» Bad Dates

Royal Ballet. Police escort. Not ideal.
I moved to Australia a couple of years back from London and met what I thought was a nice girl, if a little feisty after a few drinks, (for feisty, read abusive, spiteful, and aggressive). Anyway, deciding to take this paragon of princessly charms back to the UK to meet the folks seemed like a good idea, and given that she and my 65 year old mother both like ballet I invested in the best seats money could buy at The Royal Opera House in Covent Garden where the Royal Ballet were performing Swan Lake. Something of a classic, you'd agree.

Bear in mind this was 4 days after she'd met the family (she got drunk at my Nan's 90th and lied that my sister and niece were saying stuff about me behind my back - always likely to make her popular with the relatives as obviously I'd checked in surprise as we're very tight as a family), so I'd assumed she'd behave herself for this event.

Sizeable fail on my part.

So, a very slowly consumed 2 glasses of champagne each were imbibed by all parties pre theatre along with some nibbles in Covent Garden, and all was fine until the interval, at which point the girlfriend offered to go get the drinks.

She took her time so eventually I went to look for her and found her at the bar, in theory just getting served. Odd I thought, but maybe the queues were that bad. Anyway, she'd bought a champagne and a G&T for mum. The bell went for the next act along with a reminder that dinks couldn't be taken into the auditorium, so she necked them both. (I found out later she'd also necked shots of neat vodka and at least one other glass of champagne before me finding her.)

We got back upstairs and during the second act it got interesting. Loud talking in the silence of all the well to do people around us trying to watch the ballet, followed by telling said patrons to "fuck off" when they asked her to be quiet, followed by having a go at me for random items not related to that evening, followed by semi shouting at me for not defending her against the people asking her to please stop the noise. I told her to pipe down as she was ruining it for everyone, and said we could discuss afterwards, but that apparently wasn't acceptable - cue a fresh torrent of abuse followed by her storming out. Exactly what you want with your pensioner mum sat next to you absolutely mortified at the monstrosity her son has bought home with him.

Anyway, I had no intention of following her so sat back to try and relax through the performance, despite one very posh lady coming over at the next interval asking me very politely not to let "that lady" back in.

I'd relaxed slightly by the end of the show and was walking down the stairs when approached by an usher who enquired as to whether I was with the lady in the purple dress. With a due sense of dread I confirmed that I was, to then be told, "she's outside with the police sir, could you please follow me?"

What it seems happened was that the drunken psycho had gone for another cheeky drink to drown her sorrows (as you do), then become quite upset, and verbally abusing those who asked if se was ok. Then followed throwing pieces of fruit at random people, attempting to play the piano in the opera house bar, and I quote, "harassing a few groups of customers".

When asked to leave she started pushing the staff member who spoke to her, then took a swing at the manager when he was called to deal with the situation. The police were subsequently called and when they arrived she got physical (not like that you perverts) with one of the coppers. She'd also for some reason told them I was her husband too, which confused things even more.

Myself and mum then had to take her home despite her alternating between abuse and being upset because I wouldn't hold her hand or give her a cuddle. Personally I'd have preferred it if they'd locked her up for the night, but hey ho...

Sadly the opera house manager didn't press charges, and the lovely young lady didn't remember her behaviour in the morning.

She was however both surprised and upset that I wasn't as enthusiastic as I might have been about looking at engagement rings that weekend, and she remains to date, the only person I'm aware of that's been physically removed from The Royal Opera House by the police.

So basically a terrible date and not quite the first impression I wanted my mum to have of the girl I was shacked up with...

Epilogue:
That particular relationship finally ended a couple of months later (we were living together before the UK trip) when she broke her hand hitting me and I walked out. There was some stalking (by her), and a fake pregnancy (announced on facebook), general abuse and threats, putting all my financial documents such as mortgage etc in a skip outside the house, and threats of calling the police to tell them I'd been hitting her etc (she'd already told her family that but they didn't believe her), but luckily Ii survived to tell the tale!

Lesson(s) learned, in no small way. Finally!


(Needless to say from the above that she was stunning and the sex was amazing - blatantly why I put up with her for so long. :-/)
(Wed 23rd Oct 2013, 0:37, More)

» Fancy Dress Failures Pt 2

Osama Bin Killed
A mate had a fancy dress party a couple of years ago, and whilst I don't normally bother dressing up for these, a rare moment of enthusiasm took me and I decided to dress up as Osama Bin Laden's ghost.

This consisted of full blackface, fake beard, Arab headscarf, the top section of a pirate fancy dress outfit (faux leather jerkin and white tunic thingy), over a white linen bathrobe I'd nicked from the serviced apartment I was staying in, with some dark blue trackies and white flip flops. For the avoidance of any doubt around who I was supposed to be I rounded the ensemble off with a large pair of angel wings and a plastic machine gun. It probably sounds a bit shit but it actually all came together perfectly and went down well with the other equally tastelessly dressed party goers. Up to a point anyway.

That point, from memory, was shortly after 11:30pm when I opened the door of my mates flat to his middle eastern neighbour who'd come over to complain about the noise and didn't seem to appreciate my creation quite as much as everyone else for some reason...
(Sun 3rd Nov 2013, 4:54, More)

» Vandalism

Milky milky
Whilst doing my A levels our head of sixth form was a bit of twat, but he also had some health problems so was often off work for a day or two here and there.

On one such occasion I thought it would be funny to pour some milk on the carpet behind his desk as it might pong slightly and be a minor irritant. What I didn't know however was that on this particular occasion he would be off for about 3 weeks, elevating this minor act of student terrorism to unplanned levels.

After about a week you could smell it in the hall way. After two and a half you could smell it down the corridor. And by the time he came back it was so bad that people were gagging within about 30 feet of his door and they had contractors in to check whether there was something dead in the ceiling crawl space.

Needless to say the carpet needed changing and he got a new office, and somehow despite everyone knowing it was me and dropping very unsubtle "hints" everytime there was a teacher around, I never got busted.



Sixth Form was fun.
(Sat 9th Oct 2010, 18:54, More)

» Job Interview Disasters

What in her what??
Having spent several years working in recruitment I've got a few of these. My favourite actually happened to a mate though whilst he was interviewing a junior IT recruiter for a job. He thought he was being clever by throwing the old "tell me a joke" question in, but the candidate was reticent as "the only joke I know is rude". Cue my friend assuring him that as a recruiter dirty jokes were all the rage and he'd be fine. At which point said candidate popped out with this little gem. In his first (and obviously last) interview.

"How do get a gay guy to shag a woman?

You shit in her cunt."

Future business leader. Right there.
(Fri 22nd Nov 2013, 16:25, More)

» Job Interview Disasters


This one is from last week and another recruiter mate.

Managing Partner of a Sydney law firm eats sandwich in interview with candidate, necks entire can of coke, pretty much in one hit, does a lengthy and impressive belch, then tells said recruiter that the candidate is being "precious" as she's not keen on going through to the next round having met with him.

Also one that happened to me a few years back whilst working for a US investment bank in London. Candidate is doing fine until he's asked what frustrates him at work.

"Well, the main one," he lines up thoughtfully, "is when you spend time training people up and then they just fuck off and leave."

Interview ends.

Idiot. Pretty sure he was stoned when I called to give him the feedback and tell him why he wasn't progressing as well. Which is good going during office hours and when he's theoretically already working at another major IB.
(Fri 22nd Nov 2013, 16:38, More)