» Out of my depth

In the middle of winter
my school used to force all its pupils to don airtex shorts and t-shirts and go on a very long cross country run whilst the PE teachers stood around wearing about 7 tracksuits drinking coffee from a thermos. The school cross country team was selected based on this event. One year, I think I was about 11, it was very, very foggy, so much so that myself and a very small asian boy called Shetal were the only two not to take a wrong turning causing every one to go about 2 miles out of there way, as a result we came 1st and 2nd by quite some distance. The teachers mistook of story for fasle modesty and so the next saturday we found ourselves representing the school in some sort of national event. I surprised myself by actually finishing (admitidly way down the field), Shetal however didn't fair quite so well and fainted about 400 yards from the finish and had to carried across the line by his dad.
(Thu 14th Oct 2004, 22:43, More)

» Work Experience

Signing on experience may have been more appropriate
A few years ago I had the misfortune to be a department manager at a well known chain of stores that sells poor quality bikes and car accessories. They regularly took on work experience people as it meant they could subsidise the ridiculously low staffing levels without actually having to pay any wages out.
Since it is no-ones ambition to actually work in such a shop we didn’t exactly get the cream of the crop.
The one that sticks in my memory I first encountered when I went to open the shop on a monday morning after a weeks holiday drinking heavily in northern spain, there was a mentally challenged looking boy stood outside saluting - apparently he had been told this was normal protocol for greeting a department manager, he then told me how he had spent the previous week making sure my house was clean for me when I returned - in my absence the other staff had got him to polish one of those massive metal outside storage containers after telling him I lived in it. After failing to get him to do anything with any degree of competence the manager finally gave up and told him to “just follow epipsa-g about, you might learn something”. This instruction he managed to follow to the letter - quite literally staying about two feet behind me at all times - I eventually lost my rag with him when when he continued to follow me into the toilet, so I guess he my have learnt some more inventive swearing than he was used to if nothing else.

God knows what the poor kid must have suffered at school, but he declared it the best two weeks of his life and applied for a full time job about 6 times over the next year - he would probably have had more success if he had put more than his name, address and “I like bikes” on the application forms.
(Thu 10th May 2007, 20:45, More)

» Shoddy Presents

For my 21st birthday
my mother gave gave me a copy of "street fighter 2, the animated movie". Given the fact I did not own a VCR at the time, it was not exactly what I had been hoping for. This is one of many shoddy and quite frankly bizare presents she has given me over the years, highlights include a ream of photocoping paper, a hair brush for thick hair (I have very short, thining hair) a book on photography in german and a sack of brown rice. I am thirty next month, they are running a book at work on what I will get.
(Thu 23rd Sep 2004, 22:32, More)

» Best Graffiti Ever

They still love it
Many years ago when passing through Bristol station I noticed some one had simply written the word "CIDER" in rather large letters on one of the walls
(Sat 5th May 2007, 7:54, More)

» People with Stupid Names

My grandfather
was called Marquis, due to my great-grandfather not being able to spell Marcus or maybe looking in the wrong section of the dictionary, either way he used to get sent a lot of gold credit card application forms
(Thu 26th Aug 2004, 22:01, More)