» Public Transport Trauma

More tube bastardness
I do believe it was the District Line this time.

Bunch of people get on somewhere near Wimbledon. I say near Wimbledon because it was already busy, so couldn't have been at Wimbledon.

Anyway. Among the people who get on at thi station are a pregnant woman and a city boy. Apologies if you work in the city and are not a wanker, but if you're not, then I'm sure you're all too aware that alot of the people you work with are.

I digress, though.

Both people clock the last remaining seat at the same time. Pregnant woman's closer, though. So just as she's maneuvering her soon-to-be-popped belly round so she can sit down, City Boy slips in behind her and nabs the last seat and buries hsi head in his paper. She only got alerted to this when she nearly sat on him. Wanker!

The best was yet to come, though. Someone who had seen this happen tutted (although very quietly) and quietly offered the very pregnant lady a seat. Good on them. However, she very politely yet loudly declined the offer and proceeded to sit cross-legged on the floor opposite the City Boy and his paper. Staring at him. And staring some more. On the floor. Heavily pregnant.

I don't know what the hell was in the news that day, but I've never seen anyone furrow their brow and bury themselves so deeply in a copy of the Metro before or since.

Good on you pregnant lady! I hope you had the smoothest most painless birth in the world, and that your child is really fun, happy and healthy!

And City Boy - I hope you have gall stones and have to wee out the biggest spikiest lumps of piss-rock in the world!
(Thu 29th May 2008, 21:14, More)

» Public Transport Trauma

Oh! Oh! Oh! I have 2!
First was on the Northern Line coming back home from work one evening. I was even coming straight home in the heighth of rush hour, so there must have been plenty of witnesses.

Anyway, this fairly respectable looking guy gets on and sits next to me. You know the sort. Suit. Briefcase. Fairly straight looking kinda fella, I thought. So I duly (because it's still the tube) bury my head in my book and think nothing more of it. Until 2 minutes later, when I notice out of the corner of my eye that he's opened up his briefcase, pulled out a jazz mag and is happily browsing through pictures of ladies' boobies and bits. It wasn't anything classy either - something at the lower-rent end of the rythm magazine market - Fiesta, or Razzle or somesuch. As luck would have it he didn't actually bang one out, but he was definitely shuffling suspiciously in his seat.

The second one was on the number 1 bus in Basingstoke, from the big Sainsburys to the Bus Station. I was sat merrily making my way home (I'd upgraded by then from book to laptop) writing a bit of code and generally filling the 2 1/2 hour journey home with somethng engaging when I heard an almighty scream from the teenage girls who were sat at the back of the bus.

It would seem that someone had left a deer's head in a carrier bag at the back. WTF? A friggin' DEER'S HEAD. A HEAD! FROM A DEER! Looked pretty rfesh as well. The eyes hadn't started clouding over, and some of the blood around where it had been severed still hadn't had a chance to congeal.

Haven't a clue what it was doing there, but I'm sure someone was gutted when they got home and discovered that they'd left their deer's head on the bus.

Now I drive to work. Which is far less eventful.
(Thu 29th May 2008, 19:40, More)

» Inventions You're Too Lazy To Make

~sigh~ Sorry. Couldn't resist...
I manged to invent a special van with an ice box in the back, to keep things nice and cold.

But then, when the ice box is empty, the van plays a nice tune, just to let everyone know.

~re-lurk~
(Thu 8th Apr 2004, 14:44, More)

» Theft

Have a pea. Turns out well, but started out with tea leafery...
I was out for a beer fuelled weekend of fun and frolics down in Newquay for a friend's stag night.

Now I'm a bit of a geek at times, and as such I don't really have a camera that fits handily into the pocket. As a result I had a bag with me that night. All good. The next morning I woke up to find... Gasp!... My bag was right next to me - Yes! I had managed to remember to pick up my bag at al the the bars, clubs and wherever the hell else I ended up that night.

Magic!

So I was rooting through it looking for something or other, when I found something a bit odd in the front pocket. A wallet.

A wallet I didn't recognise.

Someone else's wallet.

Fantastico. So I'd remembered by bag, w00t; but in the process I'd also become a tea-leaf. What the hell was I doing with someone else's wallet? I hunted through to see if there was some ID in there, but no. Cashcard (with a name I didn't recognise) but that was about it.

I asked around a couple of the guys rather sheepishly, wondering how the hell I was going to gexplain this one, and nobody recognised the name either.

It should be noted at this point that in typical boy fashion, we didn't really know each other's real names, it was always nosher, monkey and stuff like that.

AFter a few minutes getting more and more het-up about this whole thievery business, one of the guys I hadn't met before that weekend, came out of ihs tent bemoaning not only his hangover, but also his lack of wallet.

As soon as I saw him, it all came flooding back (well, trickling, anyway). I'd been at the bar next to him, him being rather more pissed than me, and I'd noticed him leave his wallet on the bar and walk off. So I picked it up and went to hand it back to him, but he was gone. So I did what every self-respecting good samaritan would do in the situation: put it in my bag and instantly forgot about it.

So I went, in one fell swoop, from being thieving bastard to saviour of the guy's wallet. I didn't really think anything of it, but he seemed to be way happy to be reunited with it.

Meh. Turned out alright, but scared the crap out of me at the time!
(Thu 7th Nov 2013, 21:19, More)

» Best and worst TV ads

Specsavers
Many people have raised he specsavers effect advert, but I reckon specsavers have had any number of tip top ads over the past coupla years. Crop circles sticks in my mind, but I think they peaked at Eerie:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=8xRJRuOXNjg&feature=youtube_gdata
(Sat 17th Apr 2010, 18:28, More)