» Jobsworths

Magic Words - parking ticket - get out of jail free!
I don't need to tell a jobsworth story - I you ever get a parking ticket on a single or double yellow line check that they have bars at the end. If not, take a piccy and cut and paste these magic words. They have got me off five times so far!

The form of signs and road markings are prescribed by the Traffic Signs Regulations and General Directions 2002 (the Regulations). The Diagrams showing single and double yellow lines are 1017 and 1018 respectively. Both clearly show a T-bar at one end of the yellow line(s). The tables under the Diagrams, at item 4, contain the entry, "Permitted variants: None".

The Regulations therefore permit no variation to the form of the yellow line(s) as shown in the Diagrams, and a T-bar must appear wherever the yellow line stops and starts, for whatever reason. The road markings in question do not conform to this prescribed form and thus have no legal force whatsoever. They terminate at a point where there are no further restrictions in force but do not have the prescribed T bar ending. This violates both the regulations and usual practice. For this reason any parking tickets given on this stretch of road cannot be valid.

Go on, front page - you know you want to.
(Fri 13th May 2005, 20:27, More)

» Evidence that you're getting old

well ...
Mr Jackson doesn't return my calls anymore.

I'm sad.
(Thu 28th Oct 2004, 14:47, More)

» Out of my depth

Literally!
I once went swimming in the sea off Elba in Italy. The water was crystal clear and deep all the way to the bottom. Having swum out a fair way I looked down, saw how far down it was, got the most amazing attack of vertigo
and forgot how to swim.

Imagine hanging about fifty feet above vicious sharp rocks with vertigo. You have the natural desire to throw yourself backwards to safety but you can't. My brain helpfully kept telling me I was falling and thus about to die.

It was only when I completely ran out of oxygen that the fear of drowning overtook the fear of falling and broke the spell.

Nasty, very nasty.
(Thu 14th Oct 2004, 23:39, More)

» Heckles

Dinky Toy Orgasms
My aged parents were having a dinner party for my mother in law and her strange Australian lover. He has spent the whole evening pulling various 'classic' Dinky Toys out of an oily canvas bag and passing them round to be 'admired'.

Finally he pulls out the pride of his collection with the words: "and now it's orgasm time!" to which my 62 year old mother quietly says: "I can't feel a thing" ... my father replies: "no change there".

Whole table cracks up apart from a very confused Australian.
(Fri 7th Apr 2006, 10:19, More)

» Unusual talents

Blowing floaty bubbles off my tongue.
I learned to blow bubbles off my tongue while fishing as a kid before I finally twigged that fishing was shit boring for me and just shit for fish. The bubbles are about half a centimetre or so and will float off like slightly crap soap bubbles. I have never met anyone else who can do it. I guess it's a superpower. I should be on heroes or something.
(Thu 18th Nov 2010, 22:18, More)