» Gambling

My American Friend
I went to school with a fantastically patriotic American girl called Allison.

Sitting around watching the 4x100 metres men's relay freestyle swimming at the Sydney Olympics, I unintentionally wound Allison up.

I made the mistake of casually remarking after the first swimmers had nearly completed their legs, that the Australians, who were the only ones good enough to stop the US from clean-sweeping the swimming events, would go on to win the race.

Immediately Allison leapt on my comments, calling me many of the names under the sun, and unfairly accusing me of an anti-American bias and of not knowing anything about swimming.

I'm not the biggest gambler in the world, but I was reasonably confident that the Australians would win, so we bet £10 on it.

Without wanting to recall the race blow-for-blow, the Australians spanked the USA by a country mile, and I duly collected my winnings.

But Allison’s experience taught me a valuable lesson: never let your heart overrule your head when gambling.

Oh, and to make sure that what you’re betting on isn’t in fact a re-run of a race that happened earlier in the day and the person you are making the bet with hasn’t already seen the result and is desperately not trying to giggle like a giddy schoolgirl at the easiest money ever made.
(Fri 8th May 2009, 18:55, More)

» "Needless to say, I had the last laugh"

A Watery Revenge
A few years ago I worked in an American summer camp as a lifeguard.

Most of the kids I encountered were OK but one of them, Clinton, was an evil, 16 year-old, waste of chromosomes who took great pleasure in bitching, moaning, and winding up members of staff about anything that didn’t go his way.

Every couple of days, we’d take the kids swimming at the nearby lake. Two lifeguards would stand up to their chests/ necks in the water. This was obviously pretty boring and cold and our job was only made even more boring and cold by arsehole kids (like Clinton) swimming around us under the water and ‘accidentally’ splashing our faces by kicking hard as they swam by.

One day, I snapped and could no longer take Clinton’s incessant tomfoolery. As Clinton swam around me for the umpteenth time under the water, I waiting until he was directly in front of me and let go of the contents of my bladder, jetting out a warming piss-cloud of revenge all around the little ball bag. I'm sure that most normal people would have noticed, but so full was he of spiteful malevolence that he missed the tell-tale temperature change.

From then on Clinton couldn't touch me: whenever he tried to provoke a reaction from me, I could smile serenely in the knowledge that I’d had the last laugh with him none the wiser.

P.S. when I told the other camp lifeguards of what I'd done their first reaction was disgust. Their second was to get their own 'watery' revenge on whoever had the audacity to push them too far when swimming.
(Mon 7th Feb 2011, 0:13, More)

» Famous people I hate

Royals, etc......
I don't hate all royals that much, but I have a particular loathing for Prince Charles. If he sat there and posed for photos with tourists, then fine I could pretend not to see him and not let him wind me up. But its the fact that this thick, ill-educated, ignoramus thinks that everyone should listen to his NIMBY, conservative opinions when he is little more than a reality TV star that no-one voted for. Just thinking about him bleat about what should and shouldn't happen in this country is making me steam.

Didier Drogba. I cannot fathom how anyone can support him and cheer him. Perhaps I'm naive but I would be so embarrassed to watch the invisible sniper pick him off time and time again and try to justify his cheating and histrionics to my non-Chelsea supporting mates.

Rick Someone off E4 or T4 or whatever its called. I've never deliberately watched a show that he features in, but my girlfriend is so sick of me getting angry at the TV because he delivers every line like he's Alan Partridge.

Ranting really is very therapeutic!
(Tue 9th Feb 2010, 20:47, More)