BXProject

[mat_the_cat]

Happened this evening, one of those 'it could only happen to me' moments. Started out well enough - went over to see Lana's Dad and take him out for a meal. Took the van, and started to turn round on his driveway, which is ever so slightly raised up above the grass surrounding it. My aim was to keep the rear wheels on the drive, and swing the front around. Only my wheels just left the drive, and started spinning when I tried to reverse back. Not to worry, I though, I'll just go forwards a bit, and take a run up at the small lip. Bugger, still the same problem - I'll have to go a bit further forwards until I am on the flat, then I'll be able to get some speed up. Nope, front wheels sank into the very soft ground...

Managed to jack the rear wheels up and put chains on - unfortunately all that did was very quickly dig one of the rear wheels in worse than the front. Time for plan B then, off to the pub! A quick meal was then followed by my father in law giving us a lift back home so we could collect the Disco. This would have been a good idea, had we not left the house keys in the van. Fortunately I remembered that our neighbours had a spare set of keys to the place; unfortunately I had forgotten to give them a new key when I changed a lock.

So Lana and her Dad set off to get the keys, while I attempted a bit of breaking and entering. (I have had previous success in this department, when I locked myself out of a previous house I managed to crawl through the hole left for a boiler vent that we were replacing. It was a tight squeeze, and I had to remove my jeans for clearance. I was dreading getting stuck and having to rely on one of the neighbours calling 999 after seeing a man's legs clad only in boxer shorts protruding half way up the wall of a house! But, I digress...) After a bit of poking round through the letterbox with a chimney sweep attachment I found in the shed, I had managed to open a window and climb inside. Drove over in the Discovery, and pulled out the van with (for once) very little drama.

Tomorrow night I am entering a excavator challenge at one of the local pubs. Watch this space...

[Way2go]

Tomorrow night I am entering a excavator challenge at one of the local pubs. Watch this space...

Now that really does sound great fun!

[Bx Bandit]

The most innocent of beginnings!

Excavator challenge?! OMFG! Photos please

[mat_the_cat]

In a nutshell the pub hires a digger for the evening, and the challenge is to lift up a tyre with the bucket and put it over a cone in the fastest time possible, or similar. We country folk know how to have a good time! (Although H&S seems to have taken a back seat…)

I think I'll use this thread, when time allows, to recollect any amusing tales about me. Starting with the time I exposed myself (full frontally) to my girlfriends family...

[jayw]

girlfriends family...

Notice he didn't say "wife", so obviously they sacked him off as a result

[mat_the_cat]

I should have said "then girlfriend", as for some reason they did allow me into the family! They allowed me to come on a family holiday to Africa (once in a lifetime for me!), and we had the room next to theirs. I was pretty sticky one evening, and had just stripped off ready for a shower when I noticed plumes of smoke billowing upwards past the window. "Shit", I thought, "The hotel is on fire!" so I ran out onto the balcony and leant over as far as I could to see where the smoke was coming from. It turned out to be two workers from the hotel fumigating the undergrowth to get rid of the mosquitoes, but unbeknown to me Lana's parents were on the balcony next to ours, just about to go in to avoid the smoke. Not content giving them the view of my hairy 'crack and sack', when I heard her Dad mutter something about a full moon I turned instinctively towards the sound and gave them the full show...

On the subject of nakedness I am reminded of a fancy dress party I went to several years back, dressed as Arnie in Terminator 2. Half way through I was 'slightly merry', and decided to head outside, take all my clothes off, ring the doorbell and then crouch on the floor. The first person to answer the door I greeted with "I need your clothes, your boots, and your motorcycle". I felt slightly bad when the girl who answered was a shy, church going type, who'd been reluctantly persuaded to come to the party on the basis that it would be fairly tame...

[Vanny]

(Although H&S seems to have taken a back seat…)

Bloody good job too if your going

[Vanny]

"I need your clothes, your boots, and your motorcycle

Thats a bit unfortunate, because had it been the right person, it could have gone down rather well.


How is that your still alive? I mean you should cell your body for medical research!

[mat_the_cat]

Digger challenge went well - I won a bottle of red for my time of 14 seconds! The other guys had clearly never had a go before (second place was 1 min 21s) so it was a bit of a hollow victory really. One contestant seemed to think the levers were either on or off, and whacked the bucket into the ground so hard the machine almost fell over.



Only a baby machine...

[mat_the_cat]

Back to the tales of mishaps and comedy moments, they're all coming flooding back to me now!

On our honeymoon we had walked for about an hour along the beach to get to a less busy area, and had gone for a swim. Like a fool, I had neglected to take out the keys to our room from my swimming shorts. Shortly after I got out I realised they were missing, and spent a fruitless half hour scouring the bottom of the sea bed for them. As I couldn't be certain they hadn't fallen out on out walk, I was getting quite worried that someone had found them, and was ransacking all our belongings. So I legged it back to the hotel (not easy on sand in the heat) to find that our door was locked. Unfortunately, nobody had handed any keys in, so we had to get someone to change the lock. After this was done (and paid for!) I legged it back down the beach, as Lana had been waiting quite a while for me. That kind of spoilt the day a little so we decided to go back to our room after one last swim. Unbelievably I then found the keys in the water (which we kept as a souvenir). On getting back to the room my mood was not improved upon realising I had left my sunglasses back on the beach, on a rock before the swim. Another hour wasted going to fetch them.

At the end of the same holiday we had checked out of the room in the morning, and spent the day by the pool with our bags at reception. Unfortunately we lost track of time somewhat, and we alerted by the hotel tannoy that the coach to take us to the airport was waiting to leave. I felt rather embarrassed entering the coach - not only had everyone been sat in the hot sun waiting for us, we were still wet and wearing what we had been swimming in. If looks could kill!

Another holiday related story - this was the first time I went abroad and was touring Europe by train. We were doing it very much on the cheap, and sleeping on overnight trains and railway stations wherever possible. This meant that showers were few and far between, but we had read in a guidebook that Venice railways station had showers! Upon arriving in Venice, with great anticipation after several days of sweat, I went to get clean. So I go into the toilets and take a look in a few cubicles. The first shower I rejected as it was missing a grille over the (rather large) plug hole (bearing in mind that I'd never seen 'Continental' style toilets before...) The second was even worse, someone had crimped off a length right in the shower tray! So I made the decision that I was not going to take a shower anywhere these dirty foreign bastards had been before.

[mickey taker]

its funny when you think back how many scrapes you have.
when I was a kid (8 or 9 I guess) my eldest brother had been ill and had spent his spare time knotting a rug ,you know the old patons rug wool kits,
When he finished it he started knotting a carpet for our lounge , (24ft by 14 ft)
well it eventually got finished and looked great .

a couple of weeks later my other brother and I decided to play rugby in the front room ( as you do ) with a roll of sellotape ,

I lobbed it in the air and Colin immediately shouted look out,

I thought he said look up and I did just in time to see shards of glass from my mums prize chandalier raining down on me,

the biggest one missed my eye and sliced down the side of my nose.

Not sure mum appreciated her new customised carpet with claret all over it

[mat_the_cat]

One more for now, the memory of it is cracking me up, but that could partly be down to the booze. (I've just been painting the van, in the dark whilst pissed. With a brush. That's bound to drop me a few points in the concours...)

At a previous job there was a few jokers around, so I thought nothing of it when one Monday morning my PC was missing (previous jokes had included editing Autocorrect to replace the word 'the' with 'tit' and inverting the picture on my monitor to be upside down). Determined not to give the joker the satisfaction of me having to ask for it back, I kept quiet and waited for him to get bored and put it back for me. After a couple of days I was running out of things I could do without a PC, when my boss happened to ask what I had done with it. Suspecting him to be the joker I asked if I could have it back, only to be met with complete surprise. Nobody else had a clue what had happened, and it turned out the fire escape door had been left open at the weekend, and someone must have walked up the stairs and pinched it. Why they left everyone else's was a mystery - again another case of 'just my luck'.

[Philhod]

Nah! I'm not having that Mat. You had really pissed someone off and you were targetted for me

[mat_the_cat]

But Phil, why would anyone do that to me?

I've been reminded of this thread by what happened this weekend, when I was re-tensioning an electric fence. Despite me being in full view, Lana decided to turn it on (maybe it was deliberate?) and I got zapped!

Another story involving pain now:

Whilst on holiday in France one year, we were at a bar that had stairs (and a slide!) down to the toilets. A couple of my mates beat me to it by trying out the slide, one even going down face first so naturally I had to outdo them. I decided it would be amusing to go down backwards, but in the sitting position. Unfortunately, during the steepest section of the slide I toppled over backwards, and ended up impacting the floor with my legs above me. Fortunately it was caught on video (a wise thing to have around when I've had a few drinks) and there seemed to be no lasting damage.

Crack goes my neck

[Father Ted]

Awww, there were cushions at the bottom.

[Philhod]

But Phil, why would anyone do that to me?

Bollocks!! Don't tell me you haven't seen the list

[docchevron132]

I think you should name this book "death becomes him"...

[Philhod]

I think "Death avoids him.....just" would be more apt!!!

[Way2go]

I get now why he calls himself Mat_the_cat as he too has 9 (or more) lives!

[Philhod]

he too has 9 (or more) lives!

Not anymore!