» Clients Are Stupid

the UK at large
I work in Viewer Relations for a national broadcaster. Technically, the TV watching UK pondlife are my clients.

I can occasionally spend my day trying to deal with someone who believes "we" are telepathically transmitting messages from David Bowie to her (an actual example).

Of course, that is just "being crazy", I also deal with stupid "sane" people too. Like all the people who whinged about that advert for Red Devil (energy drink) with Vinnie Jones and a (fake) sparrow. It was the advert where Vinnie Jones places a bag of nuts on a table inside of his house and leaves the window closed, so the sparrow flies at the window and gets hurt. People actually complained that it will "make children go and copy it".
(Tue 30th Dec 2003, 20:42, More)

» Messing with the Dark Side

A wet-fart anticlimax kind of spooky story about a live radio exorcism
I didn't get as far as the spookiness, unfortunately, I'm too scared. I've always had an interest in ghosts and spooky stuff. When I was 7, I used to beg my mam to let me spend the night in a graveyard and stuff. I enjoy watching Most Haunted on TV (although this is more about laughing at the unbelieveable Derek Acorah and screeching hysterically when Yvette Fielding gets scared - when she starts crying I laugh even harder).

When I was growing up in Tyneside, I used to listen to a late night phone in show called The Nightowls. Especially at halloween because the host, Alan Robson, would get listeners to stay in supposed haunted locations with radio mics and the show that night would be made up of all these scared people - great fun. Recently, I was looking at the website for that station, and saw that you can listen to past shows, and they have one called "exorcism (scary christmas)". The show was Alan, who has since become an exorcist, in a haunted house to perform an exorcism live on the radio. At some point in the show he was about to read out incantations to make spirits manifest in the home of the listener. I'm not a believer, but I'm not an non-believer and I can't bring myself to listen to this part of the show - I'm too scared.

If anyone fancies being braver than me and wants to listen to the full show (I accepty no responsibility ofr anything, so if your house gets possessed, it is your own fault), it can be found at:

www.whatson.com/metroradio/
(Wed 26th Apr 2006, 13:19, More)

» The most cash I've ever carried

dirty dirty money
As a youngster (about a decade ago) I ended up having to walk around a dodgyish Tyneside housing estate whilst carrying £17,500 in a plastic carrier-bag. You'd think that this large amount of cash would look big, but it didn't.

I sort of had a second family (I originally was the babysitter but as I spent more time there than at my own parents home, it became my second family) and the dad of my other family had a very lucrative drug peddling business.

Drug dealing is NOT glamourous, as some people may believe, but is in fact just a series of paranoid episodes with occasional nice drug bender. Everyday, there would be 3 or 4 paranoid situations where we would believe the local Constabulary's Drug Squad were watching the house. One day when this happened, dad had £17,500 on him for buying some more speed, and I was sent out to wander around the estate and not be near the house.

I was shit scared, for a couple of reasons. Not because I thought the money may be nicked, the family were such that I would not have been touched by anoyone on the estate, but because I would have a pretty hard time explainign where the money came from if I was nicked. Also because when I was passing the off licence, I couldn't resist dipping in an pinching a tenner for some cigs and drinks.
(Thu 22nd Jun 2006, 18:47, More)

» Encounters with Royalty

Enough near brushes with Royalty
I don't think I have ever met actual Royalty (although I've fucked enough queens in my time) BUT I have a catalogue of 2nd hand encounters with the real thing:

1)- a colleague used to be some kind of millitary person, and he had to carry Lady Di's suitcase from the back of their car to the waiting yacht when her and Charlie were off on a holiday or honeymoon or something (the bags were surprisingly light, he remarks)

2) - my ex-landlady got a job taking bus loads of piss-stinking old grannies around Clarence House to see The Queen Mum's old bits of china and art collection (which grew considerably during the years 1939-1945). While working there, she did pilfer half a slice of Prince Charles' fruit cake (a wonderful afternoon energy booster, apparently), so she practically met Royalty.

3) - my ancestor, Simon, was quite good friends with Henry III until he decided to make Henry hand over control of England to the newly formed parliament that Simon set up (there were only 15 members of parliament back then).
(Fri 4th Aug 2006, 15:26, More)

» Old People Talk Bollocks

head lice
My dear departed geordie nanna used to refer to dickies, headlice, as "Jerusalem Donkeys".

Has anyone ever heard this expression before? I've only ever heard my nanna use it, and wodered if it comes from somewhere or if it was just some sign of an elderly geordie lady's secret anti-semitism?
(Fri 12th Mar 2004, 9:48, More)