» Stuff You've Overheard

In a crowded Shopping centre
When my Australian wife first came to the UK, we had to go to the Coach station in Hanley, Stoke on Trent to pick her up from her coach from Heathrow.
Hanley has a shopping centre called The Potteries, a 3 or 4 floor building with escalators linking the floors.
As it's a Saturday the shopping centre is quite busy, we are approaching one of the escalators which is crammed with people
Suddenly the escalators grinds to a halt and approximately 60ish people stand perfectly still looking around for inspiration, then my mate shouts at the top of his voice
"Treat them like stairs and try walking!"
The look of sudden realisation on peoples faces was amazing
(Fri 11th Jun 2004, 8:46, More)

» School fights

Expelled at age 11
Well here goes, not proud of this but it happened.

I was due to leave the school anyway as my family was moving town and for some reason my best mate of the past year decided that we would fall out, can't even remember why now
Anyway, he decides we need to have a fight before I get to my new school so that I'll "have a bad record" upon arrival.
So the fight is well telegraphed across the playground as we have a fair circle of kids egging us on, coats are removed and sleeves rolled up.
The othet bloke comes running at me performing a swimming crawl stroke, I manage to grab the knot of his school tie and duck below his arms whilst holding him above me at arms length.

He manages to get a few blows to my head but nothing too serious, I manage to push him back sufficiently to stand up to my full height, in he comes again, possibly pushed by the crowd perimeter.

I landed one

He hit the deck blood all over his face and was escorted to the school medical room

Then my peers all congratulate me on an excellent punch etc etc.. usual kiddie yadda yadda

Turns out I had broken his nose with my single hit.

Wavy lines wavy lines (passage of time 22 years later)

I am taking a leak in a pub toilet and some bloke attacks me as I leave the facility, "you don't remember me do you?" say bloke, "errr sorry mate I don't" say I, "It's me 'insert name'" replies the bloke, " we had a fight 20 odd years ago", "ahh yes, I remember" quotes myself, the conversation then basically goes in the form that he is insistant in talking to me and I'm just trying not to get into this, and leave the bathroom (bit o'merican for ya)
The bloke then insists on shaking my hand and thanking me for twatting him and making him "wake up to what a dickhead I was" HUH? WTF? how does that work then?
For 22 years he has been carrying this round with him, we were 11 FFS!!!
I just fought because I had no choice. I was expelled from that school a week later for fighting obvioulsy
(Mon 13th Mar 2006, 21:10, More)

» Have you ever started a fire?

I nearly Burnt my Parents business to the ground
Many years ago I lived above a pub, my folks were landlord and landlady, one day a week they had a night off and on this night I decided that it would be a great idea to play with Nail varnish remover, matches and a plastic army tank

Follwing several successful torchings of the plastic tank on my window ledge outside the window, I managed to catch the bottle of nail varnish remover alight.

Being a stupid kid and not thinking I panicked and rather then drop the bottle of burning liquid onto the street below, for some reason I threw it back into my bedroom, spraying hot burning liquid across most of my bedroom in the process.
Meanwhile my sister was watching TV in the lounge room and starts to smell burning, she then decides to investigate, as she leaves the living toom, she see me running to the kitchen screaming that I have set my bedroom on fire.

My sister follows me to the kitchen (all on one floor remember) to grab whatever pots and pans are to hand, fill them with water and put out the flames

anyway we managed not to destoy the pub and cause the deaths of the regular drinkers, we decided to cover the scorch marks with a rug and hope that my folks never noticed


I still remember being dragged out of bed and being beaten by my father. Ahhh happy days :)

There is another story too but that doen't directly involve me
(Tue 2nd Mar 2004, 18:59, More)

» Ripped Off

The VAT Man
What annoys me is that by law in the UK you have to wear a Motorcycle helmet, Fair enough, It's an essential piece of safety equipment.

Every other piece of safety equipment, hard hat, Safety boots, gloves etc... are VAT free

Motorcycle helmets have VAT on them, so it's the only piece of "mandatory by law" safety equipment that has VAT.

Bastards!!

No length joke, I have a massive motorcycle
(Mon 19th Feb 2007, 15:28, More)

» School Trips

Don't swim in the resevoir
A scorching hot day back in 1980 something and we all went to the Goyt valley for a geography field trip which basically involved following the course of a river into a resevoir.

We were explicitally told not to go into the resevoir as we all might die, so obviously the dares began.

I dare you, no I double dare you.

Anyway one thing led to another and myself and a friend ended up on a small ledge at the edge of the water and dared each other to jump in and swim about a bit, Never one to pass up a challenge in I went.

Cue irate teachers shouting at us to get out and how stupid we had been etc.. etc...

As a punishment thay made us sit at the front of the coach on the steps all the way back to the school, as you remember it was a hot day with the sun a shining, end result, sunburn over both my arms resulting in a couple of days off school.

I was banned from all future school trips following that little episode.

I don't need to put a length quote here, i'm comfortable with it.
(Thu 7th Dec 2006, 13:09, More)