» Conned

Not been conned, but have conned myself.
I like to think of myself as being too clever to be scammed. But I have committed one terrible scam which still haunts me to this day. Apologies in advance for length, girth, etc.

As a quick aside before I start, I'm not looking for kudos for this, nor am I proud of what I did. This was a silly idea that I had when I was young and naive and thought that nothing could possibly go wrong...

Most of my friends took the decision to go straight from A-levels to university. I, however, was offered a three day a week job doing odd jobs at a local web design company. Therefore I decided to defer my university entry for a year. Said company were paying me quite handsomely, and coupled with the minimal work hours, this meant I was able to jet around all over this fair isle visiting friends at their respective universities for long weekends of partying, boozing, and partying some more.

My weapon of choice for getting to these places was National Express. Very reasonably priced, more comfortable and punctual than trains, and if I travelled on one of the right routes, I was provided with entertainment on the coach TV screens. I would book my seat a couple of days in advance via their website, print off an e-ticket, and go visiting.

On one particular trip I made the observation that upon boarding, the drivers don't really pay much attention to the e-tickets. I made an assumption on this trip that the driver was probably only checking the route number (i.e. 402), and the origin and destination of travel. So I made a mental note next time I booked a ticket to save the e-ticket HTML file to my hard drive for further investigation.

Being an experienced website designer had its uses. I realised that it was perfectly easy to tinker with the e-ticket's HTML file and edit the information contained therein. So next time I travelled I printed out a counterfeit e-ticket, tailored to my exact route and journey, to see if the driver let me on. I chickened out at the last minute and bought a genuine ticket as well, stored safely in my bag just in case the fake one was turned down. But as I expected, the fake one passed the scrutiny of the driver's inspection and I took my seat, happy in the knowledge that I now possessed the ability to travel for free on National Express.

Of course I wouldn't have done this if I had felt any guilt. But I couldn't bring myself to feel guilty about it. This was a victimless crime. These coaches I was riding on would still be running if I wasn't riding on them. The few extra pennies that they would have to pay in fuel due to my weight were more than offset by the generous £2 tip I would anonymously leave on the driver's dashboard upon alighting. Nobody was losing out!

This was until one fateful journey, when I was set to go and stay with a friend in London. "Just get the coach to Heathrow, my housemate can pick you up from there", said this friend. Two minutes of HTML editing in Notepad, and I had 'booked' myself a ticket. Can you see where this is going?

Fast forward to the coach station: I boarded and took my seat on the coach, noting that it had turned up seven minutes before its timetabled departure. I then noticed the driver conducting a head count. And then pulling away six minutes early, presumably because the number of passengers on the coach matched the number on his passenger list. Except-fuck. Fuck fuck shitting fuckity fuck. I wouldn't have been on the passenger list, having not actually made a bloody booking. If the driver had counted the right number, we were clearly missing one passenger. Glancing out of the window I saw this one passenger: a young lady, laden with luggage, frantically running towards the coach trying to get it to stop. But the driver hadn't noticed her. And I couldn't bring myself to let him know she was there, in case I was found out and reported to the police. We drove off, minus this would-be passenger.

I spent the entire journey racked with guilt, which increased tenfold when I realised that this poor young woman was probably on her way to Heathrow to catch a flight, which I probably made her miss.

That was the last time I travelled with National Express, and certainly the last time I even thought about creating counterfeited travel documents. Someone was bound to lose out at some point, but unfortunately in this case it was an innocent passenger, and not the person who deserved to lose out (me).
(Thu 25th Oct 2007, 1:37, More)

» Council Cunts

Wiltshire
Another vote for Wiltshire County Council. They're absolutely fantastic, and are particularly forthcoming with compliments: the other day a very nice traffic warden put a note on my car saying "Parking Fine".

What a top geezer.
(Thu 26th Jul 2007, 22:26, More)

» Hitchhiking and fare dodging

Pearoast from years ago
I have committed one terrible fare-dodging scam which still haunts me to this day. Apologies in advance for length, girth, etc.

As a quick aside before I start, I'm not looking for kudos for this, nor am I proud of what I did. This was a silly idea that I had when I was young and naive and thought that nothing could possibly go wrong...

Most of my friends took the decision to go straight from A-levels to university. I, however, was offered a three day a week job doing odd jobs at a local web design company. Therefore I decided to defer my university entry for a year. Said company were paying me quite handsomely, and coupled with the minimal work hours, this meant I was able to jet around all over this fair isle visiting friends at their respective universities for long weekends of partying, boozing, and partying some more.

My weapon of choice for getting to these places was National Express. Very reasonably priced, more comfortable and punctual than trains, and if I travelled on one of the right routes, I was provided with entertainment on the coach TV screens. I would book my seat a couple of days in advance via their website, print off an e-ticket, and go visiting.

On one particular trip I made the observation that upon boarding, the drivers don't really pay much attention to the e-tickets. I made an assumption on this trip that the driver was probably only checking the route number (i.e. 402), and the origin and destination of travel. So I made a mental note next time I booked a ticket to save the e-ticket HTML file to my hard drive for further investigation.

Being an experienced website designer had its uses. I realised that it was perfectly easy to tinker with the e-ticket's HTML file and edit the information contained therein. So next time I travelled I printed out a counterfeit e-ticket, tailored to my exact route and journey, to see if the driver let me on. I chickened out at the last minute and bought a genuine ticket as well, stored safely in my bag just in case the fake one was turned down. But as I expected, the fake one passed the scrutiny of the driver's inspection and I took my seat, happy in the knowledge that I now possessed the ability to travel for free on National Express.

Of course I wouldn't have done this if I had felt any guilt. But I couldn't bring myself to feel guilty about it. This was a victimless crime. These coaches I was riding on would still be running if I wasn't riding on them. The few extra pennies that they would have to pay in fuel due to my weight were more than offset by the generous £2 tip I would anonymously leave on the driver's dashboard upon alighting. Nobody was losing out!

This was until one fateful journey, when I was set to go and stay with a friend in London. "Just get the coach to Heathrow, my housemate can pick you up from there", said this friend. Two minutes of HTML editing in Notepad, and I had 'booked' myself a ticket. Can you see where this is going?

Fast forward to the coach station: I boarded and took my seat on the coach, noting that it had turned up seven minutes before its timetabled departure. I then noticed the driver conducting a head count. And then pulling away six minutes early, presumably because the number of passengers on the coach matched the number on his passenger list. Except-fuck. Fuck fuck shitting fuckity fuck. I wouldn't have been on the passenger list, having not actually made a bloody booking. If the driver had counted the right number, we were clearly missing one passenger. Glancing out of the window I saw this one passenger: a young lady, laden with luggage, frantically running towards the coach trying to get it to stop. But the driver hadn't noticed her. And I couldn't bring myself to let him know she was there, in case I was found out and reported to the police. We drove off, minus this would-be passenger.

I spent the entire journey racked with guilt, which increased tenfold when I realised that this poor young woman was probably on her way to Heathrow to catch a flight, which I probably made her miss.

That was the last time I travelled with National Express, and certainly the last time I even thought about creating counterfeited travel documents. Someone was bound to lose out at some point, but unfortunately in this case it was an innocent passenger, and not the person who deserved to lose out (me).
(Fri 22nd Aug 2014, 15:57, More)

» Winning

Trying to out-Facebook-rape each other at work
Last year my work colleague and I went through a phase of Facebook raping each other daily. Pretty childish stuff like "xxx likes sticking his appendages in little boys" and "yyy can't wait to get home and teabag his gran tonight", but it was a constant contest to go one sicker than the other person each time.

The only rules were that you could not be caught posting on the other person's profile, and the other person was obliged to keep their status online for 24 hours.

One day I wasn't feeling very inspired by any of the crude comments I was coming up with, so I simply waited for my friend to pop to the loo before setting his status to "[name] has lost everyone's numbers. Can everyone please text me? Cheers!"

He's a popular guy and wasn't in the least bit impressed that his phone was ringing all afternoon and all evening (and for most of the day after) as most of his 497 Facebook friends duly texted him as per his request.

The contest was halted at that point by my friend, who said there was no possible way of topping what I'd done. I won. So there.

Fuck me, I need a life.
(Wed 4th May 2011, 21:14, More)

» The Dark

A sudden attack of the shits
The dark doesn't scare me, but it has caused one or two run-ins, one of which I'll describe to you in all its glory here.

Allow me to begin by setting the scene for you. My bedroom is on the first floor, at the front of the house. To get to the bathroom from my room, one has to walk through the bedroom door, down the hall, down two steps, through a 'doorway' (which doesn't actually contain a door), and the bathroom door is immediately to the right. I've lived in this house for long enough to have memorised this route, so that when nature calls in the night, I can safely find my way to the toilet without the need for lights or any other new-fangled technology.

And now onto the story. Just around the corner from my house is a fish and chip shop which I happen to frequent. I seriously cannot emphasise through the medium of writing just how fucking good this place is. The newspaper cuttings — all from national broadsheets — which adorn the walls would suggest that I'm not alone in thinking this. And it's cheap as well — £1.90 for battered sausage and chips? Yes please. So there you have it, Albany Fish Bar, or 'AFB' in a nutshell.

One night when I was feeling particularly lazy and unadventurous I took the decision to dine on the aforementioned meal instead of going to the trouble of cooking something myself. The quality of food wasn't as good as normal; the sausage was particularly cardboard-like in both taste and texture, and that night I went to bed feeling a little nauseous, but convinced myself not to worry; that a lie down would make it all go away.

The next thing I knew, it was some unspecified time in the small hours and I was awake. You know when you're just waking up and something's not quite right, but you're not quite conscious enough to work out what it is? Like when you've stayed at a friend's house and you're trying to make sense of your surroundings and there's a brief moment's panic as you try and work out where the fuck you are? Yeah, just like that, but on this occasion the panic was caused by the realisation that I really needed a shit. Whatever the liquid form of turtle-heading is, that's what I was experiencing. Sitting bolt upright, I felt a sudden wave of nausea. My body was covered in sweat. Not to worry, I told myself, I'll just make the routine trip to the bathroom.

As I began the walk down the pitch-black hallway towards the toilet, the pain in my bowel area increased somewhat. "This is showtime," I thought to myself, and my walk turned into a run. Down the hall, down the two steps, and then... nothing.

I woke up what could have been a few hours later (in reality probably only a minute or two), looking up at the ceiling of the hall. I was soaking, and there was a pretty appalling smell coming from somewhere. Ah, that would be the big pool of shit that I'm lying in then. My head was killing me, and a strong urge to vomit got the better of me, so I duly added to the already sizeable pool covering the floor.

Dazed, I looked upwards towards the doorway, and saw what had caused all this. My housemate had elected to install a chin-up bar in the mysterious doorway. Running at full pelt, I had clearly smacked my head on this thick metal bar and knocked myself out cold. This in turn had caused my muscles to relax, provoking the sudden gushing of bodily secretions from my rear end.

I hastily managed to find some carpet cleaner and an old t-shirt with which I frantically scrubbed the entire area, trying to get rid of any and all evidence that I possibly could. If the worst came to the worst and anyone noticed a peculiar smell or odd looking stain on the carpet the next day, I'd just say I was sick and would neglect to mention my head-on encounter with the chin-up bar or my sudden explosive attack of the shits. But nobody even mentioned it, presumably because that particular carpet was pretty much one big stain anyway. I had a quick shower and went back to bed, feeling a little bit dizzy and about a stone lighter.

I honestly can't remember if I was alone in the house that night, or if my housemates were all heavy enough sleepers not to notice the commotion going on in the hallway, but I am very thankful that nobody came to investigate. It would have made a very embarrassing and painful situation a whole lot worse.

Apologies for length, depth, and shittiness.
(Fri 24th Jul 2009, 11:31, More)