» Terrible Parenting

Can we get Philip Larkin into the top 10 posts?
Well known but not well known enough:

They fuck you up, your mom and dad
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.

But they were fucked up in their turn
By fools in old-stylen hats and coats,
Who half the time were soppy-stern
And half at one another's throats.

Man hands on misery to man
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can
And don't have any kids yourself.

Go on click "I like this" and we can get the old sod some posthumous streed cred:
(Fri 17th Aug 2007, 9:55, More)

» Housemates from hell

Just to prove FE students are stupid......
My mate back in 1985 lived in a shitty flat share with 4 other FE students. Within 3 weeks of moving in to the place he kept getting stomach cramps and kept having to take days off college. And he wasn't the only one - all of his co-habitees also were getting ill.

They blamed everything - the crap fridge for not being cold enough, the water system for having lead in it, the smell from the next door restaurant which was particularly pungent but no attempt at fixing things sorted the problem. My mate thought about moving out.

One day coming home from a media studies tutorial (a.k.a. watching Ferris Bueller's Day Off) he walked into the kitchen to find the youngest of his flatmates washing up. Standing in a pinny at the sink just as his mom did at home cleaning with a brush - only he'd got a little mixed up: the large toilet brush from the bogs he always used when it was his turn for the chore wasn't really suited to getting into the small cups, although (as he pointed out to the astonished flatmate) it WAS doing a great job on the cutlery and plates!

(Anyone outhere got any copies of Permanent Food magazine nos 1 - 7 for sale? - I'd be happier with that than "I like this" clicks although the latter'll do as a fallback action ta!)
(Sun 8th Apr 2007, 20:31, More)

» Terrible Parenting

SERIAL CHILD KILLER (ALMOST)
My old man was not only a fence for the local criminal classes of Birmingham (his front for this activity being a big fuck-off pub which went from one side of the street to the other and had effectively a front saloon bar on each side) but a gambler and a local hard man. All of that did not make him the brainiest person in the city however - but he did have a big car - a Zephyr much beloved of TV programmes of the time.
Now I played centre forward for my primary school team and as a result one Saturday my old man offered to take us all to the match in his big car. That is 11 players, 2 subs and a teacher who was the coach.
Zephyrs were big cars but even a big car isn't big enough for 13 seven year olds and 2 adults - my old man's idea: 4 of us head to tail like sardines in the boot.
I volunteered thinking it would be fun. It wasn't. It so fucking wasn't - not only was the turning back and forth of the car and the bouncing on the 60s soft suspension vomit-inducing some of the exhaust fumes leaked back into the boot. It was bloody horible.
I remember heaving pretty quickly soon after the journey began onto someone's World Cup Willie soccer boots. The others joined me and my sock soon felt a bit soggy and gooey and the floor of the boot got slimier and sslippery making us all slosh back and forth in kiddie puke. The sounds of retching were well covered by the noisy engine but in the boot it was all we could hear.
Thankfully the match ground wasn't too far away - the car stopped after a final bounce or two over the grasssy entrance to the pitch and cue four sick covered kids emerging from the dark - still puking in part from the smell of the sick from the enclosed space. One of us had shit himself too for good measure. It was fucking scary in there.
We lost 6-nil I think but one good result was that when I got onto the ball no one dared come near me to tackle me in case the crap on my shoulders got onto them.
Looking back I now know that he could have killed us all the useless sod - not a single sensible idea he had about childrearing nor team transport. Another time he enrolled me at a school telling them I was twelve when I was nine - I ended up at High School at 10 before they found out he'd screwed up and by then it was too late. My expected teenage sexual years were ruined by him thanks to that lack of memory of how long I had been around his life! My mates were getting it while I still ran around collecting lego and action men.
Now he's a broken man who sits around doing a small garden doing little thanks to a stroke he had a few years back. Think I care? Not one whit - he was a cruel and fucked up guy when young and certainly hurt a lot of people around him - you get back what you pay in to life.
(Fri 17th Aug 2007, 5:01, More)

» Well, that taught 'em

One little change makes all the difference
My mate was a politico and he had just been elected as a councillor in a by-election a few months before the real across the board election. Now my job at the time was to write and design and organise the printing of the election leaflets for a particular political Party. It was with great joy in a week when he had pissed me off beyod belief over a girl that i was given the task of printing his leaflets for his re-election campaign.

He wrote something rather bland (just as politicians have learnt for generations to maximise their appeal): "Since being elected 6 months ago, X has worked hard for the community as a whole. Those of you who have met X will already know this"

I spotted my chance. After he had got his correctly printed leaflets I created a few extra ones - exactly the same leaflet except for a single change to each one. I crumpled them all up and waited until he had got the (correct) leaflets all delivered through the doors and I could spring my revenge.

I went out and found him up a lamp-post putting up posters. "Oh my god" I feigned horror "have you got all those leaflets out? Fuck me - I hope not - there's a terrible mistake!"

He looked at me in horror - and I handed him the modified leaflet. Now it read:"Since being elected 6 months ago, X has worked hard for the community as a whore. Those of you who have met X will already know this".

A look of abject fear passed over his face - his future political career was over. He looked at me as he dropped his ladders at his feet in shock and asked pathetically: "Should I put an advert in the Courier to say I'm no a whore?"

I left him there; I was so pleased with my coup. I was still smiling when he phoned me at 4am later that night to berate me for my trick when he'd got home at last after a night in the pub bemoaning his fate and had drunkenly checked one of the real leaflets and realised my trick.

Length? it was only a single letter - hardly long at all. But such a hard (mind) fuck!

PS Good luck next week Graeme with your latest election - I forgiven you now many years later - and this time I've not fucked anything up for you at all - if you lose it's all your own fault mate!
(Sat 28th Apr 2007, 14:52, More)

» Apparently I'm a sex offender

Oh forgot this one till now
The terrible scourge of cocaine is also found in the smallest towns of Scotland like Edinburgh.

Now I'd not taken any gak for almost 12 years but it was a nite out with youngsters and they seemed keen - so obvn. I wasn't going to let the side down and look like an old fogie. Invited along for a short trip to the bogs with my new best friend James, I went along to watch the inevitable routine of crush, cut and scrap.

A popular pub with a youth audience that did not want to lose its licence I was not aware, and neither was James, that the bouncers and owners kept a close watch on who went in to the toilets and how long. Given we had been a full 15 mins a rather stocky gentleman was dispatched to come see what we were doing; thankfully a bit late.

I got out the main bog door in time but he collared James. "So what were you two doing in there together?" he enquired in his best intimidating voice.

Without a beat James was inspired - "I was giving him a blow-job. What about it? You homophobic?"

Clever boy.

(My length was not needed - James was making it up)
(Mon 21st Aug 2006, 20:28, More)