» Stuff You've Overheard

Oranges..
On the bus home, late 80s, in Coventry... packed upstairs, usual british silence and ignoring each other, apart from 2 schoolkids, chatting happily away, and one says..
"What's orange and round?"
"Dunno..."
"An Orange."

I appreciate that kind of crap joke and carried on listening to hear..
"What's orange and wears checked trousers?"
"Dunno..."
"Rupert the orange."

This is amusing, I think and continue to hear..
"Whats orange and hard?"
"Dunno..."
"An orange with a flick-knife."

and the entire top deck of the bus cracks up and these 2 small boys look around in astonishment....
(Thu 10th Jun 2004, 7:57, More)

» Pretentious bollocks

stupid photo art woman...
I suffer from the wish to produce art that looks like things that are recognisable and stupidly thought that doing a fine art degree would aid me in this endeavour... However, if you happen to tell an art teacher that you know what you want to do, and that's to paint still-life or portraiture, they get very upset and express that you couldn't possibly know what you want as they've not yet shown you how to think. I'm from a very rough council estate and am about as pretentious as a manhole cover - which meant that there were lots of arguments between lecturers and me - because I refused to draw without looking at the paper, paint with my left hand or many of the other stupid, ridiculous bollocks that they spewed out...
Anyway, we once had to watch a video where a woman lay on a big piece of glass, naked, twisting her body around whilst a bloke took photos. This was supposed to show how womens bodies have been distorted by men through history. At the end of the video the lecturer asked what we thought. Nobody said anything. She insisted that we must have an opinion - so I piped up with "Pretentious art wank", which I then had to justify - fair enough, so I did (mainly through pointing out that the supposed artist was the one distorting her body and she was the one paying the bloke to take the photos - so how come men were getting the blame?). This phrase (unfortunately for the lecturers) then became the standard response for most of the class when we were asked what our opinion was..
I didn't last very long at art school... but have had my (boring, unoriginal) stuff on display and people have offered me money for it - so I think I'm doing OK, despite the fact that I don't know how to think properly...
I love a lot of art, but cannot stand most of the artists I've met - self-deluded imbeciles who talk rubbish and can't bleeding draw..
(Wed 28th Sep 2005, 18:41, More)

» Banks

data protection bollocks..
Some evil shite managed to get hold of my card details, which I found out about when the Co-op bank rang me to let me know. There followed a long conversation establishing which transactions were mine and as I knew exactly when I'd last used it (as I'm paranoid I generally try to use cash) it was quickly established that a whole range of purchases (on-line betting, mobile phone top-ups, charity donation (which confused me - a thief being nice to unfortunates?) and some other stuff being bought) were not by me. This was quickly sorted, but then I asked where the purchases had happened and the address where the stuff was to be delivered and they wouldn't tell me. I asked why not, and it's for data protection reasons, apparently. Why are the banks protecting criminals data? Admittedly I would have gone to the address and extracted either the money or the equivalent value of entertainment, by means of rapid, forceful movements of my foot/fist into the shithead who was robbing me - but no - apparently the banks have a duty of care to look after robbing bastards - but then I guess they are looking after their own kind.
(Fri 17th Jul 2009, 19:57, More)

» Misheard and Misunderstood

Ta-Dah!!
Whilst making my way home from work, my very tired (not drunk, just knackered) brain saw a fast-food place advertising 'Chips with Pizzazz!'. As I'm trying to imagine chips with glitter and dancing girls and wondering whether I should try this, an exasperated neuron pointed out that it said 'Pizzas!' and that I was a twat. I concurred and went home. I would say I lived happily ever after, but that's not happened yet...
(Sat 30th Aug 2014, 20:42, More)

» The Dark

The Howling...
Many years ago I lived on a council estate in Coventry. After the council realised that many of their buildings were awful they decided to demolish them, to build new awful buildings.
So there were many empty buildings that nobody cared about in any way. My friends and I spent many an enjoyable evening roaming these buildings, being minor vandals and just messing around, safe in the knowledge that no-one would bother to stop us. (Early urban exploration?)

One evening we decide to go into a four storey block of flats, to go and sit on the roof and just doss around, as we had done many times before. Now these building has no supplies of utilities of any sort and were all boarded up, but once you were inside all the doors had been removed so you could just wander around. But it was always very, very dark inside. We'd have lighters or matches which helped light the way, but you couldn't see very much or far.

Anyhow, we are just getting onto the top floor when, from somewhere below us, came the most frightening sound we'd ever heard - massive howls, from god knows what. We crapped ourselves, mostly figuratively, but I'll bet a few of us came close to a bowel evacuation.

There's only one way out and between us and the exit there's something howling. We frantically did nothing, in a very panicked way. Eventually we come to the decision that we have to go downstairs and see what happens.

I am at the front of this scared bunch of teenagers - I think it's 'cos I was the biggest and we slowly make our way down through the building - the howls are getting louder and we're getting more concerned. We get to the first floor and figure that the howls are coming from one of the doors on this level.
Most of the group are wanting to get out of here, but I suffer from having to know what the hell is howling - I'm not brave, nor heroic - just have to satisfy my curiosity. (yep, I know I'd be dead first in a horror movie). More than half the group have gone to the stairs, ready to run down to the ground floor, but a few are not willing to admit their cowardice so are behind me while I approach the dark emptiness of the doorway. The howls are still going on, I can barely see anything but I still have to know.
I just enter the doorway, the howls stop and a massive dog (boxer cross I think) comes towards us, wagging its tail hugely as it is so happy to see someone (I reckon). I pat it on the head, it licks my hand and then follows us downstairs to the way we had gotten in, where it runs off into the night. Our assumption is that it had somehow got into the building and couldn't find its way out, so was expressing its unhappiness as it only could.
Scared us silly, but didn't stop us from going into these buildings until they'd all been knocked down.
(Fri 24th Jul 2009, 16:46, More)