Re: Lies leading to bogus investigations.


Apologies in advance for the length.


When I was a humble labourer on the building sites I was working on an office block renovation project.

I turned up at 7.30 am on a damp Autumn morning, nursing a hangover and cursing my lot in life. There was a delivery lorry outside with two blokes standing by the cab. "Here mate" said one, "We've got a delivery for you lot and it's to go on the roof (8 storeys up)" while I was wondering what this had to do with me and why the fuck I should care he said "I was told we'd have a man on the roof so here you are." I tried to weasel out of it but they weren't having it so off upstairs I went.

I got out onto the roof to be greeted by a pre-dawn gloom - then with a bang the rooftop arc lights came on and I was bathed in bright white light. "Fuck me" I thought "I don't know the first thing about crane signals and what have you". Before I could gather my wits a giant load of concrete lintel beams came up over the roof edge and soared about 50 feet into the air. My legs turned to jelly as it came lower and lower and then stopped, swaying in the breeze. "Oh Jesus, Oh Christ, Oh fuck, the rest is down to me and me alone" I sobbed. I made some vague limp-wristed apology of a hand signal and the payload came swinging towards me. "Shiiiiiiiiiit!" Err, "Back, Back" I signalled as if Barbara Woodhouse was trying to get a boisterous St Bernard to sit down instead of slobbering all over her boobs. The payload swung away from me but now was gathering a dangerous pace in a pendulum fashion. "Fuck it all to buggery now!" I cried and made "Down, down, down" motions in a frantic manner.

The load came down, down, down.... at an almighty rate of knots and WAHOOOM! straight onto several hundred bags of cement which exploded under force of the impact sending a mushroom cloud of dust into the air. As I stood there, transfixed in horror, the crane driver lifted the chain. Unfortunately, two of the concrete beams were caught up in the tangled mess and swung against a pile of internal party wall blocks which are very light so they exploded all over the place. One beam stood stuck at an angle in the middle of the blocks. The other slid over the edge of the roof and crashed into the inner courtyard below where it mangled a pile of wheelbarrows, shovels and the like.

Silence reigned as I got my legs back under my own control and decided that now would be a good time to get out of there. I raced for the main stairwell but could hear, what can only be described as an angry mob, coming up. "Fuuuuuuck" So I ran out onto the scaffolding that surrounded the building and made my way round to the far side, entered the building and down the other stairway a couple of floors, back up the original stairway and rejoined the tailend of the angry mob.

"Where did you come from?" I was asked "Were you on the roof earlier?" Every eye turned on me. "Ehm, well, err, you see it was like this, I *was* on my way up here but this bloke said he'd take care of the crane delivery." They mulled this fact over "What did he look like?" "Big bloke blonde hair with a Geordie accent" I made up on the spot, err I mean told them truthfully. "Good work Fanta, come on lads let's get the bastard!" and off they ran.

Turns out that the cunt of a Geordie had caused several thousand quids worth of damage and made us all go on light work for three days until more deliveries arrived. As a labourer, I was fucking delighted with the easy pace but, as all the brickies were on piece-work, they were understandably not delighted with the easy pace.

If that wasn't bad enough, a couple of months later and Fanta is sent up on the roof at a minute to quitting time on a Friday of a long weekend to secure the waterproof coverings on the pile of cement bags. Unfortunately, in his hurry to fuck off home, he didn't do a good enough job so, a day's worth of rain soon made shit of the cement. Luckily, for our brave Fanta, an unknown Scouser took over the job from him so Fanta was in the clear and the Scouser joined the Geordie in the Bermuda Triangle as he was never seen again.
(Fanta Menace Is tall enough to see over the fence, Sun 2 Sep 2007, 16:20, Reply)