» Buses

“No eeeeeet's for everyone!”
'Twas a dark and drizzly night and I was drunkenly chatting with my mate Pete while waiting a seeming eternity for a night bus in a desolate suburb after a gig in Islington. Out of the mist an 'out of service' night bus came along in the other direction and pulled up at the stop opposite.

Much to our bemusement the driver got out, crossed the road past us and started going through the donations outside a Save The Children charity shop and takes a couple of loads back to the bus where he already appears to have a fair collection of would be charity shop fodder.

Pete asks him if he thinks it's ok to steal from a charity. This goes back and forth for a while with the driver getting increasingly irate when Pete in a moment of drunken emotion points out that “It's for the starving children in Africa!” which was enough to set me off giggling. Where upon the (previously very West Indian sounding bus driver) squeaks the immortal reply:

“No eeeeeet's for everyone!” sounding exactly like Manuel from Fawlty Towers finally reaching the end of his tether.

At this point I'm doubled over with laughter and our bus turns up. The driver follows Pete and I on board remonstrating with him at the top of his voice.

The new driver is looking understandably worried at one of his colleagues being in an argument with a burly drunk and asked me what was going on. The expression on his face was when I explained was priceless.

I really wouldn't have like to have been the thieving driver next time he was on a break with his colleagues.

When I complained to the bus company they came out with the normal line about not being able to identify which driver it was. So I emailed them the photos I'd taken of him in the act [stop sniggering at the back] and suggested if they couldn't identify him from those then the local paper might be willing to help. Funnily enough they didn't have any problem working out who it was after that.

First time – please be gentle.
(Tue 30th Jun 2009, 21:24, More)

» Amazing displays of ignorance

Sex education and citrus fruit
An old school friend of mine, let's call him M, is a lovely guy and quite bright but at school he had a knack of asking questions that he really shouldn't have. Unfortunately (for him) he excelled himself in a sex education lesson when we were about 14.

At the start of the lesson the young, hot (well it was an all boys school and we were 14 and easily pleased) teacher, who I shall call Miss S, did the normal spiel of “feel free to ask anything” and “there's no such thing as a stupid question.”

Later on, the lovely Miss S was discussing contraception and was talking about the IUD when someone asked if it hurt when it was put in. Judging by her reply I get the impression that this might have been a bit of a sensitive subject at the time:

“How do you think it would feel to have a satsuma shoved up your arse?”

M stuck his hand up and promptly asked in his very posh voice:

“What's a satsuma?”

It was a few years before he heard the end of that one!
(Tue 23rd Mar 2010, 22:31, More)

» The most childish thing you've done as an adult

Another lego story... now with added kitten
Like a lot of people on here I suddenly realised I was allegedly grown up and could afford to buy the latest version of the lego toy I always wanted.

In my case this was the lego mindstorms robot which is far more impressive than anything they had when I was a kid. For example they have ultrasonic ranging and can be programmed to communicate with each other over bluetooth.

A couple of weeks later I was around a mate's place and noticed he had the same kit. As well as 2 cats and a maine coon kitten.

It's now our mission to put a laser pointer on top, program them to dance around each other in circles and turn them into the ultimate toys for the cats to chase round the room.

Silly... yes, pointless... yes, hours of fun... possibly
(Thu 24th Sep 2009, 0:12, More)

» Celebrities part II

More ignorant than rude
My mum is one of those people who loves chatting to anyone who can't escape but isn't so good at listening or noticing body language.

Last year she was visiting distant relatives somewhere outside Fresno in California. They decided to spend a couple of days in San Francisco and like good tourists went to visit Alcatraz. The ferry to the island was pretty busy and my mum had an empty seat next to her so a guy sat there while the rest of his family (and a couple of what she reckons were bodyguards) sat across the aisle. The guy was David Beckham and according to my mum he was really nice. This is even more surprising as apparently my mum told him (no doubt at great length and with much repetition) about how she grew up near Stamford Bridge and how she wished her dad was still around to hear that she'd met him as he'd been a massive Chelsea fan.

When my poor mum told me this and I broke the news that David Beckham had played for Man United rather than Chelsea she didn't believe me at first! I guess that either he's nice enough to humour her or she really was too oblivious to notice his discomfort.

Length? About 15 minutes apparently.
(Tue 13th Oct 2009, 22:23, More)

» Sexism

The French government are planning to bring in a law banning 'psychological violence'
news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/8440199.stm

I've got to say I'm not sure about this one. Obviously one partner shouldn't consistently denigrate the other but given that most healthy relationships have arguments where do you draw the line?

Whatever the rights and wrongs of the idea are I suspect most of the people who will be prosecuted are blokes. Personally I think I'm being very fair, politically correct and slightly untruthful by saying both sexes are equally good at 'psychological violence' *flinches and cowers in a corner*

What do you think?

Incidentally, for a British take on this could I refer you to own former home secretary and anti-domestic violence campaigner Jacqui Smith on how she treated her husband (also her employee) when he got caught looking at some fairly vanilla porn: news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/7970492.stm Would it be acceptable for a male politician to say the same about his wife?

I'm genuinely intrigued to hear your thoughts.
(Tue 5th Jan 2010, 1:18, More)