» Foot in Mouth Syndrome

Never trust a doctor
While at uni, me and some mates were sitting around discussing the Holocaust (as you do when you're young, pretentious and stoned). Suddenly, one bloke (who, in my defence, I had never met before) sat up and said, “Well, it's a lesson learned, innit? I mean, safety in numbers? Tell that to six million Jews.”
After the inevitable guilty snorting, one of my mates sat bolt upright and said, “That's not funny. My grandfather died at Belsen.”
Cue total silence, until he continued, “Yeah, he fell 60 foot out a guard tower.”
Sheesh.
(Wed 21st Apr 2004, 18:13, More)

» Out of my depth

Back in the dark, distant days before full-time employment
I temped for a year between yooni and finding a job.

The spacktards who work in recruitment agencies are so desperate to earn a fat commission that they'll generally believe anything you'll tell them without checking out the facts.

A particularly well-paid post for a switchboard operator cropped up, which I duly applied for. At some point during my application, the drone asked me if I could operate a QuackydooglesploinkCP30-A switchboard. I replied that I was, indeed, familiar with its work - well, how hard could answering a few phones be?

The next day I turned up, only to be confronted with the sort of desk that would have a rocket scientist scratching their head. I wasn't so much out of my depth as gazing into the abyss.

After blindly fumbling around, transferring calls to Brazil, the moon and what-have-you, I was confronted by the supervisor, who marched me, sweating and shaking, to the door.

The best part of this story is that the agency were on the phone the next day, offering me yet another position as a switchboard operator.
(Tue 19th Oct 2004, 18:16, More)

» World's Most Hated Food

It's a texture thing, I suppose,
but I've hated rice pudding ever since a particularly bad bout of stomach 'flu aged 9.

While convalescing, my grandmother saw fit to try to feed me a bowl of the grim stuff on the grounds that it would be easy on my poor ickle inflamed stomach.

Well, it wasn't. Neither was it 'easy' on the inside of my nose, my mucous membranes, my arse, my ears or any other part of my body which it chose to exit via.
(Mon 12th Jul 2004, 11:09, More)

» My Worst Vomit

Blue Elephants and soul-crushing despair:
After partaking of a fine lamb rogan josh from a certain Indian eatery in Aberdeen which shall remain nameless (but with a fairly hefty clue as to its moniker in the subject-line), I was feeling fine and dandy. For about an hour. Thereafter, I was plagued with stomach cramps of an increasingly violent persuasion, forcing me to the leave the pub and take to my bed in a girl-like fashion. After a couple of hours tossing and moaning, I decided there was nothing else for it: I HAD to stick my fingers down my throat and be delivered from this universe of pain. Crawling to the bathroom on my hands and knees, I finally made it to the bath, before my intestines exploded. I wasn't just sick: I was sick to proportions previously only seen in German fetish movies. It came out my nose, my ears, my arse, my fingernails, covering the entire bathroom in cardamom-scented vom. Then, weak and debilatated from copious outpourings, I staggered back to bed, leaving the contents of my stomach plastered across the bathroom for my flatmate to deal with when he hoyed in some hours later with a lady friend.

I haven't been able to look a lamb rogan josh in the face since.
(Wed 25th Aug 2004, 10:34, More)

» My Worst Date

I was 17, he was 23.
He was an artist, while I was working as an assistant draftsman in an architect's office. I thought he was cool.

The feeling, unfortunately, was not mutual: particularly after he came to join me one evening when we were out with the firm's partners, drinking truly monstrous quantites of red wine.

After getting the train home, he had to hold my hair / coat / shoes out of the way while I sicked up pints of pinot grigio all over the platform and his suede desert boots.

Needless to say, eight years on, we are no longer together.
(Fri 22nd Oct 2004, 11:48, More)