not sure if this counts
but several years ago, i lived in a high rise block. my neighbours and i were plagued by gangs of children pissing about in the lifts. as the odd-numbered lift stopped just outside my front door and made a noise like a tin drum being hit with a savagely thrown midget, this tended to annoy me somewhat.

one day, i was standing on the doorstep, talking to a friend. there were a couple of girls in the lift who had obviously pressed every single button, just to ride up and down. i'd had enough by this time and decided to do something about it.
i pulled my skirt up to my armpits, converting it into some sort of demis roussos tribute outfit. then, i back-combed my hair and grabbed my largest knife from the kitchen. i pressed the button for the lift to come, pressed myself out of sight against the wall, and waited.
after about a minute, the lift juddered to a halt and the door opened. the girls were in there, yapping away to each other. they didn't think anything was wrong as they were expecting to stop at all the floors.
just as the door was starting to close, i jumped out in front of them, knife raised, screaming incoherently. within about 30 seconds, the lift had deposited them on the ground floor and they were off down the street, never to plague our lifts again.
now, before you all start calling me a cunt, messing with the lifts was only the tip of the iceberg. breaking windows was a hobby of theirs, as was harrassing elderly tenants and annoying their pets. i may have been a bit over the top, but they learned their lesson.
( Smash Monkey lowering the tone of the whole internet, Wed 18 Jan 2012, 14:54, 2 replies)

I hate the new sound the site makes
when you click 'I like this'.
(TheManWithThePlan cussed your mum on, Wed 18 Jan 2012, 14:20, 2 replies)

The librarian was my primary jape target.
Well, second only to the RE teacher, but she was considered fair game!

We held competitions, first, to see who could steal the most crocodile clips from the physics department, then to see who could surreptitiously attach the highest quantity to the hem of her skirt. Childish I know.

Japes escalated, as these things do, and culminated in me sneaking into the library and lowering the left hand side of every shelf by one notch. It felt like the Jokers lair from Adam West days.
Bless her, took her half an hour of wandering around with "lead ear" before she noticed.
( Blind Meach Cautiously optimistic, Wed 18 Jan 2012, 12:54, Reply)

Sometimes
I'll call up a random cow from the phone book and try to sell it double grazing.
( .Yeti. El amor en los tiempos del cólera, Wed 18 Jan 2012, 11:25, 28 replies)

Bluse Rinse Dragons Part II
This will make more sense if you can be bothered with this Blue Rinse Dragons part I

The wispy apparition of the Lingerie Lady of the Line obviously represented a sort of lace trimmed gauntlet to the old bats. Stalls had been set out, battle lines drawn. This first became evident when they started to mow further and further into my lawn. The old buggers were quite literally cutting my grass. They always conspired together, frantically rushing around the garden in tartan slippers, always at dusk - one mowing, one cable bashing. I’m not a petty man; well I am actually so clearly this was going escalate.

The flats had a white slatted fence about 6 feet high at the division point of the properties, but this barely extended onto the back lawn – 20 feet at most. Whereas the lawn stretched a good 50 or more feet further off into the distance. To make matters worse my side was an end terrace so I had another large garden area and parking for 3 cars at the side of my place. They had no such luxury, so this was probably an issue of hot contention for them too, even though neither of them had cars.

The wonky line that veered further into my lawn, now twice a week during the height of summer, was getting on my tits. Then plastic bottles filled with water started appearing everywhere. I had to ask – to which I was informed with the sort of confident air in such matters that only David Attenborough should have access to…

‘The bottles keep YOUR cats out of our garden’
‘Eh?’
‘Their reflection, it scares them off’
‘Does it really? How ingenious!’

I said this while casually observing over her shoulder my tortoiseshell moggie Chloe. She was lying on her back in a distinctly louche manner lazily prodding one of the plastic bottles. I had also at one stage witnessed one of the old trouts propping up a few house bricks against the fence at the far end of the garden. On further enquiry I was informed (incredulously as though I was an utter cretin):

‘It keeps cats out – cats are too lazy to climb fences’

But it was the lawn thing that really pissed on my pizza. So one Saturday morning, courtesy of HSS Hire, the sort of ubermower that Wembley groundskeepers have pictures of, have taped inside their lockers, arrived on a trailer. One very noisy hour later the lawn was like a fucking pinstripe Savile Row suit specified in lurid green.

I knew however the wine from this sweet victory would soon run dry. So the following weekend they were in for another little surprise.

If you ever need to put up a fence really fucking fast - then I suggest you check out these guys. www.metpost.co.uk/

When the bloke arrived from B&Q to deliver my order I got him to leave the posts, 16 pound sledgehammer, fence panels, clips and other related paraphernalia stacked up ominously in the back garden. Then I went for a pint.

By the time I came back they were out in the deckchairs perched on the vehemently disputed border, knitting - knitting long polymer strands of pure black clicking hatred. An empty crisp packet blew across the garden like tumbleweed. A lone crow mocked the scene from its gallery on the rooftops. I stubbed my cigarette onto the lawn, dead on the borderline. Grinding it in with my foot I squinted into the sunlight, and snarled...

‘Can't hang around ladies, things to do’

Whang – the first metal post spike pierced the lawn and plunged into the soft black loam like a javelin through a badly coordinated Olympic official. It was like pushing candles into a birthday cake. A few taps on the wooden post with the sledgehammer, couple of clips here and there, and low! The first birch lap, pressure-treated panel was up. At 6 foot it was considerably taller than me, and these old biddies were struggling to hit 5 foot in two pairs of support hose. And there it was, a magnificent all seeing Pagan monolith draping its cold malevolent shadow deep into their chintzy territory.

They went absolutely, vein-popping, batshit mental. Literally running in and out of their flats, shouting insults from upper windows.

‘You can’t do that, this is private property’ one shrieked.
‘Yes it is, and this half is mine' I smiled sweetly.
‘You don’t own it; I’m phoning Mrs Cantremeberhername (my landlady).’
‘No need, I have in writing from her that she approves of the fence, would you care to see?'.
‘You need planning permission’
‘I don’t’
‘You do’
‘I don’t – it is classed a temporary structure, and as it is less than 7 feet in height therefore I don’t need permission from anyone except the landowner – which I have’
‘It’s on the wrong boundary’
‘Not according to this copy of the deeds (flip, flap, unfold) – care to see? In fact I’m sorry to be the one to tell you but that part of the end of the garden is also actually mine – right up to the back fence’

She was fucking apoplectic by this point – the bit at the bottom of the garden was her favourite spot for deckchair surveillance – it actually looked into my living room.

Then her son arrived.

‘Tell him Malcolm, TELL HIM’

I explained the situation to the clearly long suffering bloke. He apologised and gave me his number in case I needed it. Then smiled weakly as he tried to assure her it was not a police matter and I was not deliberately destroying the value of her property. So I continued to put the line of fence panels up at an impressive rate. The mad old witch now had to be physically held back by her son. Then the other old bint who had been quieter up till now suddenly opened her upper window and screamed…

‘You’re not even married it’s disgusting’
‘Why don’t we elope?' I suggested. 'Blue hair really does it for me?'

As the last panel went up I stood back and took stock. Just as I was about to pop another beer I heard a clattering from the mad old bats garden shed. Then perched on ancient stepladders, craning and wobbling awkwardly around the last panel, I saw a frazzled mop of blue hair attached to an alarmingly purple face glaring round the fence – so far down the garden I struggled at first to see which poisonous harridan was there screeching the now immortal line...

‘I can still SEE you you know! I can still SEE….’

I can only assume at that point the ramifications of a person of advancing years clambering onto an antique ladder suddenly became distinctly apparent to the old bitch.

I moved out 18 years ago. Fence is still there though.
( spimf ™ is whoever you want him to be, Wed 18 Jan 2012, 11:06, 12 replies)

Flushing out the Deadheads
Once upon a time I deliberately pretended to be stupid to see who was so full of themselves they would react and slag me off in front of everyone. It worked. All the least intelligent people in the social situation revealed themselves to be abusive and ugly in their souls. And that's how I messed with people's heads.
( Stupid Getatron Transform into the timestamp, Wed 18 Jan 2012, 11:06, 3 replies)

Blue Rinse Dragons part I
When I left college moving back in with my folks just didn’t seem like the thing to do, but back then Mrs Spimf and I didn't feel ready to move in together, even though we practically lived together. So I found a flat to rent close to where she lived. It was a nice area with four in block post-war council houses with generous gardens. Most had been bought by the tenants and as a result were well maintained by the owners; quiet, leafy suburbia.

The flat in question was leased to me by a nice couple who had bought it for their elderly mother hoping to make a killing on it when she died, granny it would seem helped them by apparently smoking herself to death but left them with a slight problem – they couldn’t sell the place so soon after buying it due to some loophole in the ‘buy your council flat’ scheme. Old puffin’ grandma had ensured the interiors were yellower than northern social club toilet. The décor was horrendous too. Lurid swirly carpets – and I do mean carpets plural, as I discovered when I decided to sand the floors – I lifted three carpets all on top of each other in the hall, you could fucking limbo under the gap between door and floor. But my reluctant new landlords kindly said if I wanted to strip out all the granny crap and redecorate they would pay for it – splendid!

The only blot on the horizon was the two chintzy, blue rinsed old dragons that lived next door. They had been there for decades so their normality must have been shattered by the death of their neighbour who had lived there for donkeys years. I was sensitive to this and was as friendly and courteous as could be, but it wasn’t long before the barbed remarks began. One day I was in the back garden stripping 40 years worth of layered paint and nicotine off the doors - I had taken them off the hinges and removed the nasty plywood panels people were so keen on in the 50’s. Obviously this would meet with firm disapproval. So no real surprise when from the corner of my eye I caught a garish splash of floral polyester. They had a habit of appearing stealthily like some incontinent ninja brigade. They were standing silently, side by side, like a horribly shrivelled version of the twins form The Shining. A few pleasantries were exchanged – then it came…

“So you don’t work do you?”
“Well no, I’ve just finished an honours degree and I am looking for a job in my field but there is a pretty major recession on”

This was back in the early 90’s, it might not be the global crisis we're in now but the UK was seriously fucked back then, nevertheless I was immediately assigned as ‘workshy’.

But I continued to be cheery, cleared the overgrown gardens, lifted the hallucinogenic carpets, sanded the floors and decorated the place from top to bottom - whilst also applying for jobs, you know - workshy. During which time they closely monitored my EVERY move. If I went into the back garden they would immediately appear, set up deckchairs, plonk themselves down and knit with sustained and intense fury – never once taking their little beady eyes off me. It started raining lightly one day so they simply moved the deckchairs into their shed – left the door open and continued the surveillance!

If I went out they were there at the window. Even if I returned in the dead of night with marshmallows strapped to my feet, in an instant they were at the curtains, like crumpled little lavender fuelled rockets. Eventually I found a job. So they quickly turned their attentions to my relationship with my girlfriend.

“So you’re not married ARE YOU?” they chimed in unison with their powdery bunched-up little faces.

The curtain twitching would go into a frenzy anytime my girlfriend arrived. It was a warm summer so I’d often have the barbecue on the go of an evening. But as soon as I lit the damn thing the same routine would begin: they would make a huge deal out of slamming all their windows shut then rush out to take in their washing tutting and muttering. I should point out the washing that was about 40 feet away down their side of the garden and well up wind from my tiny barbeque.

At this point they were still pretending to be civil towards us but it was simply a ploy to pump us for more information. We went away for the weekend once and when we returned there they were to ‘greet’ us.

“Oh hello” (little matching saccharine smiles) “been away have we?”
“Yes nice weekend in a wee hotel up north” (more scrunched up faces)
“Did you leave in a hurry?”
“Eh?”
“In a hurry - on Friday? It’s just we noticed you didn’t do your dishes”

The nosey old bats had been in my bloody back garden peering through my kitchen window!

“We don’t see much of her (my girlfriend) during the week do we”

My girlfriend worked away a lot during the week but in this I spotted an opportunity for mischief…

“Yes well she spends the weekends with me but during the week she lives with her husband… and the kids, nice bloke. Black fella”

Eyes like fucking saucers!

Then one day they made some comment about hanging out laundry. From what I could gather they had certain days for washing and somehow expected me to adhere to this bizarre ritual. This and the constant prying about my girlfriend gave me an idea.

The following day I waited till they toddled off to wherever the public hanging was that day. Then I hung my washing out, sat in the garden, lit the barbecue, opened a beer and waited for their return. I even took my shirt off for good measure. It was at this point I really wished I had some tattoos. Soon enough I heard their respective front doors slam, counted to 5 and turned around - sure enough there they were peering out their windows. Clearly they couldn’t get a close enough look from there so out came the deckchairs.

They sat in complete silence staring at the spectacle of my laundry billowing in the summer breeze. Next to my usual array of jeans and shirts I had hung some of my girlfriends laundry items. With considerable skill I had carefully pegged one of her laciest prettiest bras to the line. Then below the bra (with some clever use of pegs) hung a matching suspender belt which in turn supported a tiny wispy little pair of panties and of course a pair of sheer lacy topped black stockings that waved lazily in the breeze, like a very thin lady running in slow motion.

“Hello ladies, lovely day!” I waved cheerily.

If they could have pursed their little faces up anymore they’d have turned them inside out. Vicious old bats.

Blue Rinse Dragons Part II
( spimf ™ is whoever you want him to be, Wed 18 Jan 2012, 11:05, 17 replies)

When dealing with cold callers I try to tell them at length about my current situation
Working on my uncle Owen and aunt Beru's moisture farm, buying parts for my T16, trying to find a droid that can communicate with our vaporators and how much I want to get to the academy so that I can join the rebellion against the empire.

Some of them never get it, even after I've spelled out my name for them.
( emvee cruor deo cruoris, Wed 18 Jan 2012, 10:15, 3 replies)

I like to confuse people by disrupting social conventions
and verbal nicities.

How dare people be polite!
( Je suis un vagabond is an unfunny, up your own arse middle class knob, Wed 18 Jan 2012, 10:15, Reply)

the system
I didn’t bother learning to drive till I was 26. I had a Vauxhall Nova for the first year or so after I passed my test until it was pointed out to me that at my age I could probably get something with a bit more poke and not have to sell one of my kidneys to afford the insurance.

So I bought a bright red MK11 Toyota MR2, some say ‘girls car’ some say it’s 'a bit wanky' but as far as I was concerned it was great fun. Decent amount of power, rear wheel drive mid-engined two seater. Cool.

The insurance however was not as hassle free as I had hoped. I called a number of companies and was getting well pissed off after a while. One company took absolutely ages taking all manner of pedantic details only to drop my call after placing me on hold. A complete bloody waste of my time.

So I called them back.

“Hello RipOff BloodyRacket Insurance, Vapid Bint speaking how can I help you?”
“Yeah I’d like a quote please”
“Certainly can you tell me the make and model sir”
“Toyota MR2”
“Engine capacity sir”
“2 litre”
“Is that a two door sir?”
“Erm no, it’s got four”
“Sorry sir our system tells me that is a two door car sir”

(Why they bother asking you these questions when they already have the bloody details in ‘the system’ was one of the things that had been bugging me)

“No, it’s got four doors”
“And it’s definitely a Toyota MR2 sir? Are you sure it’s not a Celica”
“It’s an MR2 it’s got 4 doors. Anyway a Celica is a girl’s car”
“My husband drives a Celica sir”
“Is he a girl?”
“Sorry sir”
“Your husband – is he a girl?”
“Certainly not”
“Well he drives a girl’s car, anyway its definitely got four doors – my door, the other door, the boot door and the glove box door”

Silence…

“…erm we would regard that as a two door car sir”
“Fair enough, so do I get a discount for having less doors?”
“No, I doesn’t work that way. Have you made any modifications to the vehicle sir?”
“Yeah I put new mats in it”
“That’s not really a modification is it sir”
“Yes it is. The other ones were crap, they kept catching on my shoes”
“(sigh) have you made any modifications to the engine, exhaust, wheels or suspension sir?”
“Nope”
“Ok sir so...”
“Hang on, there’s that thing in the middle bit”
“The middle bit sir?”
“Yeah you know between the seats – next to the stick thing that’s not the gears”
“You mean the handbrake sir”
“Whatever”
“Can you describe the modification please sir”
“Well it’s got these lights on it”
“Yes sir…”
“And some dials”
“What’s it called sir?”
“It’s a flux capacitor”
“Can you spell that please?
“Sure – f l u x c a p a c i t o r”
“Sorry sir I’m not getting that on my system is it an in car entertainment device”
“Not really”
“What does it actually do sir?”
“It creates a temporary disruption in the space time continuum by exerting quantum effects on semi classical gravity thus subverting the chronological protection conjecture to permit non linear motion through time”
“Sorry”
“It’s a time machine”
CLICK…..
( spimf ™ is whoever you want him to be, Wed 18 Jan 2012, 9:53, 11 replies)

Why could going to an incontinence choir's concert send you to sleep?
cos a Mass Sing With Pee Pulls Zeds.

(awaits carefully crafted insults. Or not)
(localboy purveyor of pisspoor puns, Wed 18 Jan 2012, 9:50, Reply)

Prancing ponies, piss-ups, and ‘parrot fashion’…

Before I begin, I won’t even try to reel you in on this wind-up, because you are obviously highly intelligent, non-gullible folk, not utter spazbuckets like me, so instead of trying to pull the wool over your eyes, I will just explain about how I once fell completely hook, line and sinker…and in fact, if you’ve got a moment, boat, reel, tackle, and those up-to-your-tits wader things with braces and built in wellies.

Now, In my defence (if I have one) I had been drinking quite a bit, and unfortunately there isn’t a drug massive enough to stifle my blinding faith in humanity (i.e. painful gullibility) so all I ask for is a modicum of sympathy that such an inane window licker as I exist in this world...
A few years back half a dozen ‘friends’ and I were all in the pub one Saturday afternoon, and we were discussing our general bullshit-related stories when the subject went on to urban myths. Pete, who I have since imaginatively tagged: ‘Pete the utter Bastard’, was watching the Racing channel that was on the telly in the corner. Whatever ungodly reason possessed him to pipe up and be quite so cuntish I don’t know, but he wistfully pointed at the racehorses on the screen and interrupted the flow of conversation by saying “Are there any films of them making that noise?…” Of course, this attracted my cretin-like interest and I asked him to elaborate, prompting him to launch in the biggest pile of steaming wank this side of my last post.

Pete then spontaneously launched into a speech that seemed so cunningly contrived that I still struggle to believe he was making it up on the spot. He started to speak of the ‘legend’, that once a certain type of horse (certain breed & must be female, apparently) reached full maturity, their throats ‘developed’ and created a primitive sort of vocal chord. As time has gone on, some of them have evolved even further and have adapted to be able to sort of make a high-pitched ‘whistle’…and a few of them could actually re-create sounds. Now, this was explained that it wasn’t in a directly intelligent way, but more like a parrot fashion, but if you played them music, they occasionally ended up mimicking the tune and even vocals that they had heard! Now, I know what you’re thinking, but where were you when they were telling me this? “Fuck-a-doodle-do!” I thought to myself…hanging on his every word as Pete continued to ramble on. Although I was a little sceptical, everyone else nodded sagely in knowledgeable agreement as he carried on.

At this point he must’ve noticed how I was being taken in. and decided to go for the big one. “In fact”, he continued mercilessly, if you want to see, there are a couple in the field down the road…”

“Fuck yeah! I’ve got to see this!” I bellowed, and before I knew it we were all staggering down the road to the fenced off field at the end by the church. Unfortunately, when we got there we discovered that a new fence had been erected around the field, one that was solid and too high for me to peer over.

I was gutted, but then Pete spotted something. “Aye up, you can look through the fence, there”, he exclaimed, and as I glanced towards where he was pointing I saw lots of tiny little spy holes. As I approached, I noticed that bizarrely, they all seemed shaped as if a busy little Zorro had gone mental on this fence with his little sword. I couldn’t tell if they had been a natural occurrence, (and I considered that perhaps they were made by other people who wanted to see this amazing phenomenon), but either way there were half a dozen or so little ‘Z’s dotted about at different heights up and down the fence.

I was pushed forward and held my breath with anticipation as I crouched down, squinted, and tentatively peered in, and you know what I saw?

That’s right, fuck all. I mean there were some horses in there, but they were just standing about doing whatever horses normally do, and by no means were they rehearsing for the X-Factor or anything. Fucketty Fuck.

My mates fell about laughing and still mention to this day what an inconsolable bell-end I was to believe such a thing. But you know what?...I don’t really mind. For a moment there I actually considered how nice it would be – the thought of old lady horses gently going through a collection of love ballads to entertain their friends and riders on long evenings. And at the very least, dear reader, it gave me the opportunity to tell you my story of ‘Mares sing, with peep-hole zeds’, so perhaps it wasn’t all bad.

(NOTE: Apologies to Merkins , for whom this will make even less sense, as they call them ‘Zee’s…and while I’m at it – apologies to everyone else in the world too)
( Pooflake braces for an onslaught..., Wed 18 Jan 2012, 9:46, 2 replies)

Party pegs
A simple one but it caused me and some friends of mine much mirth.
When I was at uni, there would inevitably be a house party every now and again. Before attending such events, I made sure to stock up on cheap pegs, such as those used to do the laundry. During a party, whenever someone came within range for a long enough period, I would surreptitiously attach a peg to a crease or fold in their clothing. Sometimes if they were there for long enough I'd make it two or three.

The head-messing aspect came not from the victims but from the confused look of other party patrons who would notice various people wandering around with pegs attached to their clothing.
(ConanTroutman thought we would free the vulture, Wed 18 Jan 2012, 9:39, 5 replies)

I meant the Camargue.

( Je suis un vagabond is an unfunny, up your own arse middle class knob, Wed 18 Jan 2012, 9:03, Reply)