» Breakin' The Law

Photoshop ruined my life
Bless me Father for I have sinned. It is 25 years since my last confession, so you'd better make yourself comfortable in there...

I had an old banger. It was a car. The tax ran out. But I had a scanner. I thought 'I wonder...just to tide me over until I get the various bits and bobs repaired and the car passes its MOT', so I scanned in my tax disc and gave myself a two month extension. I amended the little postoffice stamp to read 'Toytown Post Office', so that I felt I wasn't being dishonest, just having a bit of a larf.

It was fine. Two months turned into three, six, nine...all happily motoring away, pleased with my victimless crime (after all, when I finally got the car MOT'd I'd probably pay the back tax, wouldn't I? Yes, I would. Honest). It all started to go horribly wrong when I was running around against impossible deadlines one Sunday - I had to be in three places as close to simultaneously as possible, and so might have been driving a tad over the 30 speed limit when I was pulled over by a spotty ginger police woman. 'It's a fair cop', I thought, before looking again and saying 'No it's not'. It took this eagle eyed/beagle faced slueth about 0.0000004 seconds to spot the clever bit of shoppery, mainly because as I'd gone through various extensions, the versions of the tax disc were more and more lax. Instead of the lovingly hand crafted perforations around the edge and meticulous attention to the look and feel of the original paper, by this time it was crudely cut out and printed on some old photo paper and looked not unlike a beer mat. It was as dodgey as a library full of dossiers.

My existential training kicked in - OK, I thought, here we go, a fine, a few points on the license - let's see what being in a police station is really like.

They took me in and finger printed me, asked me a few questions which I answered honestly, I made the traditional phonecall (my wife was very understanding. No, really) and then put me in a cell. Interesting, I thought, smirking to myself and wondering if I should write some prison diaries whilst I was in there - or use the bog to see what it was like. After about an hour and a half (my smirk now rigid under my nose) the PC Penhalligan un-lookalike came back to the cell to say 'We are going to conviscate your computer for further investigation - where abouts in the house is it.'

Fucking hell, thought I. Fucking Fucking hell. Just how much pornography is there on my 10 gigabyte hard disc. Right click, save as. OOOo. Right click, save as. How much? A shit load.

My computer was kept by them for about ten months, and I was charged with dishonesty, forgery, and being beastly, but not for the pornography on my computer. I was picturing the local paper - 'Local man in horse cock scandal' (well, that was in my 'miscellaneous' section, all right? Just check your own cache before casting a rolling stone in my direction).

It all blew over in the end. I went to court, spoke to the duty lawyer five minutes before I went in and he did some kind of tradeoff with the prosecutor and I got a small fine of some kind.

But it was all pretty stressful. My advice: kids, don't do it. I was under the impression that if I just owned up they'd see that I was a perfectly nice chap and there was no need for any unpleasantness, but what really happens is that one they've got you, they've got you, and the slow machine of the law that is not nimble enough to capture all the two bit scallies or press charges against the big boys, can deal pretty efficiently with little middleclass boys who should know better and who want their mum.
(Thu 8th Jan 2004, 10:49, More)

» Petty Sabotage

Petty sabotage/practical jokes.
May you all fry in hell with Jeremy Beadle's tiny hand slapping you in the face for all eternity.
(Mon 9th May 2005, 13:59, More)

» World's Most Hated Food

Liver pool
Life is a journey along a steep and winding path paved with hard-learned lessons. One such lesson for me was that, at aged five, I was clearly more intelligent than the dinner-ladies at my nursery.

Little Bob: "What's this?"
Dinner-lady: "It's liver. Eat it up."
Little Bob: "But liver makes me sick."
Dinner-lady: "Eat it up."

15 minutes (possibly days) later...

Dinner-lady: "You've not eaten your liver - it's gone cold now. Eat it up."
Little Bob: "But it..."
Dinner-lady: "Just eat one little bit, for me."

Little Bob: "Huuuuurl"
Dinner-lady: "Stop! You're being sick!"
Little Bob: "Huuuuurl"
Dinner-lady: "Stop!"
Little Bob: "Huuuuurl"
Dinner-lady: "You've been sick all over your plate!"
Little Bob: "I tried to warn you. What's for afters?"
(Mon 12th Jul 2004, 14:04, More)

» World's Sickest Joke

Oooh! I've got one!
When my friend was at University, one of his housemates, who had a scary similarity to Gareth from The Office and was for a very short while in the Territorial Army but was dishonourably discharged a) for being repeatedly wasted and b) for his morbid obsession with how to kill people with a drinking straw - but that's another story - anyway, where was I, oh yes, one of his mates drank the EU lager lake equivalent at the Students Union bar and stormed the talent night with this duet of jocular hilarity;

Q: What's the best thing about having sex with children?
A: Their tiny hands make your cock look big!

Q: What's the worse thing about having sex with children?
A: Getting blood on your clown costume!

At which point he dropped his trousers in front of the stunned crowd before bunny-hopping off stage-right.

I thangyow!
(Tue 14th Sep 2004, 13:42, More)

» Useless Information

I say, what an absolute shower!
Did you know that the gap between front teeth a la Lesley Phillips/Madonna/Me is called the diastema?

It gave me a quiet sense of satisfaction when I learned that. It's such a lovely word, as are frenulum (bit beween the foreskin an the head of the penis), philtrum (John Major), perineum (like Cherie Blair going out for the evening with her husband and Alistair Campbell, between the cunt and the arsehole) and sacral dips (sounds a bit like an altar, and I've often looked down at them crying 'Oh my God!' before making a small offering, which is appropriate).
(Fri 18th Mar 2005, 12:59, More)