» IT Support

Testing! Testing!
A few years back, we used to have an IT filter on our PCs at work. You'd try and look at anything inappropriate and get blocked.

Now, we also had an extremely aggressive Head of Department in one bit of the company, who was renowned throughout the building for the bollockings he liberally distributed and his no-nonsense manner. He was also a boozer and schmoozer,,and Thursdays and Fridays were lunch days. Let's call him Jim Clark (not real name).

One afternoon when he was out on the lash, his Department concocted a test to see just how scary he was. They would email various people round the building with ridiculous requests and see how quickly they were complied with.

So someone walks into his office and sends the following from his terminal.

To: IT SUPPORT
From: JIM CLARK

I've just some back from lunch and sat down at my computer, and when I've tried to go on a site, I've got a message saying 'This content may be inappropriate, etc, etc. etc., ... contact an IT Supervisor if you need to access for work reasons.'

I'm Jim Clark. I'm Head of Trading. It's a Friday afternoon, I've had six pints, and I've got the fucking horn.

If there aren't pictures of tits on my monitor in the next five minutes, I'm coming up there.

Jim

Five minutes later, everyone crowds into his room and someone refreshes his inbox. Sure enough, there's an reply sent 2 minutes after the original email, from the Head of IT, no less:

To: JIM CLARK
From: HEAD OF IT

Jim,

Apologies for inconvenience, filters removed.

Regards,

Andrew

Thus proving conclusively that this man really was rather scary....

The follow up? An email to Facilities with 'SENT FROM MY BLACKBERRY' appended to the end, saying 'I'm stuck in the door to my office. Send someone to free me, NOW!.' (he was a bit of a porker...)

Sure enough, two blokes in overalls turn up five minutes later, looking apprehensive, to find a department in hysterics and no Jim Clark stuck in the door.
(Thu 24th Sep 2009, 14:01, More)

» Anonymous

Giving a little car a personality...
There used to be a tiny little Daewoo parked in my street most evenings. It wasn't owned by anyone who lived there. I could tell this because the alarm used to go off repeatedly for hours at a time and no one would come out to turn it off.

We tried leaving a note to explain the problem to the owner. Nothing happened. A week later, it was still going off every night and really getting on my nerves. My housemates and I were bemoaning our predicament in the pub to some friends, and we agreed something had to be done.

That night about fifteen of us lifted the car up and carried it to the traffic island at the end of the street, leaving it "parked" on the grass in the middle, nose poking out from the scrub, along with a note to the owner explaining "I am hiding, because lots of people are angry with me :-( ".

I presume the owner picked it up the next day, but we never saw it again.

Took ages, I nearly did my back in, and we would have had a very hard time explaining what we were doing if seen by the wrong person, but I still think it was well worth it.
(Thu 14th Jan 2010, 16:42, More)

» Family Feuds

Pinno
My Dad's cousin went a bit hippy, and got into loads of new age stuff. She ended up having a kid with a bloke from nearby in South Wales who was part of the same odd religious cult. He'd actually decided to change his name to represent his new direction in life, and re-christened himself Pinno, Fuck knows why...

Anyway, big family dinner for her mum's birthday round at my Gran's house back in about 1995. We're all there, Caroline and Pinno turn up, and sure enough, it being a small town, my Grandad recognises.him.

'Hello, aren't you Maggie's boy from over by Church St.'
'That's right.'
'Gavin, isn't it?'
'Pinno.'
Oh, right.' Could have sworn it was Gavin.'
'It was, but I'm not that person any more.'
[Pause]
'You look a lot like him...'
'I mean, spiritually, like, I'm not the same person...'
'Right then, well nice of you to come round. Go sit down and we'll have the roast ready in a minute.'
'Not sure if Caroline mentioned it, but we're veggie.'
'Oh, she didn't,. Will beef be alright just this once?.'
'No, I don't want anything dying to feed me...'
'Don't worry, Gav, it's dead already, I've checked.'

They left, and didn't come round again to see Gran till after Grandad died 6 years later.
(Thu 12th Nov 2009, 12:49, More)

» Nightclubs

Classy lads and classy ladies...
Back as a graduate trainee, me and a friend from work had been drinking since lunchtime, other than a cursory trip back to the office which had resulted in our boss telling us to get back outside as we were incapable of looking sober and there were important folk about.

Yay! More beer time!

Go out drinking again, get bored of the pub around 7, and remember there's an indie club nearby that does pitchers of cocktail for about a tenner during Happy Hour (which is, indeed, now).

Pitcher of pina colada. Nice.

Pitcher of Long Island Ice Tea. Nice

Pitcher of Sex on the Beach. Not feeling so great any more.

Back on the pina colada. Still not good.

We decide to leave, so I go and get the coats and come back to find that in the time I've been queueing for the cloakroom my friend has taken his half-finished jug of pina colada and got chatting to this monster of a woman. I don't mean to be cruel, but -being cruel anyway- she was a beast. I fall into chatting to her friends as the two of them wander out on the dancefloor and start getting it on - him still with jug in hand.

After about ten minutes, I'm fed up of making small talk, so nip in to drag him off while she's in the loo.

'Come on mate - we're leaving.'
'No we're fucking not - I'm going home with Sarah'
(Pause)
'Are you sure?'
'Yes'

Even when HER friends joined in and tried to persuade him it was a bad idea, he wasn't having any of it. I flounced out...

'On your head be it...'

Well, I reassured myself, I've done as much as can be expected and he seems to know what he's doing so maybe he likes that sort of lady. I went home and sank into a deep sleep.

Then I got a call at half-five in the morning.

'Snowy?' (his voice breaking with tears)
'Yes, what's up?'
'What.. what..' (sniffle) 'what the fuck happened to me?'
'You went home with a huge woman'
'I know, but... (sobbing) can you just come and get me - please?'
'At half five in the morning? Pissed? Where from anyway?'
'I don't know'
'Can't you find out?'
'No'
'Why?'
'I'd have to wake her up'
'So?'
'Last night, I tried to do her up the bum and she shat on me, and I don't think I can look her in the eye.'

I hung up.
(Wed 8th Apr 2009, 15:52, More)

» Conspiracy theory nutters

Tramp Genius
Oxford, a hot summer's Day in 2002

I'm sitting on a wall having a can of coke, when a scruffy little Irish chappie comes and sits next to me.

He was obviously down and out and living on the streets, so I was a bit weary when he engaged me in conversation.

'Hullo there - are ye a student?'
'Yes, I am'
'Ah, right. Lucky lad - it's a very good university, so it is'
'Yep.'
'I was student meself, y'know?'
'Really?'
'Aye - University of London and then Cambridge.'
'Really?'
'Oh yeah - was doing my doctorate and everything, but they got rid of me, the bastards.'
'Why's that?'
'Well... I solved physics, and y'know, well...they didn't like that one bit.'
'You SOLVED physics?'
'Yes. But they got rid of me. Think about it: If someone solves the whole bloody thing - there's no jobs for all the scientists any more, are there?'
'Suppose not.'
'Aye, well... I've come here to try and find a physics student so I can get my ideas to the Faculty. Maybe if there's someone more trustworthy here, I can get it all published.'
'Right'
'You're not a physics student, I suppose?'
'Afraid not.'
'Ah, never mind.... have you got £1 for the bus?'

And, reader, I gave him a pound, because either he was a very good beggar, a nutcase, or a physics genius driven out of the academic establishment by a cabal of self-interested scientists worried they could be out of a job.
(Thu 27th Aug 2009, 14:40, More)