this still hasn't stopped making me chuckle...
today, I have mostly been putting monster truck wheels on tortoises.

(Fri 19th Jul 2002, 15:45, More)

» Child Labour

I might be able to go one better than a paper round
when I was about 15 I got a job delivering the Yellow Pages. So ENORMOUS phone directories. I seem to remember I did around 2500 of them, around Moseley in Birmingham.

Aside from the obvious back breaking work involved, I met a few "characters". You got an extra 12p per copy if you could get a signature for the directory to prove you had delivered it, so I dutifully rang every doorbell hoping to make this shitty job pay back in whatever meagre way.

One part of the area I delivered to was a very old block of council flats. It all smelt of piss of course, and being a wee slip of a thing, I was quite nervous. The very first door I knocked on was opened by a kindly looking old man. He signed for his yellow pages, and then said, "Oh watch out in the stair well - it's full of fucking glue sniffers". I was a bit put off by the expletive, but he continued as I tried to edge away from his doorstep. "They're all fucking Irish you know. The glue sniffers. Worse than the fucking blacks."
At this point I am trying to make as swift an exit as is possible while wheeling a cart containing 100 phone books. "I've been living here since 1938. When the bombers came over in the war I hid under the kitchen table and prayed I'd live through the night. Well I did but I should have been praying that Hitler would win. Then we wouldn't have all the Irish and the Pakis taking drugs in my stair well. If they knock on my door I'll fucking shoot them. You think I'm joking, don't you? Well I'm not." He reached behind the door and produced what from my fairly untutored standpoint was a Very Powerful Rifle. He waved this around and offered me a look down the viewfinder. "Of course I won't need that. They're point blank from here"
"It's loaded you know"

I do sometimes wonder what would have happened if I'd been Asian rather than a rosy cheeked young brit. I was actually sharing the job with my mate Faisal, who I think would have been perforated had he had the misfortune to knock on this guy's door instead of me.

Anwyay, I finally got away. The rest of the block, rather than being populated by Irish Glue Sniffers, was in fact full of sweet old ladies.

Hardest 12p I ever earnt.
(Fri 17th Feb 2006, 13:08, More)

» Useless advice

My dad once told me where the clitoris was
in one of those achingly embarrassing father-son conversations.

Turns out he was actually wrong.
(Sat 21st Oct 2006, 14:42, More)

» Being told off as an adult

My wife once told me off
For conspicuously remote-locking our car through the front window every time an old woman walked past and then glaring at them suspiciously from the front door.
(Tue 25th Sep 2007, 11:28, More)

» Never Meet Your Heroes

I'm afraid I've got a nice one
I've only met one hero as such and it was a very good experience. So this won't make the newsletter, but I would like to pay testament to a very nice man, and I doubt there'll be a b3ta newsletter about friendly people, as it won't make for such good stories. It's still b3ta-worthy though, as it involves knobs, and kiwi fruit.

When I was a child (about 12) one of my favourite songs was Unbelieveable by EMF. As luck would have it, many many years later, I got to interview the guitarist from EMF as part of his new band Whistler (who by the way, were excellent). Rumour had it that during their wild EMF days, the singer, Zak had started a competition about what the largest fruit you could stick down your foreskin was. It started with a grape, and - the rumour went - ended up with a kiwi fruit.

So there I am, interviewing the one person who could confirm or deny this story. So I had to ask.

He looked at me with a world-weary smile, and replied, "Good grief. Eight years later, and I'm still answering questions about Zak's dick."

He was a thoroughly nice guy, and I applaud him to this day for putting up with this ex-half-arsed-music-journo with such patience, and for answering my knob question.
(Wed 31st May 2006, 20:13, More)

» Toilets

Once upon a time
there was a thing called the Poopie List, which I am amazed to discover still exists. We added various poopies to the list based on our own poopie experiences. "The Jimmy White poopie - comes out so fast it doesn't touch the sides", "The Chameleon poopie - it's the wrong colour all together", "The Am I Gay poopie - where it feels so satisfying you question your own sexuality" etc.etc.etc

The crowning addition to the list was found in a public toilet in Coventry. A huge perfectly formed fresh shit in the middle of the floor. We called it The Great Escape poopie, since it looked like it was making a bid for freedom.
(Fri 2nd Sep 2005, 11:36, More)