» When animals attack...

Similar vein to Pigeon v Patio Door
Stood on a platform at a train station one afternoon waiting for the train home. A freight train came round the corner at a fair speed and I watched it approach. Just as it was about level with me, a pigeon decided that the train was no match for it's pigeon powers and flew straight in front of the lead locomotive.

There is a splat and a comedy cloud of feathers like a pillow has just been burst, and a perfectly in-tact but very dead pigeon is deposited on the platform.

I gave it a decent burial by nudging it over the platform edge with my foot.
(Sat 4th Jun 2005, 17:18, More)

» Heckles

AutoHeckle
Not technically a heckle. Well, not remotely a heckle but it still involves public gathering-related japes.

School assembly one morning. Usually some ageing god-bothering vicar guy is wheeled in front of us to try and persuade us that "Jesus is Trendy" and "Don't Be A Cnut". Instead (and this is about the time that women were starting to be ordained) a young redheadded female vicar enters the hall; dogcollar and vicar-robes n'all.

We stand up dutifully as she processes to the lectern and once there she bids us sit.

Her opening gambit? "Well, I bet you've never had a woman up the front before..."

500 teenage boys and not a few members of staff simultaneously wet themselves with laughter and continue to do so for the remainder of her lecture.
(Mon 10th Apr 2006, 19:16, More)

» Toilets

not me, but a friend
Friend's parents away, cue sleepover (or rather pass-out) party at friend's house. Lots of alcohol imbibed and eventually one by one the guests pass out onto the floor.

One guest wakes up in the small hours and feels that dinner was so good that he'd like another chew on it. Not being familiar with friend's house layout, especially while dark and well-leathered, he sets about trying to find a suitable recepticle for his pending technicolour yawn.

He eventually finds an object he identifies as being white with a hinged lid, does the deed and returns to base.

Next day, friend's parents return to find a lump of solidified, frozen sick in their chest freezer.

Close enough I guess.
(Sat 3rd Sep 2005, 8:19, More)

» School Projects

R.E
I remember one project given to me by my Religious Education teacher. We were in groups of three, and each group given the topic of a human rite of passage (birth, coming of age, marriage etc.) and asked to investigate how different faiths dealt with it.

Our group was given death, and were asked to produce enough material for an exhibition in the school foyer. I did alot of work on the written material, but got to do two bits of field work; visiting and interviewing an undertaker (utterly weird) and a visit to a crematorium (even weirder).

At the crematorium I was shown all the bits you don't normally get to see; the conveyor belt that rolls the coffin into the oven, the oven itself, the scraper thing that removes the ashes from the oven and so forth. All with a chap who seemed far too jolly to ever be working in a crematorium. For being a good little boy and feigning interest and attention for an hour, the chap gave me some parting gifts; a few issues of the crematoria trade magazine (yes, there is such a thing and yes, it's very weird) and an actual plastic urn. These are not the decorative ones that go on top of the mantelpiece, but simple brown plastic tubs with a screw-top lid that are used when ashes are buried, or where there's no family around to pay for anything more fancy.

This was great as an exhibition piece, but I figured it could be even more compelling. When I got home I took a few toilet rolls and some old newspaper into the back garden, set fire to the lot and some time later collected the ash into the pot.

The next day took it back into school and (with my somewhat black sense of humour) would reply to anyone who asked "what's that?" with "Grandma". A quick unscrew of the lid seemed to prove this for them (despite newspaper and toilet roll ash looking nothing like human ash). Some of the reactions were priceless and I let people dangle for some time before telling the truth.

This was all very funny until it transpired that one kid had indeed just lost his grandma and, of course, she was cremated. My flaunting granny's ashes around the place probably wasn't the most tactful thing to do, and I was politely asked to stop. Spoilsports.
(Fri 14th Aug 2009, 16:02, More)

» What's the most horrific thing you've seen?

Rat.
Picture the scene. 4th year biology lesson. Mr Macy has just announced that today we are doing dissection, and that anyone who doesn't want to watch (either for ethical reasons or squeamishness) should please remove themselves to a corner of the room.

He takes the body of a white rat out of a plastic pouch and proceeds to nail the poor little guy spreadeagled onto a butcher's block. He describes each step of the dissection as he proceeds ("Now we're cutting through the chest, there's the heart and look here's the intestines"). Each organ that he removes he carefully places into a glass beaker at the side.

Most of us watching are coping well so far - the blood had been drained from the rat previously so it's not particularly gorey.

When he's done he covers the body and the organ beaker with a paper towel and puts it on a side bench for the lab assistant to remove. The lab assistant enters the room, picks up the board and makes for the door. On the way out she trips, drops the board, the beaker smashes on the floor distributing rat entrails all over the place. The body of the rat also becomes unhooked and flops down to the floor.

This happens in full view of the squeamish group - two of whom immediately vomit and a third faints, hitting his head on the edge of a desk and cutting open his forehead on the way down.

Entrails, blood, vomit. It was like a massacre.
(Tue 26th Jun 2007, 9:54, More)