Gus Mears

Looks like Richard's plan to run a show is really...

On the ropes.

I am fortunate to have bought a place a couple of years ago thanks to my lifelong bachelor great uncle and my dad popping their clogs within a fortnight of one another and me inheriting enough for a deposit (that something like that can be deemed 'fortunate' in any capacity is insane). Still getting whiplash from cunt former landlords even in the land of milk, honey and equity.

I'm getting hounded by a debt collection agency for a £33 gas bill for a property I haven't lived in for 3 years for a period after I had moved. The letting agency have deleted the end of tenancy emails and the landlord is basically refusing to send me any correspondence proving that I had moved out for the period in question over 33 fucking quid. This bloke owns about 10 properties so must be well hard up and I know this is his standard way of doing things because he joked about a similar circumstance when I moved into the place and he was refusing to settle up a bill in a period when it was his responsibility then. Isn't his details being referred to credit reference agencies is it? The utter cunt.

1 minute ago, Frankie Crisp said:

1. I’ve been in this flat for two days and have already blocked the toilet twice

Feel for you here. Few things more heartbreaking than getting new digs and realising you've been lumbered with a duff khazi. And it's not even like you can inquire when you're viewing. Maybe Partridge got it right.

Less petty crime and more accidental vandalism.

It was £1 knock-off Jagerbomb night at one of the student bars in Bath and full of social anxiety, I downed about ten in an hour, blacked out and woke up in a walled off and beautifully maintained garden with a broken ankle. I'd full on Jannety'd it, foot upside down, a complete shambles, and when I say 'walled off', I really mean it too. It must have been 12 foot on three sides and with a Georgian three-story house on the other. In enormous amounts of pain, I shuffled over to the house and knocked on the door hoping that the residents would forgive my stupidity and understand why I was in their private garden at midnight on a Monday. Maybe in their kindness they would even call me an ambulance considering I could hardly move. No reply. No lights, no signs of life. So, I phoned Adam, one of the people I went to the bar with, which proved resoundingly useless:

"Adam. I really need help. I've broken my ankle and am stuck in a garden."

"Was wondering where you'd got to. Shit. Sounds serious. Where are you?"

"I don't know."

"How did you get there?"

"I don't know."

"Sound mate, catch you tomorrow."

The next half hour was spent in utterly feeble attempts to bash the back door down and yelling into the night that I needed help to - again - no response. Running out of ideas besides phoning the police to grass myself in, I noticed a rockery in the corner of the garden and spent the next hour hopping back and forth between it and the lowest point in the wall, carrying one rock at a time until the whole rockery had been moved. When that had been exhausted, then came benches, lawn chairs, a bird bath, anything I could add to the pile.

I was about 2AM when finally rolled my way onto the summit of the wall, the once magnificent garden below laid to waste. Just fucked, it was March and it had been raining, so between dragging everything and putting all my weight on one side, it looked like the Samoan rugby team had gone for a kickabout on it. I still feel guilty about it and try as I might, I never found that garden again. I hopped very slowly made it back to halls where my flat mate, who was 1000% times more useful than Adam had been, carried me to A&E down the road over his shoulder like a sack of shit.

I still feel exhausted from all this shite two years ago.

Good knock for a WW2 veteran.

Bollocks. We have them right where we want them again.

22 minutes ago, Keith Houchen said:

Captain Tom, Harambe, and Stuart Baggs are enjoying that spa with the angles now. 

Steady on. Kurt hasn't died yet.

Mandrake et Superman

Seront bien dépasser

Quant à monsieur Batman

Il pourra s'envoler

Wiltshire's favourite mad vicar is at it again (posted a story about him on the last page).

Quote

A VICAR who hit national headlines last year is in hot water again after his dog allegedly attacked another dog at his Wiltshire vicarage.

Frightened parishioners in the village of North Bradley have complained to the Diocese of Salisbury and Wiltshire Council about the pair of aggressive dogs kept by Father Oliver Learmont.

The local authority is also investigating several complaints about the vicar's Romanian rescue dogs, in particular a large crossbreed known locally as ‘Horrible Hector’.

They say the vicar of North Bradley, Southwick, Heywood and Steeple Ashton, is failing to keep his dogs under proper control and has been told to keep the larger dog muzzled and tethered.

It comes after part of Father Learmont's congregation failed in their attempt to oust him from his job in May 2023. 

Wiltshire Council says it is investigating an incident last Tuesday when ‘Horrible Hector’ allegedly attacked another dog being walked by an elderly woman.

Her dog, believed to be a pug, was rushed to Vets for Pets in Trowbridge before being transferred to a specialised veterinary practice for emergency surgery, according to the owner.

Duncan Goodchild, who said he lives opposite Father Learmont, said: “A few days ago one of his dogs attacked another dog which was being walked past his gate, dragging it underneath into his garden and pulling the elderly lady walking the dog off her feet.Quick actions of a passerby saved the dog’s life which needed surgery.

“As I understand it, a local dog warden has requested he keep the dog tied up in his garden and muzzled when walked in the village. This does not happen.

“For years the neighbours have put up with his aggressive barking dogs which can be heard every time someone walks past.

“I have spoken to the vicar about his aggressive dogs multiple times in the past and suggested they need training but for this attack to happen and no one take responsibility is outrageous and unacceptable, let alone a vicar who would supposedly be of high moral standing. 

And I still love this picture. He may as well be flipping the V's.

Ah, that's good to hear. My memories of him are entirely based on 15 year old episodes of Mock the Week in fairness.

I've got a free ticket for Andy Parsons later which I'm mainly using as an excuse to go to the pub before and after. I'm assuming he walks on stage and says something in the Andy Parsons voice and we all get home by 8PM.

It's three years today since my dad died. I think I miss him more than any point since. The last few years of his life, when the drink had ruined him what was left was a rough impression, made it hard to grieve at the time. What was there to grieve? His life was shit and he hated it. Rehab stints and hospital detoxes punctuated by relapses and operations to keep him from dying before his liver inevitably packed in (though he couldn't hold on another six months for my wedding, the arse). Three years on and I think less and less about the end. It feels like I've got him back in a weird sort of way, even the version of him in my mind's eye and when I dream about him is healthier, more like the man I want to remember. The man who I did have some wonderful times with.

He wasn't really built for this world and while had a lot of talent in certain ways (music not least) it makes me laugh reading stories of superhuman strength and even just general competence from other dad's. I can guarantee that had Scratch's story happened to him then he would have drowned and in Devon's he would have watched as I plummeted two floors to my doom.

My abiding memories are daft things happening to him, like when a buzzard flew through his sunroof on the A303 and he was trying to push it back out by the arse while avoiding talons,  his parked car getting written off by a milk float and another getting written off in the same spot by a dustbin lorry six months later. He always looked a bit like Eyeore after about 1996 and I can't really blame him. We went to hospital after a conker fell from a tree and broke his nose and he made the local news in Bristol when he nearly got killed by a deadly snake in a crate he was unpacking at work. He couldn't do anything practical and flooded the sandwich shop downstairs one Sunday after fucking up plumbing a washer. I miss him a lot.

This pipe outside my gym looks like a dangly dick.

My wife doesn't know about this forum because I've done the sensible thing and not told her about it. I also switch to something less embarrassing like hardcore porn if she happens to glance at the phone while I'm posting.

3 hours ago, Dr. Alan Grant said:

 

@LEGIT Now you’ve made me want to go back and finish Returnal. 

I will never stop banging the drum for that game. It's tremendous fun to play, but beyond that the plot is as deep as a great piece of literature. There's a dozen compelling interpretations of what is happening and I've never felt sympathy for a video game character like I have Selene (the voice actress did an outstanding job too).

Amazing win. Seen this movie before though (3 years ago). I struggle to see any of the matches going to a draw given how the pitches are likely to be from this point in. If we can somehow take the next though...

Hartley with the sort of second innings performance we've been dreaming of for a while. Of course Leach is injured. I am the biggest Jack Leach fan on earth but the lad is made from papier mache. If it's not Chron's then it's his leg. If it's not his leg then he's fallen over while going for a piss and cracked his skull open.

My enjoyment of this all time great victory was hampered a bit by the commentary, which was every bit as shite as I feared. Whatever Darren Gough and Alex Tudor have, gravitas it is not.

The Hyperion music from Returnal still elicits goosebumps every time I hear it. It sounds like Brian Eno wrote it and the fact the boss is playing it on some mad space organ makes it even better. The way it builds the further you go up the tower is magnificent.

And the actual battle 

"And that's why I screwed the screw out of your screw."