» When were you last really scared?

Greek Gestapo
A few years back I was stupid enough to just let a friend book a holiday on my behalf since Iw as going with the gang for a laugh - it could have been blackpool for all I cared.

But no, it was a previously unknown Greek resort named Faliraki. Never heard of it, but fuck it. WHat's to lose? As Hunter Thompson put it: "Many fine books have been written in prison".

But a few months before the holiday Faliraki hit the headlines as being one of the worst and sleaziest resorts on the planet, owing much to an exploitative ITV documentary.

I hear a lot about how it's a lawless free-for-all with no control whatsoever, so when I got there I was surprised to find it was fairly good natured. I mean sure, there's more than a few neds about sporting this week's Beckham haircut, but the atmosphere was great so who cares?
But about a week in I got a taste of the side of the resort you're not supposed to see. It was the first of several scares of which I had no way of foreseeing.
As I stood outside a bar looking into the busy street, the carnival-like atmosphere of the busy main walkway suddenly gave way to a breif fight between two chavs. It was the usual stuff, pushing, pulling, punching, ripped shirts, kicks aimed at the downed man's head, but before he could land it, four unseen spectres shot out from all angles of the crowd, clad in army trousers, heavy boots, and blue t-shirts emblazened with "police" written in English. In a furious whipping of frantic robotic movements, the four men had downed, restrained, and cuffed the aggressor and within ten seconds of first emerging were carrying off their prey and disappearing back into the crowd in a diamond formation.
In another five seconds there was no sign that they were ever there as the gap gave way to the thralling masses and the party continued unhindered.
The brutal efficiency of the assault was as frightening as it was admirable. Jesus, I thought, you put a foot wrong here and they'll throw away the key. That guy didn't even get a moment to think. The wiser among you would simply keep their wits about you and stay out of trouble after seeing this. But I've never been one to shy away from
A few pints later I emerged at the end of the main street to see a line of cops clad in the same uniform that the strike team had worn earlier, only this lot looked ready for a riot. A crowd of police stood before four or five police jeeps sat side on to the pavement in a row looking down into the main street. Each stared with the obvious intent to intimidate, never taking their eyes off the swarming mass of drunken Brit brats on their island. And they say there's no law here? I have to get evidence of this. I should have left it there.

Standing on a street corner I pulled out a disposable camera and aimed it at the crowd of cops, the nearest of which was the only one who looked out of place - his weedy appearance and curly hair and glasses gave him an air of insecurity. He looked like a former bank teller who'd just started his first night on the force, so when he saw me raise the camera in their direction, I was obviously going to ignore his call for me to stop.

*click*

"Sorry pal," I smiled too late.
Looking back it's probably the stupidest thing I've ever done.

Knowing I had committed a minor infringement I disappeared in to the crowd and walked at a brisk pace along the main road. It was about thirty seconds later that I became aware of the cop car which was drawing up alongside me as the uniformed thugs spilled out and surrounded me before it had even stopped.

I knew I was fucked. Raising my hands by sign of submission, I expected a stern talking to at the very least, but little more for such a small folly. Before I could open my mouth to apoliogise the ground was rushing up towards me and I felt the cold impact of the pavement on the left side of my face as my hands were yanked agonisingly half way up my spine and cuffed. Seconds later I was in the back of the meat wagon and heading at high speed out of the busy district. Stunned, I tried desperately to get my bearings, feeling only the bite of the cuffs as the tight metal dug painfully into the bone of my wrists. I was sure that if I could see my hands they would already be turning blue.
"The cuffs are too tight", I told the backs of the two heads in front of me.
Ignored, I repeated it louder and with further clarity, but was met only with stony silence once more.

After a few moments the passenger turned to face me. Somewhere in the last minute the banker had transformed into some kind of raging tormentor, shouting furiously in clear English: "Why do you disobey me? Why? Do you think I'm stupid? Huh? Huh?". Each word was emphasised with a shaking of the right hand held level with his head, the back of his increasingly clenched fist facing me. the fist tightened as his rage grew, and it was then that I noticed that we weren't going anywhere near the police station. I can't describe the fear I felt knowing that there was a high likelihood that all that would remain of me in a few hours was a bloodied corpse found in a ditch on the edge of town. The best I could hope for was just night in some rat-infested cell and a deportation order, but we had already passed the police station, so I knew it looked grim.
The growing violence in the cop's words was becoming clearer and clearer as he began spitting out angry words like a machine gun. I could see it in his eyes I was seconds away from a beating, the gesturing hand now a tightly-balled fist waiting to crash into my skull like a cannon. "You make me look stupid. You think you're better than me? I should teach you respect!"
I was sat defenceless in the back of a cop car, hands cuffed - if he hit me now I had no way of stopping him.
Then it came, not a blow, but an unexpected question: "What do you do?"
Bewildered and fearful, without thinking I blurted out: "Journalist".

His eyes flickered, there was a thought snaking it's way through his mind, he turned to the driver and uttered a few sylables in Greek and the car screeched to a halt and did a U-turn in the road.

Relief washed over me when I noticed the familiar main streets again, busy with potential witnesses. Thank fuck, I may get out of this yet. And all this because of the word "journalist".

The car arrived back at the corner I'd taken the picture and they helped me from the car. I felt a rush of blood back into my hands as the cuffs were removed, and bringing them in front of me I could see the bruises forming already at my wrists.

My camera film was exposed to the light before the chief cop handed it back to me. Smiling, he had now retained his banker's persona, but his English skills had suddenly deteriorated into that of Manuel from Fawlty Towers.
"This misunderstanding," he grinned "This no happen often in Faliraki."

I remembered: Journalist.
Advantage: Me.

Adopting the stance of a crooked plumber about to give an inflated estimate, I put a hand on my hip while the other scratched my chin and I tutted: "I don't know. That's how it looks to me. I'm going to have to write this. My editor wanted to trash the island but I said 'no' it's a beautiful place, there's no trouble here.' But no . . . ."

My ego allowed me to stick around long enough to accept several more apologies before I headed back to the hotel, shaken by how close I'd come to death, a thorough beating, or both.

The message is clear: Don't upset the Greek Gestapo.

Length? I'm lucky it wasn't ME getting a length in jail.
(Fri 23rd Feb 2007, 11:28, More)

» Spoooky Coincidence

Di Di Di!
Creepy as fuck, this. It had me weary for quite some time.

One Saturday in August 1997, I was having a cheap night in due to the lack of cash, and sat in drinking with my folks. It was great craic, my folks are always good for a laugh.

It was getting late and in the background the TV was on, and for the umpteenth time we all groaned when the news gave way to show Princess Diana getting onto a boat with Dodi Fayed and generally going out of her way to pose for photographers while pretending to be offended. Typical! I'm sure you'll remember we were all sick of seeing her plastered unneccesarily over every newspaper and magazine.

But on this news report in particular they were commenting on speculation that Di could marry Dodi.

"Never," interrupted my inebriated mother. "She'll never get to marry him", she drunkenly slurred.

My mum's always been fairly sharp on certain matters of life and logic, so we usually recognise when she gets like this, and we turned our attention over to her completely to allow her to elaborate.

Seeing her suddenly serious demeanour, we fell silent and grew aware of the tense atmosphere in the previously jovial room.
"The Royal Family will never allow her to marry that guy," she said, suddenly sober. "Because they will never allow Arab blood into the Royal blood line. Never!"

The family all sat silent for a moment to think upon the truth my mum had just stumbled across so easily. It's easy to see that such a move would cause a headache for the monarchy. Christ, it would rock their foundations. But taking action against them getting married seems a little too petty to any normal person like you or I.

But my mum wasn't finished. "She's too popular. They're going to kill her. And they're going to do it out of sight."
You could cut the atmosphere in that silent room with a knife.

That's a bit harsh, I thought. At the most they'd just discredit her and do what they could to see that she lost leverage with the British press. But it would make a great film, I thought.

The issue was quickly forgotten about, given that we didn't fancy spending the night talking about someone who were were sick of hearing about in the first place. The evening continued as jovially as it had before. A few more drinks and I was ready to collapse. I crawled upstairs, poured myself into bed and conked out.

The next morning I was rudely awoken, having been visited by the beer monkey in the night. My hair: ruffled, my wallet: emptied, my eyes: poked, and my mouth: shat in.
My dad rushed in shouting "Have you seen the news? Diana's deed?"

"Get to fuck, you lying shit" I cursed. "Just cause we were talking about her last night.

"No, really!" he said, turning my TV on. "She's really dead"

Well, now there was a shock.

Every part of the previous night's conversation flooded back into my mind. Specifically what my mum said. "They're going to kill her . . . .And they're going to do it out of sight!"
The tunnel.

Conspicary theories aside she predicted that she would die . .. soon!

What creeps me out is that she predicted most of an event which seemed wildly crazy to us just hours before it happened. The other parts she mentioned were later heavily speculated in many courts, papers, books, and documentaries. But not until months afterwards. I mean, If she was right about Diana dying under cover of a tunnel, what else was she right about? She may have predicted the conspiracy theories before the event itself even happened. NOw that's spoooky.

She couldn't have known. She's not psychic.

Is she?

You decide.

And it's all true. Spoooooooooooky!

Incidentally, I'm selling a white Fiat Uno with a bit of a scrape down the side. Any takers?


Apologies for girth
(Thu 8th Feb 2007, 15:07, More)

» I was drunk when I bought this

Bollocks, you should all be proud!
We invented what we like to call the Scaffy Walk! Used to do it every week without fail.

You start out with a group friends in the pub about early lunchtime, have a few lagers till the effect hits you, then you trawl the high street, following the golden rule - you must only buy out of charity shops - whilst under the influence.
Piss-poor clothes are the fucking king-biscuit moneyshot, but tacky 1980s action films on video cassette, or trashy paperbacks are good too.
By the time the shops close at 5pm, you should be starting to sober up as your inhibitions return - so head back to the pub.
Once there, compare items bought by each member of the group, and reflect on the wisdom of the purchase now that you're in control of your senses.
Any tasteless item of clothing MUST be worn on the night out, with the option of accompanying it with other rubbish gained during the day.

A straw hat, Top Gun shades, chequed blue trousers with a burst zip, and shirt that would make Timmy Mallet cry - oh yes, you'll look the part, as will you all when your friends hit the town in style - oh, and take a camera.
We once found those polystyrene aeroplanes in Barnados you used to get as kids and threw them round the pub all night dressed like refugees from a Care in the Community scheme, while I regailed the crowds by reading aloud from the 99p pocket companion "Life and Times of Saddam Hussein", focussing in particular on the passsage where the ousted despot was reputed to have molested his horse as a child.

Happy days!
Can't wait till this weekend . . . .
(Thu 9th Jun 2005, 13:40, More)

» Ripped Off

Thick as pigshit
I've been ripped off a fair few times but none gave me such entertainment value as this one. It almost made it worth it.

Way down south I used to live round the corner from a nice wee one-stop store which was run by some fairly pleasant staff with the exception of one fucking moron who was a walking advert for what happens when small-town siblings marry.

The guy wasn't nasty, just lazy, disinterested, and above all, fucking thick.

It wasn't as if he had the excuse of being disabled in some way, but if brains was shit he was wouldn't even have a sniff.

One night I popped round for a few bottles of wine, only to be dismayed upon seeing the shit-witted little closet-case behind the counter. Two bottles each costing a fiver. He took a £20 note off me and handed me back £5.

"Excuse me mate," I said you've short-changed me here."

"Oh . . . . well, I've alredy put it through the till," he moaned, looking at me as though that'd be enough to make me go away.

"But you owe me owe me £5," I said firmly.

"Well . . . I can't get it. It's in the till," he murmured, again shrugging and expecting me to just let him have my money. But I was going nowhere. It's the principle!

By now a queue was forming in the previously empty shop behind me. Fuck, I thought, this isn't looking good. The lone Scotsman causing trouble in a smalltown middle English shop and holding up the line. They're bound to hate me.
But I felt a swell of pride when suddenly a rough-looking gent behind me stepped in: "No! you overcharged this guy, you're legally obliged to give him his money back. Open the till and give him his money!"
The sheepish little dwarf behind the counter then hung his head and told his shoes: "I . . .I don't know how."

Suddenly it was like talking to a child. I felt a pang of sympathy for a guy who, although he'd proven his buffoonery on many occasions, was perhaps just having a bad day.

"Perhaps there's someone else here who does?" I asked.

Appearing to summon a mammoth effort on his energy reserves, he leaned over to the intercom next to him and slouched his shoulders, and wailed like a poilt child: "Rose . . .Rose . . . Come here. I need your help. . . Please I need you. . . Please."

Within seconds the friendly manager had made it through to the front shaking her head: "Don't worry about it. You deal with the other customers, and I'll give this man a refund."

What came next nearly floored me.

In what once more seemed like a titanic effort just to speak, he now seemed on the verge of tears: "Please Rose . . . Please. can't I just go and sweep the floor again?"

The whole shop was stunned. Not content to simply be the village idiot who had plagued us for years, he was now having some sort of very public breakdown with no regard for where he was or who was watching.

The manager was obviously embarrased for him now and became a little sterner but still warm: "No. There's a queue of customers. Just serve them."

But he wasn't done. **Shaking his head and looking at the ground**: "Please, . . . why. . why can't I just sweep the floors?"

"No!" the manager told him. "Just do your job."
Fuck me, I thought. Rain Man's having a breakdown right in front of us all.
At this point I'd been given the refund and was on my way out but I couldn't believe the way he'd acted.

I felt bad just for having to stand witness to it though, until a few weeks later in the pub I bumped into the guy who'd stood up for me. As a lifelong village resident he'd know for sure if the kid was perhaps "special".

"Nah," he replied. "He's just fucking thick."

Last I heard some friends down there said he's still working in that shop, and he's STILL displaying traits from the shallow end of the gene pool.

I guess some poor fuckers are just doomed by their own ineptness
(Fri 16th Feb 2007, 12:38, More)

» Housemates from hell

Sex, drugs, extramarital affairs, lost wealth, rancid meat, and used jamrags
Fuck me! I really could go to town on the batshit loons I've had to live with over the years. Here's the highlights.

One couple moved into a room in the house I shared, they seemed nice but it was obvious they were looking for somewhere to live in a hurry. We thought they were fairly nice people compared to the other nutjobs who'd applied so we decided to give them the room.

A week or two passed and he'd been through three jobs as a security guard, while his wife was hard at work as a human rights lawyer.
By now it was obvious that he was keeping stuff from her, like the time he ran out back to smoke "hash", or so we thought at the time.
Turns out he was smoking heroin, crack, and pretty much everything else he could get his hands on.
He'd get the elbow from another job he'd lost after scoffing down a few disco biscuits and leaving his post without even telling anyone, then come home to switch on the gas hob, blow out the flame for some reason, and fuck off again to see his dealer for the afternoon.
We'd come home and smell the reek of gas filling the house and be able to get no sense out of him whatsoever.
One day the local paper had pictures of some crack den busts in the city, and forgot to pixel out the face of one female detainee. So, fresh from having just denied outright to us that he was ripped to the tits on Class A substances, two minutes later he pointed the female dealer out in the paper and said: "You know, she's such a bitch. She gets all huffy if you don't have enough cash for the crack. It's so fucking rude!"
He really didn't have a clue why this statement would seem so odd to us.
He'd rest lit cigarettes on the livingroom carpet before going for a kip. The amount of times he nearly burned the house down was astonishing.

As usual, his wife would come home, and see his eyes rolling in his head like a fruit machine and leave for a few days. Turns out he'd taken £800 of her hard-earned cash out of her account to pay for the stuff too. He'd speak like a baby on the phone to her, call her "Bunny", she'd forgive him, and believe him when the unemployed waster told her he'd never touch it again.
This happened around every two weeks for the six months they were there. Each time she took him back, claiming he was done with the drugs.
She used to be a drug counsellor, so she claimed she'd be able to tell if he was an addict. Truth be told, she was the only one who couldn't tell. Or refused to believe it for the 15th time.
Shame. She was pretty nice, but she's dug her own grave. He's found his goldmine - a rich woman who is blinded by his charms, poor though they may be. Thanks to some seriously bad parenting he's never had to face up to anything in his life. They've always just swept it under the carpet.
They only left because the landlord threatened to bring in the police after asking him outright: "Have you used drugs on my property?"
His reply was astounding: "No, I haven't used drugs on your property. I just smoked crack in the garden, and had some herion round the back where no one would see."

When they left, some young girl moved in, about 17, who seemed ok, but was a bit shy. She brought a cat with her, despite not mentioning it when asked earlier. She used emotional blackmail in a phonecall ten minutes before she was due to move in to get her way.
"Hey, sorry, I forgot to mention. I have a young cat. Can I bring her with me? If it's not ok, I can 'get rid of it'."
What are we supposed to do?
Not only was she paying no rent, letting her cat soil the place, and refusing to clean up after it or herself, but she didn't even give money for bills. She worked at an army base on the catering staff, and was shagging one of the married soldiers whose wife had a baby on the way. She didn't realise that he was using her cause the wife couldn't perform: "No, it's not like that or nuffink! He loves me! We're going to get custody of the baby when it's born, innit!"
Silly hoor was dumped the minute the wife shat out the sprog.
She also got our address banned from using several taxi firms because she'd jump out and run off after refusing to pay.
To avoid paying any cash for bills or rent whatsoever, she just up and left one day while we were at work, taking some of our stuff with her without any warning.
Thank fuck. I couldn't bare to hear her get loudly violated again. Hence, I never asked for my airbed back.

Finally, there's SmEllah (nickname given due to her personal hygiene.) After she'd finished using Dracula's Teabags, she'd just lob them out her window. She rarely flushed.
Her room stank to high heavens. She'd leave rancid meat of questionable origin out to thaw for days, till the blood was running down the worktop and all over the floor, and worst of all, would put food on the hob and just leave the house for hours, forgetting it was there. It was a daily occurrence. If she couldn't be arsed to finish the corn on the cob she had in her hand she'd just put lay it down on the hallway carpet and refuse to pick it up.
She also managed to run up a £420 phonebill in my name one month because she couldn't be arsed to use the discount phonecard she had when calling Kenya. She still owed me £120 for the previous month.
One weeknight I was awaoken harshly when she came rolling in at 2am, the stereo from some guy's car pounding as it parked directly outside my window.
She got in, shouting all the way, then went into her room and turned the stero up loud as she could. I was about to get up, knock on her door, and tel her to keep it down, when I heard the first moan.
She wasn't alone.
Suddenly, the music wasn't loud enough for my liking.
The thought of that skanky bitch getting nailed turned my stomach.
Hope it was worth it though. Judging by the moans, he gave her the best 4 minutes he had in him.

Oh, and I suppose I could also mention the ex who moved in without asking. I've mentioned her before somewhere. She had a hair-trigger temper and started arguments at the drop of a hat. Never paid her share of the rent or bills, and even got me to help with her car insurance.
Once when we came home from work she went apesshit at the state of the house (it was all her mess).
The conversation then went exactly thus:

Me: "Don't worry about it. I'll sort this out. It's Friday night, sit down, put your feet up, I'll go get you a glass of wine, while I sort out this mess."

Her: "You insensative BASTARD! How dare you!"

I better go. I'll be here all day if I mention any more.

If you too have struggled to rid yourself of social parasites and misfits in your home, click, "I like this"
(Fri 6th Apr 2007, 13:51, More)