» When Animals Attack

Taste the blood of Cat-ula
Many years ago, I'd had an ongoing battle chasing away cats eating absentee landlady's cat's food (making him a nervous wreck). Got home one night to find landlady cat cowering and a huge growling spiky haired black monster in a corner of the kitchen. I decided to grab the bastard and chuck it out of the cat flap.

Except this one didn't just wriggle like the other cats I'd thrown out. It bit the back of my neck, clawed at my face and arms and then sank its teeth in to my left hand, over my lower thumb. And wouldn't let go.

Failing to prise its jaws open, I managed to turn on the kitchen tap and held Lucifer's head under it. Still wouldn't let go. With the sink filling up with water, in desperation I plunged Beelzebub's head under. Eventually it unclamped and squirmed back to the corner. I opened the back door, grabbed Satan by the scruff and flung it out, slamming the door behind it.

And then I noticed the blood.

Running down the back door from my hand, splashes of it all over the kitchen floor, sink, and cabinets. I stood there dripping for a minute, then pulled myself together and went to the local hospital (walking distance around the corner).

Casualty cleanup, bandages, painkillers and a tetanus shot later, I made it home around 2am. Realising the next day that I couldn't actually use my hands, I called in sick to work. Cue unsympathetic colleagues ("You got bitten by a puddy-tat!? Awwww!!!!"), angry boss threatening to drive round to drag me in etc.

Three days later I made it back to work. Cue suddenly sympathetic colleagues upon seeing my swollen face, arms and bandages asking questions like "What the hell happened to you?" "Did you get beaten up?" "Why did you say you'd been bitten by a cat?"

The best bit was that a week everything was getting better, except my thumb knuckle- still painful, nearly the size of a ping-pong ball and scabbing over in a strange, hard shiny way. Back to casualty. "Nothing wrong with it", they lied. "Take some ibuprofen", they dismissed.

I went home, downed some vodka, gritted my teeth and proceeded with amateur thumb surgery using tweezers, a needle and a razorblade. After sufficient opening up of shiny knuckle scab, out pop two tiny, spiky black cat hairs. Half an hour after removing them, my thumb was almost back to normal size. Cat hairs embedded in wounds don’t show up on x-rays, it would seem.

I love cats by the way. I have three and I’d choose them over most people I know.
(Wed 30th Apr 2008, 10:53, More)

» Stupid Dares

Stand in two buckets ...
My dad used to be a fireman. Once upon a time (about 30 years ago), he and some other guys on his watch actually managed to get another guy trying to prove that he could stand in two buckets and lift himself up. Seriously. Convinced he could do it, but he did give up in the end.
(Thu 1st Nov 2007, 17:12, More)

» School Assemblies

One more word out of you ...
Our School assemblies were bothered once or twice a year by a local vicar who bore an uncanny resemblance to a happy, anger-free Basil Fawlty. He even had a jacket like him. My friends and I struggled keeping straight faces when he was on stage at the best of times, and I used to get the giggles something terrible.

On one terrible occasion he decided to tell the story of the Sermon on the Mount. With our heads bowed, my friend next to me nudged me, and, completely deadpan, muttered,

"Blessed ... are the cheesemakers".

I think I held my breath for nearly two minutes to stop myself screaming with laughter.
(Thu 13th Jun 2013, 16:06, More)

» The Police II

So you're allowed to swear at us, then?
Going home from a midweek Manchester 1990s Indie club night, four of us in the car, me in the back with my girlfriend. Us three passengers had been drinking, not excessively, but S the driver hadn't touched a drop.

S did manage to get in the wrong lane on a (deserted) roundabout, turned off anyway, only to see a police van going in the opposite direction. Of course, it drove all the way around, caught us and pulled us over. S winds his window down, Mr Policeman leans out of his passenger-side window, glares disapprovingly at us long-haired types, and barks;

"YOU'RE DRIVING LIKE AN ARSE!!!"

This is instantly the funniest thing I've ever heard, and panic sets in as GF and I catch each other's eyes and realise we are thinking the same thing. We're about to get a potentially disastrous case of the giggles. I turn and stare down in to the footwell, concentrating on not getting thrown in the back of a police van for laughing at a policeman. S, contrite and cool as you like, calmly talks his way out of the situation, no sir, I haven't had a drink, I just got lost for a second etc. Eventually, the "can I go now" bollocking ends, they speed off to do more good, and three of us burst out laughing. S just sits there smiling at us all, eventually saying "Well, that's a relief".

"You've really not had a drink though, have you?" front passenger friend asks.

"No, no, I never drink and drive", he replied. "I am tripping, though".
(Mon 9th May 2011, 12:47, More)

» I don't understand the attraction

Reeves and Fucking Mortimer and fucking Coldplay
I don't get it. They look funny, they ought to be funny, but they are as funny as placing a random object under an alternative random object. This is not funny. I DON'T FUCKING GET IT and it annoys me that so many pretend to. If you think Vic and Bob are funny, you are pretending because you haven't grown out of sixth form conformity. End. Of. Story.

And Coldplay. "Yellow" is the most hideous, emetic, ear-bleeding dirge to be hawked up and spat out by Satan since the Beatles "Revolution 9". Somebody should have put a stop to them on that evidence alone. And yet millions of mindless idiots still fawn over the emperors new clothes and buy their unimaginatively titled sonic entrails. Damn you.
(Thu 15th Oct 2009, 15:38, More)