» Accidental innuendo

Great big ones.
So my colleagues and I had got around to discussing apples; it was one of those days. We were three that day - me, my supervisor (ex-Army bloke) and a Bangladeshi lady, very sweet and innocent.

Anyway. Apples were the subject, and we were comparing our favourites. I volunteered Braeburn. My supervisor said Granny Smith. The Bangladeshi lady smiled and said:

"Well, I think English Cox are the best!"

Cue my supervisor and I going purple and eating lots of desk.
(Sat 14th Jun 2008, 2:29, More)

» Guilty Laughs

Helen Keller
One bored day on t'internet, for reasons unknown at the time and even more nebulous now, I decided to search for photographs of Helen Keller. I found a random Google Images result and clicked on it, and sat staring at a sepia photograph of two young ladies sitting side by side. Not having seen Ms. Keller before, I wondered vaguely which one she might be.

Ten seconds later, I promptly burst out laughing as I realised that it certainly wasn't the one reading a fucking BOOK.
(Sat 24th Jul 2010, 1:29, More)

» Amazing displays of ignorance

Yanking my chain
Even after all these years, I am still aghast at the question I was asked by an earnest Minnesotan lady contemplating her first trip to London: she wanted to know whether we had flushing toilets in England. I considered several promising lines of sarcasm before realising that this could easily get out of hand (and I had to bear in mind that she was a friend of my mother's....not exactly politic) so I simply pointed out that yes, we'd had them for longer than the United States had been in existence.
(Fri 19th Mar 2010, 17:42, More)

» Buses

Maybe you're gonna be the one that saves me...
Not a crap story - a rather sweet one, really.

I'd just got on a bus headed for Oakwood Underground station, and found myself sharing the back row with a young hippie couple and their equally hippie (but extremely blonde and photogenic) two-year old son. Traffic is heavy, the rate of progress is consequently slow and, sensing that their offspring may be getting a tad fractious, the couple start to sing to him.

"Twinkle Twinkle Little Star"? "Old MacDonald Had A Farm"? No, far too bourgeois for such unrepentantly New Age parents. They gave the tot a near-perfect a capella rendition of "Wonderwall".

Once I got over the initial surrealism of the situation, I decided to join in, and I must say, the wee one seemed pleasantly amused by all this.
(Thu 2nd Jul 2009, 13:01, More)

» Vomit Pt2

The worst sight in the entire world.
I don't know what brought this on. I didn't feel queasy before the unfortunate episode; it was quite literally a vom from out of the blue. So: I'd indulged myself in egg fried rice and noodles for dinner and retired to bed happy. Some time later I woke up, blinked, realised I was about three seconds from a technicolour yawn and scrambled out of bed. The only receptacle in sight was the rubbish bin, so I took aim and let fly.

One ***FOOM*** later, I opened my eyes to behold a sight of rare disgust. The bin had been almost full to the brim with dog ends and ash, into which I'd projectile-puked a startling quantity of mostly undigested Chinese food. The force of said ejecta had raised a cloud of ash, which now coated my face...and the only reason I didn't throw up again at the sight in front of my red-rimmed eyes was because I didn't have anything left...
(Fri 8th Jan 2010, 20:53, More)