag would be removed and I would tell him to go away.

It was a Kafka-esque Freudian nightmare with a side order of misplaced class hatred – I was at the private school on a scholarship and not a rich bitch – if he’d looked at my shoes he’d have seen that…but then again that could have sent him off into further paroxysms of desire.

Anyway, at last the bus pulled up and he shuffled off into the nearby bushes. I got on, paid my fare and sat down. I didn’t mention a word to the driver, any passengers or even my parents when I got home. I sat shaking on the bus, screaming in my head, I was incredulous – how could any of these people not realise what had just happened?

Why didn’t I tell anyone then? Because I had a date that night and had I told my parents I would have missed out on the date.

The story does go on and on – as is usual in my life everything is an epic and nothing is straightforward. I saw him again, twice.

If ever there is a QOTW about being in court I’ll recount How Teenage Chickenlady Made a Solicitor Look a Fool – subtitled My Finest Moment.

Apologies for length but he just wouldn’t go away!
( chickenlady b3ta's very own Elizabeth Taylor, Wed 20 Feb 2008, 12:11, 13 replies)

Drugs & Poo
I love Tottenham Court Road underpass. It's clean, fresh, and well maintained by Camden Council.

Acually, no it isn't. It stinks of piss, is generally flooded by some grotty substance or other, and the ceiling leaks.

I walk through it every morning, and usually 2 mornings out of 5 there'll be a group of crackheads hanging around. Sometimes they beg for a bit of money, sometimes they will be walking around in a blank-eyed state, sometimes they will even stand and have extremely loud and in some cases violent arguments about who owes who what for what (in all cases, I suddenly become very interested in my shoes, for some reason).

But, more than the above, you'll see a group of people huddled around a crack pipe at half past eight in the morning... Squatting in the rivers of urine and taking that horrible, acrid smoke deep in to their lungs, before collapsing backwards in to catatonia.

I know that their lives must be horrible, and God knows that an addiction to crack must be one of the toughest things imaginable to kick, and I know that my life is positively top-notch compared to theirs, and yet every time I walk past and see this, I can't help but think

"yes, but isn't it a bit early for crack?"

The other morning, one of them had a poo on the steps that go up to New Oxford Street.
( Devil_In_Tights the *real* DiT!, Mon 18 Feb 2008, 16:17, 16 replies)

We witnessed, we entrapped, we got them busted.

During the early 90’s, got transferred to a night security station in a tired government office block. Was a two man site, so me and the other guard would keep ourselves amused by buggering about with the row of CCTV feeds in our office from the array of cameras situated about the site. “Police, camera, action” it wasn’t. For one thing we didn’t know what we were doing, so couldn’t operate them properly. Nor were we that interested and really only used them to follow the progress of each other as we took turns to do a walkabout of the site every two hours.
It did pass for amusement to encounter an impassive glaring camera that would start “Nodding “ and spinning erratically when you walked under it. A few times the dayshift guards, after taking over would question why some cameras were trained directly skywards, like some kind of stoned Johnny-five.

One camera overlooked the front carpark, and from there onto a quiet side street with a telephone box. This camera became our source of idle viewing at the infrequent pedestrians that would amble along, mainly bored Chavs, dog walkers and other night dwellers.

My work mate who clearly displayed a more advanced state of “stir-crazy” than myself got the number from the telephone box and took to ringing the phone when we observed anyone walking past it, then ring off just before they would lift the receiver, only to ring back when they were walking off. Tedious I know, but a welcome distraction despite nudging a few perfectly decent members of the public to the edge of their sanity.

Then one night we saw three Hoodie-types swaggering along in that stupid exaggerated walk, looking in car windows and yelling at each other with animated hand gestures. We sat up and observed them silently with growing contempt. One of them tossed a half full milkshake to the ground as they passed our phonebox.
My workmate hissed and grabbed the phone and rang the number.
Chav.1 “Yeah Hello?”
SG: “PICK …THAT… UP!!”
Chav.1 .Ah dunno who it is…OOO ARE YA?
SG: None of yours, Pond-life, just pick up the shake!.

Hence insults, threats, observations about our mothers ensued. To our credit we gave plenty back, ridiculing them on their elaborate dress sense, the way they swaggered about like drunk-chimps, we really were running rings round them. They had to be F**kwitts or smashed cos none of them made the connection that we could see them despite dropping these cast iron hints. They then resorted to violence, obviously cos they couldn’t find us, they chose the phone box itself. Attempting to put the booth windows through, trying to smash the receiver.
We watched with disdainful enthusiasm at the image of these three lunatics blurring round the booth in frenzied showmanship. “Oh yeah. This is brilliant, we gotta shop em”.

A call with the words “Security, Government building, observing real-time criminal damage etc”. The police must have been as bored as we were, to say they hit the ground running weren’t even close. My workmate and I observed some truly conclusive police work, bodies stretched over the bonnet, a few subtle extra elbows and knees here and there to soften them up. It made a real highlight reel.
The police never asked us for further info, guess they figured it wasn’t needed as they caught them in the act. I will never forget Chav.1 head bowed, shrunken shouldered, gingerly replace the handset and step out to face the music.

Length? No.. no, not even a stretch…. maybe 50 hours community service. Tops
(Eeeza bit Tidy A blink, a pause, a blush and then I knew., Fri 15 Feb 2008, 12:46, Reply)

Weird Sexual Practices, Drugs, Rock ‘n’ Roll and Violence…what more could a B3tan ask for??

Disclaimer: Even by my standards this is a biggun – so please get comfy…and I count about a dozen crimes of differing severity coming up in total…all witnessed, some committed by me, all in one night and all 100% true.



When I was 17 I was the keyboard player in a local band – we did alright, mainly because the populations of all the local schools would come and pay £2 entrance fee for the fun of underage drinking, youthful copulation…and time depending, to see the band.

My brother had a very important role to play at our gigs…He was older than all of us and looked like a cross between me and a ruthless sadistic maniac who was harder than a concrete block on Viagra. He was our security guard.

Sure, he nicked a load of the band money to get him and his mates pissed, and he glory sponged off the band’s success to ‘fire in’ with the laydees, but he protected the band and the gear, and one of his mates would drive me about - so that was enough.

We played one such gig in Rugby and it was a triumph – packed with 1000+ screaming drunken kids (I think I actually stagedived!) We played impressively…but more important I got pissed out of my tits. Yay.

Post gig, my brother, his mate and I drive into town for some chow. It was on the way that my caring sharing bro decided to introduce me to the deep joys of acid tabs. You’ll soon discover I picked a doozy of a night to have my first trip.

After a while we were all sat on a wall by the road…kebabbing like a frenzy and starting to whizz nicely along when a fight kicks off about 100 yards from us. It starred your typical Neanderthal brain-swap experiment type, smacking some small unfortunate chap before turning on his own girlfriend.

We didn’t intervene…we didn’t have to...this huge wank-barrel had a proper one on him. ‘What are you fuckin’ lookin’ at?’ He spat at us from across the street.

We said nothing.

Knuckles dragging and bloodied missus in tow, he comes over to us and starts mouthing off…and with the archetypal hallmark of the bully…he looked for the smallest bloke to pick on.

He glanced past me…nope…he glanced at my brother…nope...he glanced at the sober chap with glasses…’that’ll do’ he thought, and he punched our mate in the face, knocking him off the wall.

Either cowardice, drunkenness or a combination of both prevented me from doing anything other than stand up in defence. However, quicker than Bran flakes through my dodgy bowels, my brother launches himself up and knocks the spack of Gibraltar to the floor.

As I attend to our mate, my brother is promptly rewarded for his chivalry with a stiletto to the back of the head and a shriek of ‘Leave ‘im alone…eeee’s pisssssed!’

She then starts dragging her beloved mound of weapons-grade arse-banana across the road and we decide it’s time to for us pick up our friend and go.

Now with the adrenaline of the scuffle, the excitement of the gig, the beer and the acid pumping through our veins we collectively agree that we’re not quite ready to call it a night just yet.

My mate had some beer in the car. We drove to a lake near my rent’s house that had a kiddie’s play area by it where we could drink our cans. At this point it was about 1:30 am and we thought the chances of there being any kids playing at that time were pretty minimal.

What we did see, however, was a sight I will unfortunately take with me to my grave. (This section is sort of a pearoast – soz)

You had to cross a little bridge to get to the play area and as we approached it, in the light of the full moon. We saw an old, bearded man stood there with his trousers round his ankles, wanking himself off feverishly towards the play area. Wanking like his life depended on it…wanking for England and the known universe. Wanking so hard, in fact, that it must have hurt.

This was not an acid hallucination…this was real…and we, quite rightly, freaked.right.out.

“Oi, Wotcha think ya doin?’” We shouted.

The pud-puller turned round startled, tripped over his kex and fell over. He then gathered up his pants, turned on his heels and sped off into the night.

We didn’t laugh or say anything at first…we just stood there with our mouths wide open and stared at each other in disbelief.

This was one fucked up night.

We sat on a picnic table by the play area and started to recount the events of the evening as we drank our cans…. My brother and I were now full-on ratarsed and as we headed back into the car, my brother dared me to jump in the lake.

“Fuck off!” I politely answered.

“Fair enough” he said, and promptly walked into the lake himself

“Fine” I said, and followed him in, fully clothed.

As we waded deeper and deeper into the lake, we were now about 50 metres away from the shore and the water was just up to my chin.

Of course, we all thought this was very good drunken fun, splashing around and had a whale of a time…right up until the lightning started flashing and the rain started pissing down…then it kicked in with the acid very nicely, and I considered the best thing to do was to get really fucking scared really fucking quickly.

The resulting electric storm was the final straw and I was talked out from the lake and back to the car, dripping wet, in the rain, with no means to dry us…upon which our designated driver friend said, “You’re not getting in my car like that!”

It was about 3 miles of country lanes back to my folks’ house, and with the unique brand of idiocy saved only for these such occasions, we decided that the best thing to do would be to sit on the bonnet and hold on for dear life as our friend drove us…so that’s what we did.

He told us later he had hit about 50mph… as he drove past the police college we had forgotten about. We then sped into the village and were rapidly reported to the police by everybody who saw us.

Our mate stopped out side my house and we climbed off the bonnet, still wringing wet. As we discussing our next meeting and the fact that we had survived the night, the police turned up…and turned up…and turned up

From both ends of the road there approached a line of 4 policemen, then 2 cars, then another row with dogs.

Oh bollocks.

I was petrified with fear. I didn’t have a clue what was going to happen. Fortunately, my brother had more experience in these matters.

One of the rozzers approached us, looked at our mate, sober and dry, and then the other two twats…pissed, tripping and soaking wet. As he gazed at the two wet bum marks on the bonnet, he asked:

“So who’s been riding on the bonnet then?” (Even I tutted at that remark – nice one Sherlock!)

“Nobody” Said my brother, as another couple of coppers grabbed our mate and proceeded to go through his car with a fine toothed comb whilst breathalysing the crap out of him

“How come you’re both soaking?” He asked.

“We’ve been swimming in the lake” my brother said

“Do you know you’re not supposed to go in there?” snarled a female copper in my direction.

“Erm…sorry” I muttered.

“I knew, but I went in anyway!” My brother proudly states with a big smile, oblivious to the quacks of fear emanating from my arse.

(Here’s the thing, I wasn’t aware of this at the time, but this particular lake is a dumping ground for loads of dodgy chemicals and wotnot. So while it wasn’t actually illegal to go in there…in Darwin awards fashion, you’re just a stupid twat if you do)

So picture the scene…After a night like that, I’m young and naive, in the middle of a police raid, wringing wet, pissed and tripping – what could be the worst thing that could possibly happen at this point?

Yep – My mum opened the front door in her nightie.

Rubbing her squinting eyes, she squawks “Pooflaaaaake? Pooflaaake? Is that you?”

Oh sweet fucking Jesus…the shame of it all…I’m sure I heard a couple of the coppers giggle.

“Get in the house, for fuck’s sake” my brother tells me – the police let me go in.

As I wander over and approach my mum, the acid gives the appearance of her head lurching towards me, making shapes like she's in a hall of mirrors.

My brother is soon let off too, and my mate’s breath test is negative so they haven’t really got a leg to stand on. It’s all over

I crawl up stairs, my poster of Freddy Krueger is moving on the wall, paranoia starts to kick in and I quickly forget about the scene outside. Every time I close my eyes I get lights flashing in my eyes and a whooshing feeling like I’m flying down the trench at the end of Star Wars.

At this point, despite it being stupid o’clock, I switch my TV on and have the sudden urge to try and write a song about what had transpired that night*, I plug my guitar in, turn the amp up, press my plectrum to the first string…

And there was a power cut.

“Bollocks to this” I say to myself, and go to bed…to lie there quivering with my eyes open for the next 7 hours.

And I wonder why I’m now so fucked up.




Apologies for length specially go out to…well, you know who you are…and I tried to keep it brief…REALLY I did!

* I did get to write a song about it the next day – it was called ‘Headaches and Deep Lakes’ and it wasn’t very good
( Pooflake braces for an onslaught..., Thu 14 Feb 2008, 19:41, 8 replies)

Just checking
Many years ago, I worked in Bristol. There was a multi-story car park where we parked. One of my hapless colleagues bought a nice BMW. After a few days, he came back to it to find the window broken and stereo gone.

"Crivens", quoth he (or something like, anyway). Had the car fixed and replaced the radio. Over the next two weeks this happened twice more. Eventually he bought a CD Walkman (remember those?) and put a note in the windscreen saying "no radio fitted".

He came back to the car to find the window broken, his note turned over and a new note: "just checking".
(lustfish, Wed 20 Feb 2008, 1:39, 1 reply)

Bastard Police
As I have posted before my dad used to be a rozzer, in fact for many years he was the scenes of crime officer (CSI UK version - powder and sellotape for getting fingerprints!). So when any crime was committed he or one of his colleagues would be called up to go and collect the evidence and work with CID in order to crack the case. Bearing in mind he was in the force during the 70s and 80s things did resemble both Life on Mars and Ashes to Ashes to some extent....

So one day a call came through for a SOCO (Scenes of Crime Officer) to go and deal with a suicide - someone had been found hanged in the local woods.

Sadly a not uncommon event, pretty routine, no particular rush but the deceased was still on the rope and needed to be taken down by the undertakers.

My dad gets in his van and drives off, parks up in the woodland car park where he's met by the uniform chaps who had been first on the scene.
"You took your bloody time!" Says the uniform, "Didn't they tell you it's a murder scene?"

My dad is puzzled at this - not what he's been told. "What makes you think it's a murder?"

"The note"

"Note?"

"Yeah, the body has a note in its hand - you'd better take a look, they've only just found it"

My dad is very suspicious now (although I must point out that it's my dad's normal habit to be suspicious - Jehoviah's Witnesses are obviously checking the house out for a burglary when they come around to hand out the Watch Tower. But I digress...).

He reaches the clearing where the poor bugger who has topped himself is still swinging in the light breeze. There, as he's been told, is a small scrap of paper sticking out of the dead man's clenched hand. My dad doesn't remove it at first, instead he carries out all the necessary work and has the body taken down so he can do whatever else he needs to do.
Finally the moment arrives...
He takes the cold dead hand in his own and slowly prises apart the fingers to retrieve the small scrap of paper...

Written upon it are a few words...XXXXXXXXXX did it.

The XXXXXXX? My dad's name.


And all he can hear is the sound of uniformed rozzers quietly pissing themselves.

Bastards.
( chickenlady b3ta's very own Elizabeth Taylor, Mon 18 Feb 2008, 20:39, 4 replies)

oops
more or less on topic...

After a trip to the Jazz Cafe in Camden to see one of the top Jazz piano/organ players in action - no idea who he was - and having drunk a large amount of lager because it was so godawful, I headed home to the salubrious area of London known as Shepherd's Bush.

Arming myself with a greasy and limp kebab I wandered down the Goldhawk Road back to my flat...
Turning the corner I was asked for the time by some shadowy youth. Not thinking anything I of course got my phone and told him it was 2am.
Young hooded scoundrel grabs the phone and two of his mates surround me and relieve me of my wallet and abscond into the estate.

Anyways, I live 1 minute up the road so I jump in my car, grab my work phone and call the police. Not really thinking, I start the engine, reverse out and start following two of the said scoundrels, whilst on the phone to the coppers.

I manage to rendezvous with a foot patrol, and they jump in the car and we have a drive round the estate to try and catch up to the thieves who have long since legged it down a passage...

I then realise that I'm about 5 pints over the limit and have two of Her Majesty's finest in the back seat.

Luckily, the search was fruitless and I drop them off on the Uxbridge Road with them non the wiser and me sweating like the guilty man I am.

Thieves escape with my phone and wallet, but I escape with my driving licence and kebab.

I think I won overall.
( scoshi pretending to diet since, Wed 20 Feb 2008, 12:47, 1 reply)

Crimes, I've seen a few...
In a lifetime in Salford, the following crimes I've seen;
12 Schoolies stealing,
11 Drunken drivers,
10 counts of arson,
9 burning Metros,
8 pikey muggings,
7 senseless kickings,
6 lewd conducts,
Fiiive Drun-ken Brawls!
4 brutal stabbings,
3 paedo teachers,
2 battered housewives,
And my bike which was stolen from me!

Apologies for the Christmas-like song, but I needed something cheery to suppress the memories of that lost bike. *sniff*
(Psycorp603, Thu 14 Feb 2008, 13:20, 3 replies)

chavs chavs chavs chavs chavs chavs chavs
I wasn't gonna write this one, but I should probably get it out of my system as it will be cathartic. Please bear with me - it's not particularly funny, but I need to vent. It'll probably be a long one, and may contain elements of repostiness, as I probably talked about some of this stuff before.

For a long time I lived on a street in London - the same one as Dr. Crippen, if you can be arsed to check - which was ideally situated (handy for the tube, great pubs, quick walk to Camden, my neighbours were fantastic) except for one thing. As the street had been extensively revitalised by the Luftwaffe's urban regeneration programme during the forties, in the fifties and sixties a lot of council blocks sprung up to fill the gaps. On the whole, this wasn't a problem - my flat was an ex-council place and lovely, it even had a garden, and like I said, fantastic neighbours - but there's always a couple of bad apples that spoil the whole orchard, and they lived in a block just behind mine. So over the four years I lived there I got to witness all kinds of crimes, mostly directed at me, my housemates or the flat itself, as these little scrotes (none older than 15) tried to make our lives a misery. Herein I shall try to document the ways.

It started off innocuously enough, when the morning after I stumbled down to the kitchen to make myself a cup of tea. Filling the kettle and staring out of the window, I spotted a young chav in my garden collecting tea-lights. Those little candles that I had bought 200 for 99p at the 99p shop - these things cost less than half a penny each. Surely the very definition of petty crime. I banged on the window, shouting "What the fuck do you think you're doing?" and the little bugger scarpered over the back fence. I made a mental note to grow brambles up the back fence, and left it at that.

Other things went missing from the garden over the next few weeks - small items often not worth stealing, like a trowel (also from the 99p shop), a gnome (whatever) and so on. In the meantime our sheds were done over and both of my housemates got their bikes nicked. My housemate Claudia had all the windows smashed in her Audi, which cost her a fortune. Things began to escalate.

The gang of chavs would now often hang out in the street and shout abuse at us. When my housemate Kirsten left her keys in the door while bringing in her shopping, they stole them. When Claudia did the same thing a week later while bringing in her bike (it must have taken about 20 seconds) they did the same thing again. We went through three new locks in three weeks, and the guy at the keycutters was becoming a close friend.

Over the years there were times of uneasy truce - they would pass a spliff through the fence, or I'd sort them out with some serious firewood for the Wicker Man-style bonfires that they held on the greenspace behind my garden, but most often the mood between us was one of mutual and barely-disguised loathing.

I credit them with the inspiration for my getting more right-wing as I get older, because while I was once a fully paid-up lefty, I'd quite happily see these parasites and their dolescum parents marched into a concentration camp after being forced to put up with their shit. A case in point - everyone who lived in my flat had a full-time, well-paid job. We paid £400+ per month rent, plus council tax, plus income tax etc. etc. for the privilege of living in the street. Said chavs are all in council places, subsidised or free. Lo and behold, the council comes round and fits all the flats in the street with new extra-tough double-glazed windows - except for ours and the flat next door, because we were the only private tenants. So basically, our council tax paid for the chavs to get new windows while we were left with old-fashioned huge single-pane-of-thin-glass type windows, which their kids used to come round and break for their amusement. I've lost count of the times we had to board them up - the hammer, nails and wood were always kept handy - and sometimes at night when there were 40+ teenage hoodies outside the flat it was like living through the dawn of the dead.

One bonfire night in particular, I had invited over a couple of my Canadian friends - one who had just married an Englishman - to do a proper bonfire night. I cooked dinner, we had sparklers and we let off a few fireworks in the garden. One of our rockets went up and went bang, and suddenly a chav starts screaming at us from the previously-mentioned Wicker Man inferno across the way. "We've got a baby over here! How dare you let off fireworks!"

Now I was perhaps a little naïve here, I was like, "What? It went up, went bang. Unless your baby is on the roof of that block of flats, there's no problem." Also, from where I was standing I could see toddlers carrying lit fireworks, even a dog running around with a fizzing roman candle in his mouth. I shit you not, this kind of thing was incredibly common in the run-up to bonfire night; even the very smallest chavs would be launching fireworks at each other, or us if we happened to be passing. Anyway, I couldn't understand why our small display had caused this proud father to become so protective of his offspring, considering he was standing in what looked to be a warzone.

Anyway, the mood turned nasty and every single fucking chav on the estate started hurling bricks and fireworks at our flat, putting through Claudia's window and throwing fireworks into her room (she was in bed with her boyfriend at the time). Said boyfriend (ex-army) proceeded to the kitchen to arm himself with every big knife he could find and stormed out to get himself some vigilante justice, but was miraculously prevented from earning himself a 20-year stretch by a passing skinhead with a pitbull who said he'd lived in the street for 15 years and it wouldn't do any good, basically talked him down.

We also had our windows put through by other people's garden furniture and fences - just smashed into bits and thrown. We had fruit, 2p coins, bits of wood, stones, cans, bottles, fireworks, obviously, and even on one occasion a housebrick thrown at us in the street. We've had them sneak into the kitchen and steal stuff while we popped upstairs to get something - twice. We've also had the door kicked in twice, both times I was away for the night else I would have been standing there with a cricket bat, ready to welcome the first chav into our house. On the first occasion my housemate threatened to kill them if they came near the house again so they went and put my car window through instead.

A bit later, and after I'd paid the £50 premium, I bought a "new" car (see below), thankfully still had the old one but was going to retire it. The new car had all its windows put through and then was stolen, apparently by someone else, some time after the original vandalism. I mean, who steals a boxy red 1983 VW Polo with the exhaust hanging off *after* it's had all its glass smashed?

They also managed to infiltrate a house party where they managed to fuck up a set of decks and two stereos and nick a bunch of phones and stuff (discovered later) before refusing to leave, upon being persuaded to leave they tipped over our (gargantuan, shared between four flats) bin all over the front garden. On that occasion we had the last laugh though, as present at the party were the entire staff of both the Good Mixer and the Dublin Castle, who are well-versed in dealing with arseholes, and had been watching from the upstairs window. Fifteen or so burly Aussies and Kiwis burst out of the house and made them pick every piece of rubbish back up again.

There is loads of stuff that I haven't even mentioned yet - stealing a stack of SFX magazines from my car and leaving them torn up all over the street, setting fire to a gazebo and bunting we had for a wedding reception (and which was attached to the flat at the time), smashing up my flowerpots and hanging baskets, stealing a £10 Argos drill (but not the battery pack, the bit that makes it work, as it was plugged in at the time), smashing my neighbour's windows with lemons (wtf?) while she was sitting at home alone, putting shit through the letterbox, stealing post, smashing my coldframe, killing my tomato plants, pulling the drainpipes off the building, crap graffiti, untold verbal abuse and threats, the list just goes on and on and on...oh and they tore down the side of my fence (which I'd had spraypainted by an absolute master of his craft with a massive Batman mural) and burnt it last bonfire night.

And where were the police in all this, you may ask. Well, I got to know all the neighbourhood officers quite well during this time, as well as my equally-harassed neighbours, and every time they said the same thing - "Yeah, we know who they are. We know where they live. There's nothing we can do about it." As they were all under 16 they were still classed as minors, and the police were always quick to remind me that assault on a minor carries a sentence. I asked them if a paintball gun could legitimately be used in self-defence against fireworks, and after laughing they said "No sir, I can appreciate it is tempting, but if they are under 16, you'll still be in the shit." So basically there was nothing I could do except try to photograph the little buggers in the act and email the pictures to the police. The best line I think they came out with was after my car window got broken. They said "You know we have a camera on the street now."
I replied: "Great, where is it?"
They said: "It points down the road there."
I'm like: "Great, that's exactly where my car is parked. You should have it all, can we see the tapes from last night?"
They said: "Er, it's not actually a camera. It's just a metal box on a stick. We can't afford a real camera. But it looks like a camera."
Me: "..."
I installed my own CCTV after that.

So, the moral of the story? I've now been living in Buenos Aires for three months and so far I've not been threatened, robbed or assaulted once. Perhaps it has something to do with the armed policeman who stands on the corner by my house, I don't know. All I know is that despite warnings from my Porteño friends that it's a poor area (many, many times poorer than the place I lived in London) and that crime is high, the only actual crime I've seen here is when my friend got his bag snatched from under a table in a pub in Palermo - one of the most touristy areas of the city. I think I'll come back to London at some point, but the proverbial wild horses couldn't persuade me to live in that area again, I'd rather move in with Pete Doherty.

Length speaks for itself.
( emvee cruor deo cruoris, Tue 19 Feb 2008, 17:26, 20 replies)

Stupidest crime ever
In the middle of summer last year, I decided to go to my local chippy, since I couldn’t be arsed cooking. Place was kinda busy and I’d ordered Chinese stuff (as opposed to just chips n stuff), so I knew I was in for a bit of a wait. Since it was one fo the few warm days, I stood in the doorway, looking out into the street.

While I was stood there, two Traffic Wardens pull up in their scooters, having spotted a shitty, battered Ford Orion that was parked on the zig-zags of the pelican crossing adjacent to the chippy. As they are writing their tickets, horrible chavvy Manc bloke comes flying out of the door to the flat above the chippy, having seen his car about to get a ticket and starts arguing with the wardens, quite loudly, since he was clearly a good few Stellas into his night.

The traffic wardens around here must have panic buttons of some description, since neither of them used their radios but, within a few minutes, a police car pulls up and a couple of members of the local constabulary pile out. Bloke starts arguing with them as well.

I start paying more attention at this point, as it was getting really interesting. Guy is getting more and more wound up, especially when one of the coppers starts throwing around phrases like “it’s not taxed or insured” and “confiscate it” and “we’ll crush it”. Guy is really wound up at this point and a police van pulls up, blue lights and all, disgorging half a dozen of Manchester’s finest. Guy is obviously about to get nicked.

Now comes the stupid crime:
As all this is going on (and don’t forget, there is now two traffic warden scooters, a police car and a police van, with it’s lights on, in the road and about a dozen coppers and two traffic wardens stood on the pavement), a woman pulls up and parks across the pedestrian crossing and runs into the newsagents next door to the chippy. This actually brought the row that was going on with the Orion owner to a complete halt as they all stared at this woman and her illegally parked car.

My Chinese arrived at that point, but I hung around long enough to hear one of the coppers explain to the woman why she was getting a £60 fine and three points on her licence.
(ScousersPet, Fri 15 Feb 2008, 9:33, 3 replies)

Laptop
The security guard at my workplace witnessed a crime, when a man turned up in reception one Saturday. The guard dutifully asked who he was, and the man replied "I'm here to collect the laptops".

"Ah OK" said the guard, and let him in.

The man signed in as "A. Laptop" and returned half an hour later with a couple of armfuls.

"Cheerio then" said the guard. We had a new one the next week.
( browser still relating boring anecdotes into a void on, Thu 14 Feb 2008, 16:25, 2 replies)

My One and Only 'Jackie Chan' Moment...
One night, a few years ago, the girlfriend of the time and I were walking back to my house after a long shift in the restaurant. It was about 1 o’clock in the morning, and the cold Yorkshire night wrapped around us, a light fog coating the air.

The house I lived in at the time was a huge Georgian affair; it had seven bedrooms and seven students living in it. It was also conveniently placed at the rear of Manygates Student Village, so a quick leap over the fence meant we could get to the union bar nice and quickly. Anyway, the house was at the bottom of a long, rough lane, which had no lamplights or any other such luxuries.

As I mentioned before, there were seven people living in the house, and as such there were quite a few cars parked on the drive outside. There had been a spate of thefts from these cars – only days earlier my window had been put in and my CD’s stolen.

Coming around the gate, I noticed that the door to one of my flatmates car was open. This wasn’t immediately unusual; there was often some kind of late night shenanigans going on at the weekend. She was probably grabbing something out of there before heading back in. I crept up to the car, planning to scare the living bejesus out of her, and poked my head in the doorway.

Just as I was drawing breath to yell, I saw that it wasn’t my flatmate rummaging around on the back seat. It was a young, bald male rifling through her things.

As I’ve said before, I’m not the violent type. But thieving really disgusts me, and I saw red. I pulled my head out of the car, gripped the roof with both hands, and swung my feet inside and kicked the fucker twice, once in the kidneys and one (I think) in the back of the neck.

I stepped out of the car, and took stock of the situation. I had kicked someone – and he would be mad, and possibly have all kinds of strange and interesting weaponry about him. At this point, he unfolded himself from the car.

My resolve faded. Not only was he bigger than me, he looked pissed. There was a tense stand off as we stared at each other; I could see his hands twitching as he contemplated whether it would be worth the scrap or not. In the end, after what felt like an hour, I shouted:

“Well? FUCK OFF, THEN!”

And he did. I ran inside, called the police, and to their credit they were at the house in less than 10 minutes (to the backdrop of seven students manically trying to hide the dope). They took a description, and less than half an hour later, they were back with him in the back seat of their car, for me to identify him.

There’s a couple of post-scripts to this story. Firstly, the guy who was doing the thieving pressed assault charges on me, though thankfully they were later dropped. The cunt, he got what he deserved. Secondly, a year later, he was caught breaking in to cars in the student campus next door. Strangely, I was involved again, and this time I found out he was armed, as he tried to stab a friend of mine who was pinning him down until security turned up. The police came (again), and we never saw him again after that.
( Devil_In_Tights the *real* DiT!, Thu 14 Feb 2008, 13:02, 2 replies)

star wars and robbery
We live in Oakland, California, birthplace of not only MC Hammer and his giant pants, but the drive-by shooting as well. We live in the ghetto, where you know your drug dealers by sight. Still, our neighborhood is filled with families, we've got a kick-ass place and I've never felt nervous about living there.
I'd just come downstairs at the ungodly hour of 10.30 in the morning when, walking through to the kitchen I notice all the cabinet doors open, my purses on the floor and a faint but obvious state of dishevelment about the area. Being the smartie that I am, I phone up my boyfriend at work and ask him what he'd been looking for, why he didn't shut the doors and what he needed from my purse, to which he replied, “Err.... maybe I should come home.” It hadn't occurred to me that we'd actually been robbed. He comes back, looks around the house and we deduce that around $700 in cash has been stolen (we were collecting masses of US state quarters and had random emergency money) plus our PS 2, XBOX, GBAs, DS, PSP, oldschool Lynx... – have I mentioned he's a video game programmer? -- and all the games in the house, including his collection of every game he's done since his first for Lucas when he was 18 (Indiana Jones. woo.).
Mother pusbucket!
He goes back to work, I'm home for the police. I wait a surprisingly short time for one of Oakland's finest, who comes in and comments on the cool space (loft with a full-size trampoline). He takes my details and is basically a total robotic pro – until he turns around. “OH MY GOD!!”. He's seen the Star Wars wall: a 30ft by 7ft display case with -every- classic Star Wars figure, lego and playset you've ever drooled over, which my boyfriend's had since he was a kid. The cool demeanor is gone as the cop literally runs over to point and mumble to himself, '...HOTH ICE PLANET! mom never let me... LEGO MILLENIUM FALCON!! aw man!...'. After about 5, 6 minutes (which is a loooooong time when you're watching a policeman spazz out), I clear my throat and he pulls it together, suggesting we look at 'the criminal's point of entry'. We head downstairs – and he sees the Addams Family pinball machine. Cue another freakout, albeit on a much smaller scale. The doorbell rings: it's the fingerprint guy. The cops are talking technically until the fingerprinter turns around: “OH MY GOD!”. Other cop: “I KNOW!”. Then they BOTH run to the wall and giggle, eyes glazed over remembering the ecstasy that was the original trilogy.
As to the crime itself, apparently it was kids; they'd robbed a place next door as well. The creepy part of it is they were there when I was upstairs asleep. Naked. We guess they made their way up, saw someone was home and ran, since nothing upstairs was touched. Funny thing is, the cops couldn't for the life of them figure why they only took money and machines when they had all of the Star Wars universe at their feet. Kids today, huh?
(sar "though she be but little she is fierce", Wed 20 Feb 2008, 4:50, 7 replies)

JUSTICE......
About a year ago I was in the ladies toilets of a rock bar in town and doing my lipstick in the mirror when a man came in and stood by the door.

He seemed quite drunk so I presumed that he had made a mistake and I directed him to the gents and away he went.

I carried on doing my lipstick and the door opened again. It was the same guy. He just stood there so I told him sharply to get out of the ladies toilets.

He responded to this by punching me in the face and hitting my head against the dryer and then repeatedly kicking me whilst I was down. He then grabbed me by my hair and tried to get me into a cubicle and lock the door.

There was no way that I was prepared to be in an enclosed space with him. I have 6 brothers and I am quite accustomed to getting out of tight grasps/awkward situations so I managed to wriggle free quite a few times.

However, every time I did so (and almost reached the door to my escape) he would grab me again and get me into the cubicle again!

I eventually got free and managed to get through the door and to my dash for freedom

The toilets in the pub are down some stairs so I ran up them and my attacker had to push past me to get away. I tried to grab his leg as he went past (it’s a narrow stairway) but he kicked me back. I ran the rest of the stairs and screamed blue murder.

Some (pretty hard) male friends of mine heard and saw the guy flee and made chase. They caught him up the road (after seeing him throw my purse and mobile – he’d somehow robbed that as well as beating me up and trying to rape me) and gave him what for. They broke his ribs and jaw and although I am not a violent person myself I think he got what he deserved.

I know some people will think it’s wrong to take the law into your own hands but to attack a young woman in a ladies restroom for no reason at all is beyond belief and I dread to think how far he would have taken things had I not escaped.

I just hope it taught him a lesson.
( DUMBLONDE is a rubber lover girl, Tue 19 Feb 2008, 16:07, 9 replies)

Rough local
There I was, just minding my own business playing a set with my band in the local, when these two came in. I should have realised there was going to be trouble when another two of their mates (one big camp bugger and a shortarse with some sort of speech impediment) were stopped at the door. Their mates told to go and wait back in the car. Obviously it wasn't going to be long before it kicked off.

Now, the other two - I assume that must have been a grandfather and grandson or something, as one was about 70, while the other was in his teens. They didn't look like they were the trouble making kind, but it wasn't long before the young one got into an argument at the bar with a couple of the local hardcases.

One of the hardcases starts spouting off about how he's wanted by the fuzz, starts threatening the kid, and ends up giving him a thump and knocking him half-way across the room. I don't know what the kid said to him, but it must have pissed him off, as he ends up pulling a gun.

Now, it takes a bit to get put me off my rhythm, but what happened next had the band ducking for cover.

The old man - quick as a flash - whips out a sword. A sword!!! In this day and age! Anyway, before anyone does anything else, the hardcase's right arm's on the ground, quickly followed by the rest of him. Everybody suddenly becomes very interested in their drinks, and the manager's motioning to me to start playing again while he sorts things out.

Now it turns out that while all this was kicking off, the old man was talking to to barman. He's been looking for a dodgy character for some dirty job or other. The barman points him at this smartarse in the corner and his long-haired hippy mate, and he drags the kid over to talk to them.

So, we (the band) are setting back down into the set, but I'm keeping an eye on what's going on.

The old geezer and the kid finish their business, shake hands and piss off. I breathe a sigh of relief and start to relax. The place may be a wretched hive of scum and villany, but the regulars aren't normally too bad.

It looks like the smartarse and the hippy have got a good deal, as they look happy, and they're making to head off too when one of the local wannabe gangsters corners them and sits smartarse back down again.

I can't claim to have seen what happened next. Anyway, guns were pulled again - under the table this time - and the gangster was shot. Certainly there's been a lot of debate about it locally - who shot first? The end result though, was that the smartarse paid off the manager to hush things up, and scarpered quickly.

Anyway. Back to the QOTW. The crime I witnessed, well heard, was our drummer's playing. He was absolutely shocking that night and we fired him shortly after.

Mind you, the exact details are a little hazy as this was all a long time ago, somewhere far, far away...
( Fireflier La la la la, not listening on, Fri 15 Feb 2008, 12:33, 8 replies)

On a more serious note.
I do have a tale of two crimes. A very bad one I missed, and an even worse one that I saw in all its horror.

Step back to the halcyon days of 2003. A just-turned-18 Mr.6 03 is celebrating in the pub (The Town Hall in Eccles, so you can all avoid it) with a group of friends, as his close companion Mr. H has decided to bite the bullet, drop out of college and pursue a career of dodging bullets in the sand - or so he thought.

Enter three of the pikey-est scum known to man, the sort of hairy knuckle-draggers that prove Darwinism works in reverse too, the kind of person who couldn't tell his head from his arse until he started shitting. In short, the sort of person that populate all the answers in this QOTW.

We think nothing of it, until the youngest one starts hanging around the pool table. He challenges one of us to a game, our best player duly dispatches him. Spitting mad he challenges me.

"Wot rules we playin' mate?"
"Swinton rules chief. That alright?(ie the rules I played every week in the Swinton pool hall)"
"Ooo da fuck's Swinton? Cunt, yoor in fuckin' Eccles now, innit?"

Fair enough, thinks I. Game played, he wins - mainly because the mad animal glint from under his neanderthal forehead put me off slightly. I drink up, and have a quick word with Mr. H about how if we stayed, it'd kick off. He assures me he'll be out after the girls have all drunk up, and satisfied I leave the pub with the most sensible of the girls.

Fast forward 3 hours. I have a phone call from a sobbing girl and hotfoot it to the local A&E.

During those three hours, the first of the crimes had been committed. True to his word, Mr. H had rounded up the other revellers and moved to safer ground. All bar one girl, who thought knew better. Persuaded to return 20 minutes later, our group agree to another game of pool. Neanderthal the younger attempts to grope one of the girls, she slaps him, and all hell breaks loose.

The girl in question is punched to the floor. Her boyfriend receives a broken arm when he stops a stool being smashed into her prone head and is duly hurled through the jukebox. Another one of our friends is beaten about the head and neck with a pool cue, leaving him with a six inch gash to the scalp and lots of bruising. Then the three pikeys make their getaway. But they stop at the door, spot Mr. H calling the police on his mobile and grind a bottle into his eyes before stealing his phone.

Back in the A&E, I've just walked in to see three of my friends bloodied and battered, and the air filled with the screams of Mr. H, who is currently having broken glass removed from his face and the insides of his eyelids - a procedure that cannot be done under sedation. That sound, and the sight of him in a wheelchair, head bandaged, will stick with me until the day I die.

Fast forward 12 months. Mr. 603 is now a student, returning home for the first time - to accompany a now fully recovered (to the point that he can see just well enough to fail the army medical) Mr. H to the trial of two of the three thugs that nearly blinded him. The trial should have taken place four months earlier, but the defendants' brief had managed to delay the hearing. Into the court we go, seats are taken, and I view the most horrific crime ever committed against one of my friends as a helpless bystander.

Those four months are important. The brief points out to the judge, that the glass-grinding thug now has a job for the first time ever, and has been working for the past three months. Sending him to prison would deprive his three-month pregnant wife the income to support his unborn daughter. The criminal in question, a fucking judge who wouldn't know justice if it picked up a WKD bottle and blinded him with it, passed his verdict.

"In light of the fact that the guilty party is now in gainful employment, and about to become a father, it would be unfair to hand down a custodial sentence. Therefore he will serve a 2 year sentence, suspended for 18 months as long as he stays out of trouble. Case closed."

Now that is, without a doubt, the worst crime I've ever seen. Aiding and abetting a thug in robbing my friend of his dream.
(Psycorp603, Thu 14 Feb 2008, 15:28, 13 replies)

The world's crappest gang fight?
Some of you possibly aren't old enough to remember C.B. (citizen's band) radio. A bit like the internet of its day; lots of strangers talking shit to each other and serving very little pratical purpose. It was for a while very popular. The events below took place in about 92/93. C.B. was fairly out-dated even then, but still had a loyal following amoungst certain types.

My friend P. was a bit of a tech-nerd and so had a radio rigged up in his car. One thursday night, with nothing better to do, we went for a drive and ended up at a scenic car park/viewpoint in Reigate Hill, about 10 miles from where we lived. Anyone who knows the M25/Surrey towns areas will know that this place is hardly South Central L.A.

So anyway, there we were in this car park, somking a few ciggies, and sipping some whisky. (Obviously P. wasn't drinking, being the driver.) Just being mellow and talking bollocks about girls, films and all the usual. P. puts on the C.B. to see if the locals have anything interesting to say. Flicking around the channels we come across some very busy exchanges, lots of people talking about "the meet" as well as people calling each other all sorts of names. The signals were local and getting stronger. These chaps who were all threatining violence upon each other were obviously mobile, and getting nearer.

I found the thought of conflict between rival C.B. gangs quite amusing. The West Side Breakers Vs the East Side (of Reigate)Aerials?
Not exactly the Bloods and the Crips.

Suddenly about eight cars skidded dramatically into the car park from both entrances, meeting in a circle in the middle. About twenty fellas got out and started scrapping. The C.B. rivals had chosen our quiet location to settle their differences. The fighting was pathetic. A missed kick followed by running away, a swing that misses by miles leaving the guy who throws it facing the wrong way etc., real playground stuff. P. and I watched trying to stifle our laughter.

A white Ford Cortina (those were the days) sped into the car park and the driver jumped out, his right arm in the air.

"Gun!" someone shouted.

Fuck, this made things a little more serious. The combatants scattered and cars sped in every direction. The gunman's white Cortina reversed quickly, its engine screaming and stopped directly behind P's Maestro, boxing us in. The driver looked at us. As dodgy as this situation had turned, I was still amused by the comic display of gang violence we had witnessed and had trouble taking it all seriously. I spoke to P.

"Quick. Fellate me. He'll think we're just a pair of fruits having a little fun."

P., being a more serious kinda chap than me, didn't find my suggestion funny and just sat in his seat turning more and more pale.

After 20 or 30 seconds Cortina Gunboy realised we were nothing to do with the fight and drove off leaving us.

We drove round scanning the airwaves, the word on the C.B. was that it was just a starter pistol.

Fucking anoraks.

Still, an interesting night out.

Sorry for the long read.
( sir_spicious2000 Crap I've watched: www.filmplop.blogspot.com/, Sun 17 Feb 2008, 20:42, 3 replies)