Or should I rescue the wife?
The certificate my Dad got (which is in Dutch for some reason) stating that he holds the World Record for the fastest transmission of Morse Code by telegraph, which he got when he was in the RAF back in the 50s.

My Dad's watch.

OK, neither of these things have much in the way of monetary value, but that's kind of the point.

Oh, and my bear.
(Steve The Monkey, Thu 8 May 2008, 16:24, Reply)

My Child porn.

( Gerbilinafishtank Gerbil in a fish tank...TURTLE POWER!, Thu 8 May 2008, 16:14, 6 replies)

I'm a massive Stereophonics fan
So I have a big collection of their memorabilia. It's not really worth much, it just means a lot to me.

Although whenever I think about a fire spreading through my house, the first thing I think of rescuing is the Dog, definatly.

EDIT: Although saying that there once was a fire in my house, and it didn't cross my mind to grab things, I just ran.
I took the dog though.
( Lollylegs lite, Thu 8 May 2008, 16:11, 1 reply)

My copy of Radiant Silvergun
bastard thing cost over a £120 on ebay.

I'm a geek, I make no apology.
(Reverend Samson Fapohunda B3tan, B3tan, B3tan, B3tan, Thu 8 May 2008, 16:09, 1 reply)

As an accountant,
I feel that it is my duty to inform you that you are legally required to retain the past seven years financial records and that it is your responsibility to ensure that said documentation is not destroyed. Therefore, in the event of a fire I suggest you forego saving items of sentimental value and replaceable family members in favour of financial documentation.

For a nominal fee, I can meet you at the front door of your burning residence and perform an in situ audit to ensure that all relevant information is removed from the premises. This will ensure that you are fully compliant with HMRC regulations.

For more information contact "Fuck Me, My House Is On Fucking Fire Accountancy Services" on 0800-555-FIRE
( Colonel Dracula Two manky hookers and a racist dwarf, Thu 8 May 2008, 16:08, 2 replies)

I have....
....my father's slide projector and screen.

The bulb has gone, and would cost too much to replace, and the screen is a silvery-grey. But I can't part with it.

In his collection of slides, he has some of the Apollo landings, as well as York Minister well before the fire of 1984. As well as numerous family holidays, and people and events long gone.

My wife had most of the images transferred to photos from slide to paper for me, and although they are very good, they are not the same as having the image projected on the screen.

So why do I keep them? It reminds me of a time circa 1970 to 1973 when this was an amazing form of entertainment. especially when one slide was inserted the wrong way, and we all laughed at "grandad upside down".

TV for me was just black and white - but this was full colour entertainment. The smell of the projector heat is something I can sense right now, and I can picture the cigarette smoke from my mother wafting through the ray of light as we sat around for the "show" to start.

Just looking at the hardware, and not even the images, it makes me tearful for nothing else but my youth long gone..............
( Piper Alpha is being a grumpy northerm bastard on:, Thu 8 May 2008, 16:02, 1 reply)

My mobile phone
So I could reinstate the home insurance I let lapse last month!
(Big Smurf Brush me daddy-O, Thu 8 May 2008, 16:02, Reply)

*Pleads for clicks*
I'd take all of you.








Well, most...
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Thu 8 May 2008, 16:01, 29 replies)

My merkin...

lest I get cold and the fireman laugh at my winky.
( Naked Ape call me Caitlyn, Thu 8 May 2008, 15:59, Reply)

I have this cuddly toy bunny
Its the earliest thing I can remember and reminds me of my mum who is no longer with us
( epiphany coming live from sweden, Thu 8 May 2008, 15:57, 1 reply)

My granddad's medals from WWII
They're the only material items left barring a couple of photos that remind me of him.

I wish he'd lived until my early teens at least, I'd have been wise enough to spend time with him and would have got to know him much better.
(buzzmong procrastinating since 1987, Thu 8 May 2008, 15:52, Reply)

If my house were on fire...
I would try to save four things:

My Les Paul, mum bought me this for my 18th birthday so it is very much my 'tool of the trade' for everything - the other guitars can burn as long as I have this:



Although I would be really pissed at having to leave my Dual rec behind :(

My R/C model KL35D - it's a total one off and flies spot on so I would miss it too much!




My Great Grandfathers 'Mutt & Jeff'



The medals are probably the most sentimental things I have posession of - to think I found them festering in a plastic bag at my Mothers house while moving some stuff!

They are going on display in my living room after we redecorate.
( FlexAlux laughed at something inappropriate on, Thu 8 May 2008, 15:41, 1 reply)

Oh god, what a teary subject
1) The letter mum wrote me when she was given 6-12 months to live. My brother sent it after she died and it made me sob and everyone in the pub cry. I can't re-read it yet.
2) The letters my friends wrote to immigration when it looked like I was going to be deported, all saying how much they need me here and what a wonderful person I am.
3) The ring my dad gave my mum when they were dating. It's the only thing my mum had of the two of them (her other jewelry was stolen)
( Batshitmentalist is sane for once, Thu 8 May 2008, 15:40, Reply)

Bookmark
I mentioned a minute ago that I can be quite sentimental. Quite how sentimental became apparent to me a couple of New Years ago.

I was invited to a Not New Year party in London by my friend L. My friend V was also invited, and she drove. We parked in West Hampstead, outside a the flat of a third friend, R, who was also going.

We were running a bit late, so, having parked, we had a fairly quick turnaround to get the Thameslink to Streatham. We left our bags in the car.

4am came along, and we arrived back at R's flat. The bags were no longer in the car. My sleeping bag was still there, but my clothes had gone. V and I were left with nothing but the clothes we were stood in - and since it'd been a heroes and villains theme party, this meant in my case that I had nothing but the costume of a 6-foot Cadbury's Twirl. (Cadbury's heroes, geddit? I'll post a photo in the replies.)

The loss of my Charlie Don't Surf t-shirt should have annoyed me (as should the loss of clean underwear), but they didn't.

What irked me was this: I was reading Madame Bovary at the time, and was using two bookmarks - one for the novel proper, and one for the editor's notes at the end. One of these was a paper bookmark from Page 1 books, a bookshop in Hull. For a decade, its job had been to keep track of the editor's notes in various books, and it had been to Latin America, East Africa and Iran with me. It had been up Kilimanjaro. And its loss was what annoyed me more than anything else. I spend an hour and a half scouring the streets of West Hampstead for abandoned bags. Partly this was because V was upset and I care about her. Partly it was so I would have clean clothes. But mainly it was so I could find my copy of Madame Bovary and retrieve a bookmark.

I baffle myself. I really do.
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Thu 8 May 2008, 15:38, 8 replies)

My shoes
or my pink blanket I've had since childhood
(ricky_darkholer is blonde on the inside, Thu 8 May 2008, 15:38, Reply)

Booze and prosthetics.
Probably a bottle of Gin and my Fleshlight.

Lady St.Roker has never been able to leave the house in anything approaching a hurry, so would surely perish in the blaze.

The tipple and the latex gipper would enable me to console myself and move on at the same time.

Length - not sure, but it's the one that looks like a pink, pert lady's bumhole.
(Hampton St.Roker (has probably had your mum), Thu 8 May 2008, 15:36, Reply)

The secret family I keep in my cellar

Well I'm not a monster! Jeez!
( Naked Ape call me Caitlyn, Thu 8 May 2008, 15:34, 2 replies)

I don't think I can read this any longer
for you are all making me cry.
(Half of Stephen Fry's right buttock pissed on your dog on, Thu 8 May 2008, 15:28, Reply)

Two things spring to mind
A packet of Marshmallows and my wallet.

The marshmallows can be cooked in the dying embers of the fire so I dont have to face the insurers or fire department on an empty stomach.

I also chose my wallet as it has my Nectar card inside it and I've been told its a bugger claiming the points back.


What?
(mon bison powered by magnets, Thu 8 May 2008, 15:27, Reply)

i'll join the cuddly toy shame
i have two in particular. one is my cuddly gorilla and the other is a raccoon hand puppet.

this question has already in fact been posed to me and i tried to save face and go 'oh you know... material possessions aren't so important' before cracking and admitting that should a fire or an earthquake come that id be grabbing my little buddies and fleeing, leaving everyone else in the building to stew

i would like to add that none of my male friends own (or confess to owning) cuddly toys yet every single one of them will make a beeline for the gorilla when they come around to see me.

if someone did something to that toy, they'd better be prepared for me launching a kill bill style revenge attack.
(ladyintheradiator, Thu 8 May 2008, 15:27, 2 replies)

More uplifting
Ok, more uplifting - One of my more treasured possessions would have to be a bay tree that my ex currently has custody of.

I grew it from a tiny seedling to the nice bush it is today - I'm not allowed it back though, I think spite may be involved (justifiably if we're honest).

Mad? Yep!.
(james_tiger_woods is going to start his killing spree on the, Thu 8 May 2008, 15:26, Reply)

Well, it WAS a most treasured possession
Unfortunately, it has long since been consigned to the bins of history due to a friend betraying my trust.

Years ago, I used to have a massive pile of gold bullion that I nicked from a bus that fell off a cliff in Italy. Using an improvised system of pullies and cheap child labour, I managed to haul it all the way to Zurich and have it stashed in a tax-free bank account. Of course I also kept one gold bar about my person, which would help me get to sleep each night, as I would hold it and masturbate about my great wealth.

However, a few years later, that particular Swiss bank looked in danger of collapse. Indeed, as I walked in to withdraw my gold, a wall fell down beside me. This was worse than I was expecting. I would now have to take out all of the gold in one go; a logistical nightmare. Fortunately, a nice Austrian chap was behind me in the queue, and he offered to get some of his children to help load the bullion into his massive van. He said he had quite a large cellar that could easily accomadate such a quantity of gold. All he wanted in return was to have violent sex with my daughter. I agreed.

Over the next few years, I would occasionally lodge at his house and go down into the cellar every day to have sexual fantasies about my enormous wealth. We became great friends, but there was some mysterious threatening air about him that said he didn't like to be messed with and a slightly deranged look in his eyebrows. I foolishly ignored this at the time. Things started to take a turn for the worse in the summer of '84, around the same time as the great gold market crash of '84.

Having so much gold, I wasn't particularly bothered about the gold market crash. However, one fateful day when I was staying the night at my Austrian friend's house, I found a note from him. He said that he had been planning to sell the gold himself for a massive profit, but thanks to the impending gold crunch, he decided to get out of the gold market as soon as possible and enter into the ever realiable child sex slave market. According to the letter, I was to continue as before, everyday going down to the cellar to check on the "gold" and have sexual fantasies about my enormous "wealth". For 24 years I kept it up until the police were notified.

Naturally I'll never get that gold back as the police won't me sell the children that had been kept in the cellar. But all is not lost. I still have that one gold bar left. It's the one thing that's been constant ever since I found the gold bullion in the first place and no Austrian with a cellar can take that away from me. So I suppose that one gold bar, more than the gold bullion as a whole, truly is my most treasured possesion.
(Cuthbert Annihilator, Thu 8 May 2008, 15:24, Reply)

Linked to my Dad I'm afraid
One of my more treasured possessions would be a necklace of my Dad's - it goes from car to car and I won't have a car without it - I'm a bit superstitious about it now....
(james_tiger_woods is going to start his killing spree on the, Thu 8 May 2008, 15:24, Reply)

Ok, not just one
One of my most treasured possession would be memories.

Specifically of my Dad - I've posted about him before and the saddest thing in the world for me is that I don't have many memories of him.

In my mind are about a dozen memories that I have left of him - These include running up to him at the end of term time when he picked us up from boarding school and getting a big kiss and huge cuddle, him driving me home from school talking about nothing, to name but two.

The one that I have that is my most treasured is of him dropping me off at school for the last time, kissing him and cuddling him and watching him drive off. It makes me sad sometimes as I know that was the last time I ever saw him - I can still picture the car going off into the distance, watching it for what seems like forever. Now when I think of that, I know that 3 days later I was told that he had died.

A memory of him that I have to live with forever, whether I want to or not is of of him lying in state. So empty. So devoid of the life that made him my Dad.

Sorry to bring this down, but I think I might go and have a little cry.

JTW.
(james_tiger_woods is going to start his killing spree on the, Thu 8 May 2008, 15:21, Reply)

Soul mates
all this talk of soul mates is hugely depressing to us single people of a certain age - can we tone it down on the ecstatically-happy-with-your-lot-ness please? thanks.
(bazmorningstar efil4nat3b, Thu 8 May 2008, 15:20, 3 replies)

Hmmm...
Despite myself, I'm quite sentimental - I'll doubtless give several examples of this in the coming week. The upshot is that, in practice, I would probably save nothing from a burning building because I'd spend too much time dithering about what to save. The cat'd save himself - he's not stupid. From my own house, there's lots I'd save if I had the chance, but (in fairness) nothing's irreplaceable. I don't have any treasured family mementos - I don't even have any photographs of my family (and they have none of me).

From my parents', though... it'd have to be Euston that I saved.

Euston lives in the attic; he's about 2' tall, and would be sky blue but for the dirt. He is, of course, the teddy bear that I had as a small child. I've not seen him for decades, and I've joked about putting him in the bin - but I couldn't do that and despite my apparent nonchalance, I'd be heartbroken if he were to disappear somehow.

I am a 31-year old male. I disgust myself with my own wussiness.
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Thu 8 May 2008, 15:19, 17 replies)

My keys

Otherwise I would be locked out.
( Naked Ape call me Caitlyn, Thu 8 May 2008, 15:18, 1 reply)

Bear
If we overlook the obvious kids and GF, that's an easy one for me.

It's my bear - imaginatively called "Blue Ted" so called because he was blue. Well, pale blue and thinner than he used to be after his "operation" a good few years ago these days.

I've had him since I was a baby, he came with me to boarding school (7-16), to university (18-21) and has been my companion all my life. My son loves him too and always gives him a kiss an cuddle.

However. He doesn't live with me as I daren't move him or expose him to other environments as I'd die if something bad happened to him.

He lives at my Mums in "my" bedroom on her bed - I still always go in and say hello to him (and my other 2 old bears) and if noone's looking, I give him a little cuddle too.

I had a right go at my Mum last month as I went to see her (him) and there was a chair on him - Only afterwards did I realise how ridiculous I must have sounded.

I'm 32 for goodness sake - Am I mad?


(I've not posted for a while - there's been nothing worth posting.... Hope you're all ok!)
(james_tiger_woods is going to start his killing spree on the, Thu 8 May 2008, 15:12, 7 replies)

Hmm.
The only things that really matter to me are my mother, father, my friends and my cat.

Yes, I'm quite proud of my actual posessions, especially my motorbike (which I rebuilt from a wreck over many months), and my computer has a lot of music on it which I just can't get anywhere, but frankly I don't give a shit about any of it compared to the people in my life.

Except, oddly, the little plastic Buddah that my friend gave to me 5 years ago before she died. It's like she gave all her good karma to me and had none left for herself.
(Half of Stephen Fry's right buttock pissed on your dog on, Thu 8 May 2008, 15:12, Reply)