» The Police II

Friendly Rozzers
A good friend of mine had a birthday party at his house last summer. We had a lovely old evening getting tipsy in the sun in his garden, then as night time lolled around and the hot day stretched and yawned, someone produced and emerald package - only serving to increase the joviality and warm contentedness in a smoky haze.

Someone pointed out, quite rightly, that the only possible thing that could improve the evening was a game of twilight frisbee, and by a stroke of remarkable serendipity, a frisbee was produced. We headed out into the somnolent country lane in front of the house, the last beams of light dappling the leaves quietly. The frisbee sailed back and forth, cheers erupting when its path lead straight and true into the eager hands of the recipient, more spliffs appearing as if by magic to egg the action along. Only the occasional passage of a four by four interrupted the merriment.

After a while it got properly dark, and concurrently we got a bit more wiggly. The frisbee seemed intent on increasingly frequent interludes sitting in the hedge just out of arm's reach. Eventually it hid itself so well that a full scale rescue operation was put into action, and just as we were contemplating giving up the hunt until morning, blue flashes appeared round the corner a few hundred feet away. Oh shit! I threw away the joint that had made its way round to me and winced at the thought of my crimson, distended eye sockets. The police pulled up and we all tensed, our good moods vanished in a flood of paranoia.

'Evening lads.'
'Evening officer.' Deadpan as possible.
'None of you boys know anything about stolen bikes?' We looked at each other, a small, wonderful flower of hope blooming in our stomachs, counteracting whatever stoned delusions we might have concocted.
'Bikes? No officer, Haven't seen a thing.'
'Oh no? Some kids, we reckon aged about fourteen of fifteen, have been on a bit of a spree this evening. Last we heard they'd made off in this direction.'
'Oh no, we haven't seen anything and we've been out here for hours.' (Possibly not really hours).
'No worries then gents, as you were.'
They made to leave when, with a flash of inspiration, a friend piped up,
'I don't suppose I could borrow your torch officer? Only we've lost out frisbee.'

Ten minutes later and both policemen were buried in the hedge along with a few of our more agile friends, torches shining on the frisbee high up in the branches. The battle against the wilful and contrary toy was evetually won when one got on the other's shoulders and, arms at full extension, strained and managed to hook it with his truncheon. A huge cheer went up, triumphant grins on the coppers' faces - presumably this was far more rewarding policework than tracking down teenage hoodlums.

Thank you officers for being such good sports, and thank you just as much for not throwing the book at us when we were all clearly baked out of our tiny minds.
(Fri 6th May 2011, 1:27, More)

» Expensive Weekends

Amsterdam
Technically speaking, it wasn't a weekend, but I think it fits the spirit of the question quite nicely.

Last summer my good friend George and I went to see a japanese jazz band (Soil and "Pimp" Sessions, if you're interested, they're amazing) at the koko club in Camden. Naturally, for such an occasion, we dressed as pimps. We met an old friend of ours there, and his new girlfriend, one of those strange sorts of people who 'don't like jazz' and spent the whole evening not enjoying herself.

In sharp contrast, George and I did very much enjoy ourselves, and proceeded to get all the way down with the help of no small quantity of beer. It was a long set, but it still ended too soon, and elated, we made our way to a nearby sainsbury's to buy some cheap wine and see if we could make a night of it. We got chatting to a bloke in the queue, and by happy coincidence, he happened to be the band's tour manager.

We confessed our hearty appreciation, and he said that they were playing the North Sea Jazz festival in Rotterdam the next day, mentioning some other big jazz names that would make it worth our while.

George looked at me. I looked at George. I should mention at this point we had both been lucky enough to receive quite substantial inheritances at the beginning of the summer, and, while we were in agreement that we should be more or less sensible with how we spent them, the look we exchanged was not a sensible one.

'Ben?'
'Yes?'
'Do you wanna go to Rotterdam?'
'D'you know what? I think I might!'

And so, buzzing from the alcohol with hot jazz riffs bouncing off the possibilities in our heads, we went back to the girl who didn't like jazz's house and set about booking ourself an adventure.

Neither of us drive, so we both carry our passports with us for ID. We looked at lastminute.com; there were flights from London Stansted to Amsterdam at seven am the next morning. We had the means. We had the money. The stars aligned and spelled travel and excitement for my dear friend and I. The girl's brother was even kind enough to offer us a lift to Stansted there and then, although in hindsight maybe he just wanted to get these two pissed weirdos the fuck out of his house. Either way, fortune was smiling on us.

So it came to pass, with hangovers starting to kick in, that at seven o'clock in the morning, still dressed as by now slightly dishevelled pimps, the plane to jazzy goodness was sat on the runway with us sat in it. I hadn't slept. I felt rough as a saloon in a spaghetti western, but by goodness, was I excited!

In so far as we'd thought about it at all, we assumed that we'd have some breakfast in Amsterdam before seeing if we could get a train to Rotterdam and then try and blag our way into the festival. Not the best of plans, but we were too caught up with the wanderlust to really consider it rationally.

We did, as it turns out, manage to get some breakfast, but we still were hanging out of our arses. Being as were in Amsterdam, though, and no strangers to a nice little morning smoke to set up the day, we thought we could see a very pleasant solution to our hangover-based woes.

The pretty lady behind the counter in the Grasshopper asked us what we'd like in perfect english. What a wondrous place, we though, miles away from having some sketchy dude meet you in a public toilets telling you he's got 'the boomting, mate' and then giving you a little bag of leaves. This was definitely a good idea.

'Err, I guess we'll just have a few spliffs of white widow, then, we can always have the one now then smoke the rest later'.

I didn't really know what white widow was, but it sounded like something I wanted.

With casual arrogance befitting out age, we failed to take into account that something called 'white widow' might actually be quite a lot stronger than we were used to, and sure enough by the time we'd smoked most of one joint we had no choice to put it out. My god! I don't think I've ever been more stoned. I wasn't bothered by my hangover any more, but then I was pretty much not bothered by anything except how pretty the floral pattern on the chairs was. George, even more blase about it than I had been, was transfixed on the tv.

An hour later, it became clear to us there was no way we were going to Rotterdam. Mustering the huge energy it took to stand up, we thanked the kind pretty lady and left to do some gentle sightseeing.

Amsterdam is a beautiful city. Obviously, we checked out the red light district, and I can report that few things are odder than hundreds of beautiful women (and some less so. And some men in wigs) standing in windows wearing... well, not much and making sexy gestures at you when you're tripping balls. Later on, we'd have the whole 'well, I mean we could. Should we? We are in Amsterdam after all' conversation, deciding eventually against it, but at first I was pretty much lost for words. Outside of that, there are some lovely buildings and fascinating streets, tranquil canals, etc. There are also few cities where two incredibly baked teenagers dressed as pimps carrying a 'celebrate marijuana' unbrella we'd purchased can pass by almost completely unnoticed. I love that.

This has already become very self-indulgent, for which I apologise, so I will skip through the rest of a wonderful day to the part where we ended up on a pub crawl for tourists. I still hadn't slept. People were pouring shots down my throat. The other two spliffs we'd bought were still very much lingering in the system. in short, it was an utterly fantastic night. Probably the best thirty six hours I've ever had, before we caught the plane home at midday the nexy day, still drunk.

Money well spent.
(Fri 14th May 2010, 20:45, More)

» Personal Hygiene

Not really involuntary lack of hygiene, but disgusting none the less
There was a boy at my school in the year below me who was and, quite likely, still is, a complete knob. Sometimes funny, but only second hand. This, dear reader, is how I present him to you.

He once wrenched the top off the soap dispenser, had an unfeasibly runny shit into it whilst standing on the sink, and, having finished, put the top back on and walked off as though nothing had happened.

No one noticed, because that area of the changing room ALWAYS smelt like shit.

So, some weeks later, some poor soul, I forget who, washed his hands like the good, conscientious boy he no doubt was only to decant a dollop of months-old shit onto his hands.

Nice.
(Sun 25th Mar 2007, 12:21, More)

» Stupid Dares

Pregnancy
A friend of mine was once dared by another friend of mine to approach one particularly large individual in the street and ask if they were pregnant.






Turns out he wasn't.
(Sun 4th Nov 2007, 18:40, More)

» I hurt my rude bits

Sacreligious ball-bashing
A few years ago at my school, we played a game known as 'David'. It consisted of approaching your unsuspecting victim, whacking them hard in the balls and shouting, as loud as you could, 'david'

14 year-old boys are stupid like that.

It originated when a tall, strapping, rugby-player of a lad known as Robbie Genn went up to not so small, not so strapping bloke called David Hughes on the bus, whacked him in the bollocks, and shouted, for obvious reasons, 'David'.

So for about four months after that (we abandoned the game then, for our children's sake), no boy in the school had safe love-spuds.

Enter me and my friend Chris, in maths when our teacher had lst the room to go and get something, or whatever it is teachers do when they leave the room. Our maths room doubles-up as an RE room, and hence there were a pile of hefty bibles right behind Chris.

Spotting the chance for a David that would go down in legend, He picked one up, walked over to me, shouted the terrifying word, and gave me an impoosibly clean smack to the scrot with one of the most verbose books ever written.

I doubled up, obviously, and then uttered (when I say uttered, what I mean is wheezed) the immortal words, 'How could such a holy book have comitted such an unholy act'.

I then staggered off to the nearest toilet and was copiously sick, and since our maths teacher is about as aware of wordly goings-on as a dead badger, Chris naturally got off scott-free.

I was just proud to have been a part of the best ever David.
(Sat 15th Jul 2006, 22:31, More)