» Tramps

Foot in Mouth
My favourate encounter with a homeless person occured when wondering back from Peterborough's classy Queensgate shopping centre over the foot bridge to the station.

There was normally someone on this bridge asking for change, and this particular day was no different. Being a young, caring Padawan (or maybe due to an annoying strong conscience, I once went back into a shop to give them back 10p which they had over-changed me - I had been agonising over all day, yet I digress) I checked my pockets but realised I didn't have a single coin to rub together (nor a one-handed clap).

I asked him if he smoked instead and he said yes so I offered him the packet with the immortal line that still makes me cringe to this day:

"Cool well have one of these, sorry, they're only Lambert and Butlers but Beggars can't be..."

It was at that point when I realised what I was about to say. My face went white and the guy looked sharply at me seeing if I was taking the piss. The look of horror on my face must have been priceless as he burst out laughing. I threw the whole pack at his feet before stammering an apology and running across the rest of the bridge, his laughter echoing after me all the way...
(Mon 6th Jul 2009, 16:44, More)

» I Drank Meths (pointless teenage things you did to shock)

Good old Mum
I went to a boarding school but was a day pupil there. It was a small town and the school pretty much was the school. The boarders were not allowed to the local pub. We,however, could do what we wantwed after 4pm.
So Sat night I was down in the pub with some friends and a long comes a teacher. Tries to get us to leave, calls over the landlord (a good mate of ours) who laughs and brings us a ll a free drink.
Teacher goes back and writes a letter to all our parents (so and so was seen drinking at the pub, blah, blah, blah).
My mum writes back saying: "thank you so much for letting me know. I'm always so worried that when he says he's going down to the pub he's really going to the park and taking lots of drugs. So glad he's safe at the pub and not lying to me."
Leg end.
Length? for my first post I thinkniig it's quite impressive. It'll shrink with time.
(Fri 20th Jul 2007, 16:30, More)

» How clean is your house?

I'm not the cleanest of people but....
I'm generally ok with mess. Clothes on the floor, books and mags strune around the place, fine. I'm not quite so good with food mess. You know, crusty left overs with a cigarette stubed out in pool of glazed ketchup. No thank you.

Some of student friends, however, didn't share my values.

I went round to the house (let's call it the Palace as that, in their beautifully ironic wisdom, was what the 11 inhabitants called it) of some of my friends and it was a shithole. I mean really disgusting. 11 lads living in an old house with mould, mice and all manner of insects. With 9 of them being smokers and the windows not openable the place stank of stale smoke.

They also never wash up. Ever. The kitchin was huge yet the worksurfaces were completely crammed with old plates, saucepans, etc.
To begin with they just kept buying new plates, but as room was running out/the cost got too high they moved on to buying paper plates.

This particular time that I visited, however was right at the end of term and loans were all but gone. I was asked if I wanted some toast, and, having said yes was duly bought a plate of headed bread munchables.

Yet it wasn't a paper plate, oh no. They had gone for a much cheaper option. My toast was delivered to me on a plate covered in the remains of some ancient meal: crusts half dipped in harden sauces; mushrooms, srivelled and leaking foul juices; and mould. the whole plate was covered in white and blue mould. I may have been happy about that if I was discovering penacillin, but as I just want toast....

All that seperated my food from this monstrosity was a layer of cling film. Yes. They had reached that point where every meal was eaten on a layer of cling film separateing it from the merky remains of meals past. God knows how they cut their food with out piercing the film. I never asked. I didn't want to know.

I also never ate round their house again.
(Mon 29th Mar 2010, 12:06, More)

» Churches, temples and holy places

MatJ’s answer reminded me of time...
I used to work for an organ festival (the instrument not the um, well you know) and there were all sorts of pranks we used to inflict on the normally slightly odd young organists (I hasten to add here that I do know lots of normal, well adjusted organists, but there does seem to high number of them that think everyone wants to see slides shows of various organ pipes from around Europe- no, tragically, I’m not making this up).

Anyway. Being very keen organists they would sign up for the chance to play the, apparently, very special awesome organ in the chapel where the festival was based. As they all wanted to do this the practise sessions lasted well into the night where the they would sit in the dark church and play til 2am.
As we knew the chapel fairly well we knew a) where the light/fuses were, and b) how to work the radio mic system they had there.
It was funny to see how scared the organists would get when plunged them into utter blackness and scream into the mic “GET OUT! YOU ARE NOT WORTHY TO BE IN MY PRESENCE! BEGON OR FOREVER BE CONDEMNED TO THE DEPTHS OF HELL...”
We got forced to stop after one wet himself though....
(Mon 5th Sep 2011, 16:33, More)

» Buses

Scouse Bus Drivers
Having lived in Liverpool for 8 years now, I know that Scousers get a lot of bad press, most of it undeserved. Bus Drivers, possibly, more than most.

Not only do they have to put with a lot of Scallys smoking weed and ciggies, being aggressive (I've seen more than one scally pull a knief to try and rob a driver-both times have resulted in a very sorry looking kid in a trakkie flat on his back in the road) and more abuse then anyone should have to put up for doing a job that is of vital importance to those of us without cars, they generally do it with smile.

Ok so you get a few grappy nob-heads but you would do with the amount shit they put up with, but on the whole they are friendly and polite.

I'm especally indebted to them as after leaving my phone on a bus last Monday I got an email from my Mum who had been rang up by the driver who had left his number. I rang him and he went out of his way (with family) to drop my phone off at my house that evening.

Random acts of kindness are always so much greater for their unexpectedness. To do this for some gormless idoit who left his phone on your bus, I think deserves a medal. He also taped up the back which I had been meaning to fix for ages cos the battery kept falling out. What a star.
(Mon 29th Jun 2009, 12:56, More)