» Posh

Misperception
I've often been labelled "posh" because I talk properly, drink wine and adore jazz.

This is complete bollocks, though - I'm from Chesterfield. That being the case, the poshest thing about me is that my mum once met Tony Benn, the famous socialist, lapsed aristocrat, and MP for said hometown.

An ex-girlfriend once said to me that I was "pretentious without being pretentious". I took this to mean that, although it might appear that such pursuits as listening to jazz and drinking wine are carried out merely to give a veneer of sophistication, in my case, I actually have a genuine passion for such things.

I once met a girl whom my fellow housemates and I were interviewing to see whether she'd be OK to live with. By Christ, she was posh. She was a Lancashire lass but had a cut glass, RP accent.

After a few jars, we got on to talking about philosophy (not as Student Grant-esque as it sounds - we were approaching the finals of our psychology degree) and I asked her what she was reading at the moment.

"Kant", she replied.

"Fucking hell, there's no need to be rude", I quipped, with a dashing smile and a raise of the eyebrows.

There was a brief pause, after which she burst into a fit of snorty giggles and said, "Oh, you're so naughty!"
(Thu 15th Sep 2005, 14:17, More)

» That's when I knew it was over...

In a sales job I had...
...just as a stopgap, I knew it was over when the woman charged with "training" the new intake was completely stupid.

Over the first hour of my first day there:

- She informed us that she named her daughter Bailey. Why? Because it's her favourite drink.

- She pronounced "little" and "hospital" as "lickle" and "hospickle".

- When writing on the flipchart, she put heart shapes over the "i"s instead of dots. I mean, circles are bad enough, but hearts? Jesus.

- She stated - without a trace of irony - that her favourite music was Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, etc., and her favourite comedian was Peter Kay.

- She informed us that she likes to go to the "chinky" when she can't be bothered to cook.

Of course, I needed the money, so I stayed there for six weeks, during which time I had to sit on the dunces' table because my "conversion rate" was too low, and had to endure being talked to like I was a toddler by the Honey Monster-esque supervisor.
(Thu 21st Jul 2005, 17:20, More)

» Scary Neighbours

Housewarming Party Leads to Realization of Neighbours’ Quirks
We live in a ground floor apartment. On one side, unattached, we have a lovely lady of about 60, who is civilized and polite. Above us, there’s a couple with two kids, and a couple of doors down, there’s a single Army guy.

Army Guy stands 5’ 2” and has that “little man” complex, which manifests itself in his driving a large, black Land Rover Discovery with blacked-out windows and massive alloys.

The nice couple upstairs comprises a woman who is very bubbly and a guy who’s a bit of a hippie.

My wife and I had a housewarming last week, and discovered that Hippie and Army Guy both have opposite and equally bad reactions to alcohol.

Army Guy made several inappropriate comments to my wife (e.g. “Will you take off all your clothes for twenty dollars?”), which she countered with withering put-downs. She used to work with brain-injured people, so had to use humour to defuse situations all the time. Clearly feeling that my wife should have been fazed by this, he then went on to make an extremely inappropriate comment to my stepson’s aunt when she and her husband were leaving (“Thanks for the panties!”), and when her mother took issue with his foul mouth, he protested, “I’m sorry! I didn’t realize she was your daughter!” He continued to get more drunk and belligerent as the night progressed.

Hippie Guy, also worse-for-wear, decided to defend Army Guy, which resulted in his being chucked out by his partner. He came bursting into our apartment, crying his eyes out and saying, “I’m sorry, man! I’m sorry, man!” to me, my wife, and all the assembled company. He was a complete wreck. My father-in-law offered to go and talk to his girlfriend, but came back half an hour later no closer to achieving a peaceful resolution. I went upstairs and talked to her for an hour, and thankfully, she relented and let him back in. He would have cried on our sofa all night long if she hadn’t.

The couple upstairs are OK, but Army Guy’s only pastime seems to be drinking very heavily, so we generally avoid him now.
(Tue 30th Aug 2005, 19:15, More)

» Urban Legends

Mum in a pickle
I don't think my mum heard this anywhere, but instead put two and two together to produce this little gem...we were talking about Richard Branson one day, and she was adamant that he was "heir to the pickle empire".

I nearly soiled myself laughing, before reminding her of the "t" in the middle of the Crosse and Blackwell condiment.

This sounds very much like I'm making it up, but you haven't met my mum. You would believe me within about ten seconds in her company.
(Sun 8th Jan 2006, 5:28, More)

» Birthdays

The Wisdom of My 21st and the Greatness of My 25th.
It was the Easter holiday at university so I went to visit my parents. Once there, over the course of about four hours, my cheek started to swell a little. Just another little wisdom tooth flare-up, I thought.

Wrong.

Over the course of the evening, the pain went from mildly annoying to searing agony. Much later that night, I had to wake my dad up to drive me to casualty - the pain was unrelenting and the swelling was, by that time, the size of a tennis ball. Tears were streaming down my cheeks and I had eyes like Cartman's when he's in a bad mood.

Got to Casualty and the triage nurse asked me my date of birth. I told her.

She said, "No, love - that's today. What's your date of birth?"

"Twenty-one years ago today," I drooled.

"You poor sod," she replied.

Four years later (devoid of wisdom teeth)I was at Manchester Airport, waiting for my girlfriend (now my wife) to arrive from the States. Doesn't get much better than that!
(Sat 10th Dec 2005, 1:49, More)