» Spoooky Coincidence

When I was 16 I was standing at a set of traffic lights waiting to cross...
When the Green man showed a car shot around the corner and past me at high speed, thinking that I had just escaped a close call, I continued to cross the road....only to be hit by a Police CID car chasing the previous car.

Anyways, I woke up went to hospital etc etc while the kind and very apologetic plain clothes police called my parents. They got my Dad, who upon hearing the news went white and nearly collapsed.

I thought he was just really upset I had been hit...he was...it was also because his sister had been killed by a vehicle accident many decades before on the same date, at the same time, at the same age, more or less in the same place and they got the phone call from the police around the same time of the day as well.

I was well freaked out.
(Thu 8th Feb 2007, 16:33, More)

» Ignored Advice

Not listening in school
I was told to study. Advised to study. Forced to study, but I had no interest. School was a minor inconvenience that got in the way of my NES and then later my SNES gaming.

I would never listen in class, mostly because I could never understand the teachers explanation of a subject and I would get frustrated and bored. I later found out in my 20's that I was dyslexic, which probably didn't help but I can't blame that, I just had zero interest in studying and I was lazy. Completely bone idle.
I Wouldn't do homework to the point both my parents and teachers gave up and they stopped even making me participate in class. My parents even stopped getting me up in the morning which, back then, suited me fine. More time to play Final Fantasy I thought.

Fast forward to being about 23 and working in a supermarket, stacking shelves with no qualifications. Not even a GCSE. Finally all that stuff my parents and teachers had been saying made sense. Long story short, got my GCSE's, then A-levels on a night course, went to uni and got my degree and now finally have some kind of a career.

Far too many years too late
(Thu 15th Nov 2012, 20:42, More)

» Narrow Escapes

I flew into London on the morning of the July 7th Bombings
I would have been on the central part of the tube system heading in the direction of Edgeware Road had I caught my first choice of flight which would have arrived in London about 8am.

That flight was sold out, so while I sat in departures waiting on the later flight, my mum rang me in a panic about not getting on the plane and muttering something about the tube system exploding, however at this time it was still a suspected power surge on the line according to the BBC news.

I decided to ask one of the BMI Baby stewardesses on the info kiosk, I walked up and asked:

"Excuse me, I wanted to ask you quietly if you had heard anything about an incident in London? I don't want to cause any panic but my mum just phoned and something about a train has stopped after a large flash of light in a tunnel. have you heard anything?"

"let me just check for you" she said as she called up her supervisor "it's probably just a malfunc....tion....." as her voice trailed off.

It was like something out of a summer blockbuster disaster movie, the TV screen behind me changed to show the exploded bus in London city centre with the headline detailing a terrorist explosion on the London Underground.

The room fell silent and the woman's face went white as she stammered "my husband gets the tube every morning, but...he's....getting the tube...each morning" and ran off behind the staff areas.

I can still hear the slow rise of panic and conversation that got louder and louder as more people realised what had just happened, then everyone's mobile phones began to ring, including mine.
(Thu 19th Aug 2010, 14:38, More)

» Advice from Old People

When my oldest brother had reached the age of...
about 16, he started running around with his mate(who we shall call Steve)a lot more at night and started going to pubs, drinking and of course chasing women.

Now me and my brothers lived a sheltered life and had quite restrictive parents, so did Steve and eventually his dad came over to see my dad about the whole 'running around town' scenario as he called it. Now Steve's dad said something along the lines of:

"You know Mr Bamboo Steamer I am not to happy the way you let your son run all over the town with Steve to all hours of the night and this chasing girls thing...I don't want him making any 'mistakes', if you know what I mean"

To which my dad replied with the best advice ever:

"Oh I agree but look at it this way...at least we havn't raised a couple of poofs now have we?"

Steve's dad:

"You know, I had never thought of it that way before, all the best...bye!" and promptly left and never complained again.

Heh heh, even now 20 years later it makes me laugh.
(Thu 19th Jun 2008, 19:39, More)

» Dad stories

Shameless repost:
I would like to point out that my dad is of a wildly different generation, and has thankfully cured his homophobia. Due to the fact that several of his close friends came out of the closet in the past few years he has realised that he was being an idiot.

But....

When my oldest brother had reached the age of...
about 16, he started running around with his mate(who we shall call Steve)a lot more at night and started going to pubs, drinking and of course chasing women.

Now me and my brothers lived a sheltered life and had quite restrictive parents, so did Steve and eventually his dad came over to see my dad about the whole 'running around town' scenario as he called it. Now Steve's dad said something along the lines of:

"You know Mr Bamboo Steamer I am not to happy the way you let your son run all over the town with Steve to all hours of the night and this chasing girls thing...I don't want him making any 'mistakes', if you know what I mean"

To which my dad replied with the best advice ever:

"Oh I agree but look at it this way...at least we havn't raised a couple of poofs now have we?"

Steve's dad:

"You know, I had never thought of it that way before, all the best...bye!" and promptly left and never complained again.
(Thu 25th Nov 2010, 13:14, More)