» Books

Hard to find a copy
When I was younger we used to go on family holidays to campsites in Italy and Spain - Keycamp holidays I think they were called.

At the campsites there used to be book exchanges - you left a book and took one - ensuring a regular supply of Bernard Cornwall, Jodi Picoult and Dan Brown.

Once I picked up a book purely for its cover - a badly drawn montage with two teenagers and a yellow spaceman - I wasn't expecting much but I couldn't put it down and finished the hefty tome in just a few days.

I forgot the details of the story but it was about a teenager who had fallen in love with a beautiful girl who was out of his reach being the school geek - classic boy meets girl.

However, one day he is saved from being hit by a car by a mysterious boy seemingly with knowledge of the future. They become fast friends and the boy mentors the protagonist until he disappears not to be seen again for 30 years.

It sounds corny but is really well written, has the classic porn reading baddy who gets his comeuppance and a spaceman who visits our hero at night time - it's heavy.

If anyone knows where I can get a copy of it - 'A match made in heaven' by G. McFly I would be so grateful!

Edit: autocorrect
(Fri 6th Jan 2012, 16:07, More)

» Vomit Pt2

Best & Worst
I have two short stories to tell.. First time poster, be gentle!

One concerns the time I consider my 'best,' memory of vomiting and the other my 'worst.'

My worst experience began, as I'm sure these vomit stories so often do, with a party. Not just any party - a 17th birthday party with an open bar. It was in a shitty pub in one of the Medway towns - Gillingham perhaps - and was upstairs in a function room which had seen better days. I can't recall whose birthday party it even was, I can just recall that a bunch of my mates from school were there including a bloke called Jon. Jon was a nice bloke but had been bullied about his weight at school and had a number of family issues including an alcoholic father. Jon turned out to be an alcoholic himself and so suffice to say he could knock plenty of booze back and the rest of us would not be able to keep up. For some reason I ended up at the bar with him and we started matching drinks.

At the time, for some reason, Aftershock was all the rage. I'm sure you are all aware of these foul concoctions which at the time were 40% and came in three varieties - blue, red and black. We started punishing these pretty heavily interspacing our conversation with typical teenage angst and discussing who we would like to fuck and then confessing undying love for half the people we knew who wore skirts.

Another mate's Grandad had kindly offered to pick us up from this party to take us home and the time soon came around where we had to stop propping up the bar and make our way back to the barn. I was feeling pretty fucking drunk but at this point was still relatively aware of my faculties.

On the way back I was starting to feel a little worse for wear. For some reason, the motion of a car journey does not seem to agree with me when I am terribly drunk - it wasn't that the Grandad was driving badly, it was just that any motion left or right felt like being in a bathtub rolling in the pacific ocean. I was in the back on the drivers side and started looking out the window, trying to concentrate on something else to make me forget my current predicament. Predictably, suddenly, and without warning, I felt the bile rise in my throat. There was no time to shout a warning or ask the Grandad to pull over - projectile vomit was imminent and I just managed to get the electric window down in time to stick my head out. The next 5 seconds is played back in slow motion in my mind: The sudden relief of all the alcohol and party nibbles flowing out of me; the burning on the back of my throat; watching the vomit in a nice, neat stream flow out of my mouth; the momentof horror when it stopped flowing away from me and did a U-turn.

The vomit went all over my face, up my nose, back into my mouth. It went all over my arm which was dangling out the window. It went all over me t-shirt and over the inside of the car.

The car suddenly swerved off of the dual carriageway onto the hard shoulder. Whilst I was dribbling down my front I remembered that this mate's Grandad was particularly proud of his car and temper prone. I feared the worst. As the car stopped his door opened and I expected to be hauled out in order to finish blowing chunks on the side of the road. Instead he got out, put his hands on his knees and bent over, tears streaming down his face and literally pissing himself with laughter.

------------------------

My worst experience was bad for me, because I got coated in my own vomit. My Best experience isn't particularly good for me either, but when I reflect on it now it makes me laugh every time.

Again I was at a party, again I was probably about 17 but this time it was a house party.

My recollection of the night is fairly hazy these days, but I do remember it being at the house of a guy called Chris.

It was one of those typical teenage affairs - parents away for the weekend, cue invite everyone around and to keep drinking until everyone has ended up sleeping in random positions, with random people, throughout the house. I can't remember what I was drinking but I do know it was fairly early in the evening when I started feeling rotten. I needed to chill out for a bit and, for some reason; there was a double mattress on the floor in the dining room which was open planned to the sitting room. I went and crashed on the mattress next to another guy called Jimmy who was obviously in a bad way as well. I lay on the mattress, holding on, trying to stop the room spinning but if anything lying down was making me feel worse.

I had the sudden realisation that I was going to hurl and calculated that the best route outside would be through the dining room, out the living room, into the hallway and out the front door (which was open). I got up and started to stumble towards the door as quickly as I could. Whilst going through the living room I passed a girl called Sabrina who was kneeling on the floor next to the stereo going through the CD collection. Sabrina was one of those happy drunks who wants to make peace with the world, be friendly to everyone and give you a hug even if she hated you when sober. As I ambled past she called out,

"Hiiii aeloen!"

Being the polite gentleman that I am I decided to return the greeting,

"Bleeeeeeeeeurrrrrrrrrrrgggggggggghhhh!"

I didn't even get one syllable out - I projectile vomited all over her top (Green Day I think it was), all over her CD collection and left a fair spattering over the Stereo and the floor. I didn't stop to apologise and managed to stumble out of the front door and pass out.
(Wed 13th Jan 2010, 7:10, More)

» Lies that went on too long

Fake girlfriend
I held off posting this for several reasons; namely I thought it would be pretty boring compared to other responses.. but actually I've not read many decent ones this week anyway..

It all started with IRC (quakenet). I was an active member of the UK Quake 2 community and played for several clans; starting low but eventually working my way up to a UKCCL and UKQ2A Division 1 team (I'm still proud of this).

When I started I must have been 13 or 14 and in the early days we used to spend hours and hours playing Quake 2 and hours and hours just talking general bullshit in clan channels afterwards.

In one channel, of what was by then a defunct clan, a lot of members stuck around even after moving to other clans just for the conversation. Teenage angst was discussed, everyone used the /action command to tell everyone what they were listening to on Winamp, games were shared and there were even a couple of real-life girls in the chan. Eventually people exchanged photos and so I sent one around of me on holiday.

I was asked who the 'hot bird,' was and automatically without thinking I said

"Oh that's my gf."

The problem was, of course, that I was an awkward teenager and this was in fact my cousin, not my girlfriend.

That small, white, seed of a lie then started to grow.. I had to make up a back-story of how I met Carrie, how long we'd been together, what GCSE's she was doing etc. and she'd even occasionally make an appearance on IRC and have conversations with everyone (including, embarrassingly, me) for which I had to proxy an mIRC connection through a remote server so our IP addresses were different..

Although it was difficult, I maintained this and eventually other things happened, people forgot about her and we may have even 'broken up.' It wasn't really an issue because I was never going to meet these people in real life.

But then I did. I went to a LAN with a whole bunch of them for a week and even took some friends from home along. During this time I struck up a (real) relationship with one of the girls there called Claire.. Things blossomed, I was made a 'real man,' and of course people spoke about my relationship with Carrie and so that my friends from back home were filled in.

Claire visited me a few times and I visited her but even if she noticed the pictures of Carrie on the wall in my parents house and photo albums nothing was ever said, even if I did get a few funny looks.

That relationship eventually fizzled out and as the years went by the whole situation got diluted and I only had to occasionally rebuff an accusation from my friends from back home who had been to this LAN.

And I forgot all about it until last year.

I recently married a beautiful, kind and, fortunately, real girl and a week before the wedding I had a call from my cousin saying she was really sorry but couldn't make it any more. I was obviously a bit upset but in the back of my mind I breathed a big sigh of relief that some of my mates from back home who would be there would not meet her, remember a face and put two and two together.

It's probably even been ousted and I'm not even sure anyone remembers or, more to the point, cares but for some reason that little lie has still persisted, chased me and haunted me for over a decade..

Length? 13 years I reckon!
(Thu 15th Mar 2012, 13:36, More)

» Books

Flashman
Funny, incredibly well researched and very insightful - tragic that George MacDonald Fraser popped his clogs a few years back. Mr American was also really good..

I wasn't sure of the first Flashman because he rapes an Indian servant in it but I quickly grew to love the books and the character.

So much so that a I forgot about the rape scene and lent the first novel to a girl I was trying to bed. I don't think she finished it and I never got to play hide the sasuage with her, but I just could not be mad with Harry.

Recently been following the herd reading A Song of Ice and Fire.. hope we don't have to wait 5 years for the next one..
(Fri 6th Jan 2012, 15:33, More)

» Iffy crushes

Fiona Bruce
Brucey is like a fine wine, improving with age.

When she did that Chicago number on children in need or red nose day...gulp!
(Fri 7th Oct 2011, 8:51, More)