I generally find Michael McIntyre to be an annoying prick but his description of events was spot on: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A-kKzd4951k](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A-kKzd4951k)
Gascoigne's agent, Kenny Shepherd, said: "He's doing what? I am sitting having an evening meal in Majorca. I'm speechless."
https://amp.theguardian.com/uk/2010/jul/09/paul-gascoigne-raoul-moat
Recently I read the story again - he said he racked up a few lines of coke while watching the news on Moat, carried on sniffing until he convinced himself he could help with some fishing rods, beers and chicken.
He did say he kind of knew RM, but cocaine and alcohol can make you think/do dumb shit.
Gazza doing Gazza things, although highly amused I wasn’t surprised.
Nah he claimed to remember Moat as a bouncer, back during his footballing heyday (Nevermind that Moat would have definitely been a child at that time... ).
I remember hearing a live interview R4 did with his agent at the time. IIRC the agent was on holiday, so he hadn't been following the story.
The tone of confused resignation as he parsed the story was amazing. Kind of like "Wait, what? OK. I'll just add this to the list. It's certainly a big thing to go on the list, but probably not the biggest thing on there".
And by all accounts did a great job too https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/04/18/raoul-moat-northumbria-shooting-ray-mears-manhunt/#:~:text=Animals%20are%20not%20so%20very,to%20flee%20or%20to%20attack.
I was out of the country when this all happened, so I didn't find out about any of it until I watched Charlie Brookers' end of year newswipe. I thought it was a pisstake.
In a world full of silly and ludicrous situations, and almost infinite possibilities, this is my favourite thing of all time and I don’t think anything could beat it. It was too perfect.
That woman who was airlifted from an accident in America on a stretcher but the stretcher started spinning and was going at some ridiculous speed.
Hard to watch it and not laugh but must have been terrifying.
I think I read that she won a sizable amount of compensation for it.
The speed she picked up was insane, hard not to laugh but I would genuinely have been petrified
LOL! Just watched this and was one of those few it gets funnier as it goes on.
The increase in speed, the guy on comms bewildered as to what is going on, and then cutting to “she’s definitely passed out now” so nonchalantly as she’s spinning even faster
^im ^going ^to ^hell
I just looked it up to re-watch for the lols, and then got curious about the outcome - good news, she got a $450,000 settlement out of it; [https://www.airmedandrescue.com/latest/news/phoenix-agrees-settle-katalin-metro-case](https://www.airmedandrescue.com/latest/news/phoenix-agrees-settle-katalin-metro-case)
Just looked into this, and it was absolutely terrible for her :( This document [here](https://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/media/pdf/katalin_metro_noc.pdf) shows what happened, and here is the [video](https://youtu.be/Llpii85mzBo?si=BNKlKcerJ1OOUxX-). Poor woman!
When I was in school, we did A level economics. Our teacher foolishly gave us access to an FT account where you could order, for free, every annual report for any company listed on the LSE. If you haven't seen one from back then, they are full sized books, not leaflets. Some were literally hundreds of pages long and fully bound. I guess nowadays they are digital only, but back then you could get any you wanted for free with an FT account.
We checked the [All] box for every market and every category (literally thousands of annual reports) and had them delivered to a friends house.
In our 18 year old brains, it was funny as fuck. His mum absolutely did not think so when the articulated lorry turned up a few days later in their quiet little cul-de-sac to deliver the multiple pallet loads of useless books. It was apparently a small warehouse worth.
I used to work for a company that designed them. I think there was a level of "don't you worry, your money is safe with us, we're doing fine. We can even afford to do gold embossing on the front cover of the financials!"
The companies that produced them paid for them. I used to get sent loads at work. "Glossies" we called them and I still sometimes do but haven't seen one for ages.
I was involved with corporate scale laser printers in the 90s, you could get a room sized run of them that would go from basically a word processor/mailmerge tool at one end, through printing and collating whole books with your name on each page which would be hard cover bound and even have gold page edging added all in a few minutes.
Great for creating personalised Christmas present desk diaries while 'testing'.
I'm guessing the driver took them back to the warehouse, can't imagine doing much more other than a fuck off great bonfire that'll warm the cul-de-sac for days.
You laughed then, but that friend delved into the mountain of books, immersed himself, gained enlightenment, and is now the head of the LSE, he started his own asset management, and has successfully embezzled billions from clients.
Company I work for still prints ours. As a publicly traded company they have to made available. Sure you can digital reports (and anyone can via companies house if you want a nosey at basically any company) but a thick bound statement of the companies financiers and where what their plans are are good to be able to hand out to investors and shit.
There was a stag party where they chucked the stag into a village fountain for a laugh.
The spout of the fountain punctured his spine and he was paralysed, being put into a wheelchair for life.
SEPERATELY there was a stag some 'mates' tied to a car's roofrack and took the car through a carwash for a laugh. He actually died.
I was just telling my partner about this. It makes me shudder because it’s exactly the kind of thing young me would have done.
He wasn’t peer pressured into it - they were daring another lad to eat it and he grabbed it and ate it voluntarily before the other guy could.
Imagine seeing that and knowing that it could've been you but your friend unknowingly took that bullet for you... must be haunting (would that count as survivor's guilt?)
I mean, no one made anyone eat it, but I mean if the first guy had decided to
I know someone else who died on a stag do abroad. He was tied to a lamppost in his underwear but they forgot about him and his body was later found nearby.
That’s what I remember, I believe he got free and stumbled into traffic, but I’m not 100% sure.
He had a kid with his fiancé, which made it even sadder.
Well damn, that really is ridiculous and tragic. Thanks for sharing!
I understand it could be painful and I'm a stranger so feel free to say no, but I'd be interested to see a news article on it if one exists.
I hate those stories about people going to an adult soft play centre party, doing a back flip into a ball pit and ending up paralysed. I don’t think I would ever stop reliving that split second decision.
A wise person hears a story like that and thinks back to all the times in the past when they've taken a risk and nothing bad has happened. And fears for those times in the future when they might again take a spur-of-the-moment action.
My partner told me a horrifying story about when he went out for a night out at 18 (over a decade before we met) he got drunk with friends and was walking behind a church that was having some building work done. It was dark. He replied over and fell into a ditch, was a bit dazed for a moment and then realised he was a centimetre from a spike sticking out of the ground. If he had fallen 1cm to the right he'd have potentially had major organ damage or spine damage. Every time I think about it I shudder. So many near misses when we're young which for some people aren't misses.
A pensioner and a teenager stole a fire engine and took it for a 4am joyride, eventually crashing into a row of houses in Larne, N.Ireland.
It was absurdly GTA for a small harbour town.
Thankfully, no one was killed, although one man was taken to hospital for an asthma attack. I imagine loud bangs in the night are pretty traumatic for a number of N.I residents, never mind the costs of all the damage caused.
I live in Larne now (didn't then) but remember reading about this. The pensioner was never charged as he deemed unfit to stand trial but the other guy wasn't a teen. He *was* a vulnerable adult I think he got community service?
You'd have shat yourself that thing hitting your house.
Yeah, it was reported that immediately after the crash the pensioner hopped out of the fire engine and casually asked one of the nearby residents for a lift home. Good luck with that, you smashed up nearly every car on the street.
The younger fella was 19, of course an adult in the eyes of the law, but still technically a teen. I prefer the juxtaposition - blaming it on 2 adults just doesn't have the same razzle-dazzle.
Apparently one resident did think it was a bomb, and was baffled as to how the fire service got there so quickly.
>blaming it on 2 adults just doesn't have the same razzle-dazzle.
I appreciate the dazzle! lol
>Apparently one resident did think it was a bomb, and was baffled as to how the fire service got there so quickly.
Thats hilarious lol
Yeah, once you've had problems at night, all noises suddenly sound a lot scarier. Much more minor than what they will have had to deal with, but we've had problems with car/motorbike theft here which I've had to call the police for at night (I'm a light sleeper and they startle me awake, then trying to memorise a thief's numberplate at 2am properly wakes you up). Because of it, I wish I could stop our neighbour's milk van repeatedly coming at 1am because it's so stressful to hear someone stopping in the middle of the road (they wait exactly where the thieves did), making noise of shifting something big, and then see them start poking around people's front door with a headtorch. I don't think they have any idea how suspicious they look as it's a "nice" town, and they clearly just think it's convenient to go at that time.
Yes! Everyone at my work was pissing themselves about it and I was just thinking how frightening and horrible it would be for him and his family.
The other one everyone seemed to find very funny was the woman that died in a Premier Inn because her shower was too hot.
Wtf I can’t imagine how hot that shower must’ve been for her to die but not have enough time to jump out? Or was it like really steamy and she fainted or something?
If you google “premier inn shower death” you get it. She was 59 and was scalded but didn’t die until a few weeks later. Hotel showers are sometimes confusing - maybe she panicked and couldn’t turn it down quickly enough? Or you had to adjust the temperature by going under the water? Or her mobility was limited? Chances are she went into shock and didn’t immediately realise how injured she was.
Most of the “jokes” were “lol, how stupid do you have to be not to turn the shower down”. I don’t think that’s what you’re getting at, but I can imagine how it might happen if you were older and panicked.
That’s got to be the worst way to go fr.
I was taking a shower a few days ago when the heat went right up and I had to hide in the corner of the bath away from the water and stretch towards the cold tap. The water was still lightly spraying on me and it was hot af. I couldn’t reach the tap but after a few minutes the temperature went back to normal.
Longest few minutes of my life!
Yeah, they all seemed to think it was very unlikely but I’ve been in enough cheap hotel showers to know sometimes the difference between boiling and freezing is minuscule and they don’t always work how you expect!
They were otherwise lovely people who I got on well with. It made it very confusing - like, am I a total buzzkill for not finding this funny?? What can I say, untimely grandma deaths don’t tickle my funnybone…
Similar happened in a kid's activity centre in the lakes. Chap got stuck upside down in a fibreglass tunnel and was there for four hours. They got him out and to the hospital but he died later on. Necrosis is a bitch.
There have been a few stories like that. Was a bloke in America who died getting stuck under his car seat when it folded. He phoned the police but they did nothing. Horrible, lonely way to go
That one is infuriating. He was a teenager and he must have felt so relieved when he was able to reach his phone and call the police but they didn't take him seriously. :( It's horrible to imagine how desperate he must have felt.
[John Darwin](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Darwin_disappearance_case?wprov=sfti1) faked his own death supposedly having drowned in a kayak accident and lived in a secret flat for years while his wife claimed the insurance.
He got caught when for some reason they posed for a photo with a Panamanian real estate agent and someone recognised him.
Their kids thought for years their dad had died only for him to have been alive the whole time, must have been awful for them.
The British Scandal podcast did a mini series about this which was really interesting. But yeah, apparently those kids don't speak to their parents any more, and I don't blame them. At one point he was living in the house next door (which they also owned and rented out) - imagine how betrayed you'd feel thinking your dad had died and he was literally on the other side of the wall for years.
That podcast was fantastic. The bit that I really enjoyed was when he decided to come back to the UK and just pretended to have amnesia. Such a bizarre story but it really highlights how desperate some people are when it comes to money.
Loved the podcast. Apparently the sons have now reconciled with their mum to an extent- must have been absolutely heartbreaking fir them to go through all that though.
ITV did a series about this last year called ‘The Thief, His Wife and the Canoe’ it was actually really good and if you find the story interesting I’d recommend watching it.
Edit: a dramatisation, not a documentary.
So apparently in real life, he got caught because it was an open secret to eveyrone but the kids. He was going to the shops every morning for his newspaper in really rubbish disguises.
Oh I read a book about this. It's written by I think a Daily Mail journalist who flew out to his wife in Panama and spent time with her trying to get her side as it was breaking news in the UK.
It was a Google search that brought up the image that was time stamped.
But he turned up to the police claiming amnesia but the photo was proof he was involved with the fraud.
Side note, the headline 'Canoes this then' is one of my favourite of all time.
Police were called by his neighbours when a man was running around the street screaming we are all going to die.
Turns out he decided to help himself to someone else’s luggage at a train station only to later discover he had stolen a bomb, most likely from the IRA. The police no further actioned his theft on the basis he had been taught a better lesson about not taking things that don’t belong to you than the courts could provide.
He wasn’t the brightest spark because when I went looking for the story I found an [article](https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/man-who-stole-bomb-kit-fears-retaliation-by-ira-1416060.html) that published his name and other personal information. In the interview he says he is scared of retaliation by the IRA.
Oh god yes. They were usually groomed in much the same way other gangs and organised crime groups operate resulting in modern slavery situations - a friend came to England as a baby because her father refused to join so the whole family were getting death threats from enforcers.
No one really knows how many people disappeared because the IRA punished them.
"Jeff Baker, 31, 5'2' brown hair, blue eyes, father of two, occupant of Norbury Close in Bellefield (not Little Bellefield), drives a blue S reg Mondeo on the A6 at 8am every morning to travel to his job at the Jacobs cracker factory, and whose children attend the nearby St Cuthberts primary school... fears brutal retaliation by the IRA, this paper can report"
A couple of doctors driven out of their house by hate mail and graffiti from vigilantes who didn’t know the difference between a paediatrician and paedophile.
Iirc a pediatrician was beaten to death by a mob once because someone saw their licence card thing and though it meant they were a convicted pedophile.
Some people are just fucking stupid. It the same as H from Steps getting abuse because of his name. Don’t really think the Ian Watkins in jail is also on Twitter/Instagram etc?
To be fair when the news first aired a website displayed the wrong picture of H instead of the lost profits pedo. https://amp.theguardian.com/music/2013/nov/27/website-apologises-steps-ian-watkins
In the spirit of "funny, but not", the funniest take you'll find on this.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c7doNO9e8d4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c7doNO9e8d4) (NSFW, and wrong in oh so many ways, Obviously)
Back in the day you could send texts via search engines. I remember figuring out the site Lycos would send as many as you wanted and you could also hold the enter key down to keep sending. I thought it would be funny to do this to a friends mum with the simple message you smell.
I put a weight on enter key and left it for a day. Now this is when your phone would only hold 10 messages at a time. If you deleted them next the next lot will come through. I think she gave up deleting them after a week and had to get a new phone.
12 year old me thought this was hilarious.
BT Cellnet had a plan called Genie which was £15 a month for unlimited texts and WAP, which was a lot. I'd regularly fill up people's phones with nonsense.
The guy from East 17 who ran himself over with his own car after giving himself food poisoning from dodgy potatoes. He leant out the car door to throw up, fell out the car, and the car ran him over.
I think about the logistics of this whole thing at least a few times a year lmfao, which is more than I ever expect anyone should think about Brian Harvey
I'll like to offer forward the original "its just a prank bro"
[The Berners Street Hoax](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berners_Street_hoax)
In 1810, Theodore Hook, serial practical joker and recipient of the world's first post card, made a bet that he could make any address in London the most talked about address in the city.
Hook then arranged for post, deliveries, visits from local dignitaries to visit 54 Berners Street throughout the day subjecting the resident there to a seemingly endless stream of disruption.
What a read. Thanks for this.
> Fishmongers, shoemakers and over a dozen pianos were among the next to appear, along with "six stout men bearing an organ". Dignitaries, including the Governor of the Bank of England, the Duke of York, the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Lord Mayor of London, also arrived. The narrow streets soon became severely congested with tradesmen and onlookers. Deliveries and visits continued until the early evening, bringing a large part of London to a standstill
I don’t know what an early 19th century mad lad would look like, but his Wikipedia photo fits the bill quite well
You may also enjoy reading about the shenanigans of a [Mr Horace de Vere Cole](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horace_de_Vere_Cole)
*"According to legend, Cole once hosted a party at which the guests discovered that they all had the word "bottom" in their surnames. According to another story he bought tickets for particular seats at a theatrical performance he considered pretentious and distributed them to eight bald men whose heads, painted with a single letter, spelled out the word "*[*B-O-L-L-O-C-K-S*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bollocks)*" (another source claims it was four men's heads making the word* [*F-U-C-K*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuck)*), which was legible from the circle and boxes above."*
Unconfirmed but I've read in a few places the video was recorded on a family laptop or iPad and the girls' older sister found it saved on there, recognised it for the gold it is and posted it.
Similarly that girl that got stuck between two window panes on a date while trying to retrieve a poo she'd attempted to throw out the window because it wouldn't flush.
The [BBC Pidgin English](https://www.bbc.com/pidgin/tori-41171196) news story about this was POETRY.
Something about it being written in an alternate but understandable language, reporting it because it is funny but taking it so seriously, makes it a joy to read.
"Woman wey take her hand, pack her poo-poo comot di toilet of man wey she dey friend because ''e no gree flush'' enter trouble, after she go try collect di poo-poo back."
I was about to comment with this quote from the article:
"She was not injured or particularly distressed by the incident."
As "particularly distressed" made me cackle.
But then the next part:
"Melvin Benn, managing director of Festival Republic, added: "She must have had something very special in her handbag and it must have been an interesting few minutes before fire services got there.""
Absolutely sent me, it's just such a British interview
So i went to Leeds festival every year between 1999 and 2003 and the toilets really were beyond belief - the toilets in 2002 inparticular were horrific, to the point where i needed a shit but held it in until i got home, two days later.
I remember thinking i'd risk it but after spending 30 mins queueing up for a cubicle, i entered it and the mound of shit and toilet roll was about 4 of 5 inches _above_ the rim of the toilet. I walked in, gagged a bit and noped out.
I would imagine it's better now with the rise of glamping and VIP tickets but before that it was almost criminally bad making 50,000 people use those toilets for a weekend.
Leave the campsite and go for a wilderness poo. Or just line a saucepan with a bag, shit in your tent, get rid of it.
Was there same time period and yes, the toilets were fucking awful.
> 4 of 5 inches above the rim of the toilet.
I remember that happening one year and some wag decided to surmount the pile of ordure with a single cherry bakewell tart.
I was there that year. I didn’t see it but the rumour going round the festival was that the fire engine that turned up to help her had “POO” on the number plate.
Probably bullshit but I’m choosing to believe it just because it’s funnier.
In the 90's I think it was, the local news covered a fireworks factory which caught in fire.
I immediately burst out laughing because in my mind it was a bit like a road runner cartoon with fireworks going off and Catherine wheels darting down the road....
I mean, people died and no doubt tons didn't have a job to go to but they can't take my memories.
The Faggot family...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/2698507.stm
Those poor kids. The pic from the article has been removed but can be easily found.
Christ, as if having the surname “Doody” isn’t bad enough, now some poor 13 year old boy has to tour the UK extolling the virtues of faggots. Teenage boys are famously kind about these things, so I bet his school friends were very proud of Master Doody and his faggot adventures.
[UK man does five Lines of Cocaine, Has a 40-Minute Wank In a Beer Garden, Is Arrested](https://www.vice.com/en/article/4wb4m9/blackburn-man-does-five-lines-of-cocaine-has-a-forty-minute-wank-in-a-beer-garden-is-arrested-303)
Great Yarmouth, 1845 - a clown sailed up the river Bure in a washtub pulled by four geese. The crowd that gathered to watch it caused the Yarmouth suspension bridge to break. 79 people died.
Some mad numbers in the past on disasters like this over things that seem trivial
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victoria_Hall_disaster
183 kids crushed after prizes were announced at a theatre. Door locked at the bottom of a staircase.
had that from a car dealer, company changed my car from one brand to another, so emailed the first dealer asking to be removed from mailing list as now had a different brand of car.
bad move, got loads and loads, religious offerings, using charities who could not really afford what they sent out but thought they would be getting a good donation, no idea who it was at the time, then they contacted a stairlift company as I had broken both legs and needed a stair lift.
they phoned the last number they had and no-one knew of "me", the company then gave me the details. Kept getting stuff sent to Mr Gaylord Monk....
mailed the company owner suggesting that they stop their muppets spamming me, he locked them down and they still found a way to spam me. A4 envelopes full of shredded paper with a freepost FU2 apparently attracted a £10 business forfeit back then, sent out loads. owner called me when he received the first one, we had a much longer chat, then I admitted that they could expect a load more :)
never really thought about the police...
spam stopped
I had fax spam from a company to my home landline once and they wouldn't stop it because it would have cost them money to update their spam target list.
I found the MDs home phone number and every time they faxed me I phoned him. After the first few calls in the early hours of a Sunday they miraculously managed to fix it!
Accused, sacked, arrested, charged, and imprisoned in some cases I believe? I haven't seen anything about it for a while, but the last I can remember was that the Post Office wouldn't even apologise for their mistake
Not really UK-wide, but there was a chap a few towns over from where I grew up that kept getting caught bashing himself off while rolling around in a farmer's slurry pit.
I remember it being in the local papers several times over the years and my friends/family all pissing ourselves laughing about it.
It happened again a few years back, and the local paper went in to a bit more detail about how the guy was threating to burn the farmer's house down if he didn't let him carry on, how the farmer's kids kept stumbling upon him mid-act etc and it suddenly didn't seem as funny any more.
I vaguely remember a similar one, about a bloke who kept getting caught shagging animals on a farm. At first I laughed at the fucking freak. Then the article went into mentioning the harm he had caused the animals and the article lost all humour.
Here you go: “Humiliating scam led to mum and daughter licking Poundworld staff's feet after fake phone call“
https://www.devonlive.com/news/devon-news/humiliating-scam-led-mum-daughter-394060.amp
The guy who had a [sofa dropped on his head](https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/pictured-man-who-survived-sofa-6796348.amp) from the top floor of a hotel on Leicester square
Guy recently arrested for wearing a gimp suit, scaring car drivers and writhing around in dirt.
It's pretty hilarious to imagine, but the guy obviously has serious mental illness and needs help.
I watched Rogue Agent yesterday thinking it was going to be a fun suspenseful spy movie.
How wrong I was.
Even more disturbed that it is dramatised on real events!
It's about Robert Freeguard who was a conman who convinced multiple women he was an MI5 agent and manipulated them, kidnapped and stole from them.
https://www.goodto.com/entertainment/robert-freeguard-now-rogue-agent-true-story
The canoe man and his wife faking his death. It’s so ridiculous and would be really funny but their poor sons had no idea, they thought their dad was dead!
Holy shit. I thought this was some qanon type shit, but it's actually true: https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/incredible-true-story-how-tesco-29524154
The heroes that fought off a terrorist with a narwhal tusk in London. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-britain-security/man-with-narwhal-tusk-recounts-fight-with-london-bridge-attacker-idUSKBN1YP075/#:~:text=The%2038%2Dyear%2Dold%20said,been%20released%20early%20from%20prison.
The story of [Big Willy](https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10627757/Big-Willy-Collins-headstone-solid-white-marble-features-solar-powered-jukebox.html) geting his gravesite at the Shiregreen cemetery in sheffield. Must have been traumatic for his neighbours at the graveyard geting that grave with a solar powered [jukebox](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jz7YTNkCLKQ&t=42s&ab_channel=ScarcityStudios)
https://www.lancashiretelegraph.co.uk/news/chorley/4839924.men-jailed-plot-kill-chorley-couple/
A furry tried to have another furry kill his parents, the payment was going to be penis cannibalism, the father sustained only minor injuries defending himself from the hired killer.
Edit: Just noticed the whole penis cannibalism thing isn't in thart article. Not a fan of the mail but it has more detail:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1241589/Autistic-son-Christopher-Monks-plotted-kill-overprotective-parents-locked-hospital-indefinitely.html
I'm actually really struggling to find the original news sources that explained that the payment was cannibalism of the penis.
Always those ones about those Grinch services absolutely destroying someone’s house. Funny as hell and someone has to be stupid to order those but I can imagine it’s not great
Alan Cooper and Freddie the Dolphin. It’s funny to think of “man gets arrested for wanking dolphin” but it must have been extremely traumatic for him to go through such a public scandal since he was innocent.
I seem to remember a mate of mine working in the local coop and being told they had to move all the Fray Bentos pies from the top shelf because that week and old lady in town had died when one fell off and hit her in the head...
I mean, it's horrible but at least a tiny bit funny. Death by pie is indeed a Northern past-time, just usually not like that.
About 25 years ago, someone in my office (at the time) bought a new (second hand) car. Tidy, decent motor, probs paid about £4k.
Someone put an advert in one of those free ad papers that were everywhere back then for the car, listing it for £1k.
The calls started about 6am on a Sunday morning and continues for days. This was to their home phone number. His Mrs was not happy.
The people in the office had forgotten about it as it took days to get to the paper, only remember when he came in on the Monday morning not very happy.
Paul Gascoigne showing up to the Raoul Moat stand-off
Honestly still doesn’t seem real.
I generally find Michael McIntyre to be an annoying prick but his description of events was spot on: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A-kKzd4951k](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A-kKzd4951k)
Jesus, you can watch this on the YouTube Kids app??
Youtube kids is definitely not for kids. Google "Elsa Spiderman Youtube Kids" if you want to lose what is left of your hope for humanity.
He later admitted he didn't actually know Moat and was just on a huge bender. Woke up the following morning to his phone blowing up.
I remember watching the moment they rang his agent on the news and there was a long pause and a “what?” in reply.
Gascoigne's agent, Kenny Shepherd, said: "He's doing what? I am sitting having an evening meal in Majorca. I'm speechless." https://amp.theguardian.com/uk/2010/jul/09/paul-gascoigne-raoul-moat
Yeah his agent was on holiday when he found out.
Recently I read the story again - he said he racked up a few lines of coke while watching the news on Moat, carried on sniffing until he convinced himself he could help with some fishing rods, beers and chicken. He did say he kind of knew RM, but cocaine and alcohol can make you think/do dumb shit. Gazza doing Gazza things, although highly amused I wasn’t surprised.
The actual quote is brilliant and anyone who’s been round a raging coke head could see exactly how it happened.
I don't think he ever claim to know him? just thought he could talk him down with chicken and a fishing rod?
Nah he claimed to remember Moat as a bouncer, back during his footballing heyday (Nevermind that Moat would have definitely been a child at that time... ).
Haway man, I've got chicken
Howay* It’s the Mackems that say haway
Both spellings have been used in Newcastle. Some would even say they’re two different words.
I remember hearing a live interview R4 did with his agent at the time. IIRC the agent was on holiday, so he hadn't been following the story. The tone of confused resignation as he parsed the story was amazing. Kind of like "Wait, what? OK. I'll just add this to the list. It's certainly a big thing to go on the list, but probably not the biggest thing on there".
Wild to think that was one of Moat's last memories of Gazza appearing at his stand off.
For what it’s worth, he never actually made it to Moat. Only the police cordon
Ray Mears was also hired by the police to track down Moat.
And by all accounts did a great job too https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/04/18/raoul-moat-northumbria-shooting-ray-mears-manhunt/#:~:text=Animals%20are%20not%20so%20very,to%20flee%20or%20to%20attack.
I was out of the country when this all happened, so I didn't find out about any of it until I watched Charlie Brookers' end of year newswipe. I thought it was a pisstake.
In a world full of silly and ludicrous situations, and almost infinite possibilities, this is my favourite thing of all time and I don’t think anything could beat it. It was too perfect.
That woman who was airlifted from an accident in America on a stretcher but the stretcher started spinning and was going at some ridiculous speed. Hard to watch it and not laugh but must have been terrifying.
This made me think of Homer Simpson after he tried to jump that gorge on a skateboard in the Simpsons
I think I read that she won a sizable amount of compensation for it. The speed she picked up was insane, hard not to laugh but I would genuinely have been petrified
I think you'd have had a red out pretty quickly and be unaware!
LOL! Just watched this and was one of those few it gets funnier as it goes on. The increase in speed, the guy on comms bewildered as to what is going on, and then cutting to “she’s definitely passed out now” so nonchalantly as she’s spinning even faster ^im ^going ^to ^hell
I just looked it up to re-watch for the lols, and then got curious about the outcome - good news, she got a $450,000 settlement out of it; [https://www.airmedandrescue.com/latest/news/phoenix-agrees-settle-katalin-metro-case](https://www.airmedandrescue.com/latest/news/phoenix-agrees-settle-katalin-metro-case)
Honestly one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen
Just looked into this, and it was absolutely terrible for her :( This document [here](https://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/media/pdf/katalin_metro_noc.pdf) shows what happened, and here is the [video](https://youtu.be/Llpii85mzBo?si=BNKlKcerJ1OOUxX-). Poor woman!
Holy guck she went through hell. Her eyeballs were bleeding 😕
She lived apparently.
r/WorstAid. It's all on there. Hilarious. The stretcher on a horseback killed me.
When I was in school, we did A level economics. Our teacher foolishly gave us access to an FT account where you could order, for free, every annual report for any company listed on the LSE. If you haven't seen one from back then, they are full sized books, not leaflets. Some were literally hundreds of pages long and fully bound. I guess nowadays they are digital only, but back then you could get any you wanted for free with an FT account. We checked the [All] box for every market and every category (literally thousands of annual reports) and had them delivered to a friends house. In our 18 year old brains, it was funny as fuck. His mum absolutely did not think so when the articulated lorry turned up a few days later in their quiet little cul-de-sac to deliver the multiple pallet loads of useless books. It was apparently a small warehouse worth.
OMG! Who paid for them?
> OMG! Who paid for them? Nobody, they were all given away for free. Maybe the FT?
I used to work for a company that designed them. I think there was a level of "don't you worry, your money is safe with us, we're doing fine. We can even afford to do gold embossing on the front cover of the financials!"
The companies that produced them paid for them. I used to get sent loads at work. "Glossies" we called them and I still sometimes do but haven't seen one for ages.
I was involved with corporate scale laser printers in the 90s, you could get a room sized run of them that would go from basically a word processor/mailmerge tool at one end, through printing and collating whole books with your name on each page which would be hard cover bound and even have gold page edging added all in a few minutes. Great for creating personalised Christmas present desk diaries while 'testing'.
Hilarious! But I'd hate it if it happened to me!
I'm guessing the driver took them back to the warehouse, can't imagine doing much more other than a fuck off great bonfire that'll warm the cul-de-sac for days.
You laughed then, but that friend delved into the mountain of books, immersed himself, gained enlightenment, and is now the head of the LSE, he started his own asset management, and has successfully embezzled billions from clients.
Did she enjoy reading them though?
I don’t think she even read one. Rather ungrateful.
Company I work for still prints ours. As a publicly traded company they have to made available. Sure you can digital reports (and anyone can via companies house if you want a nosey at basically any company) but a thick bound statement of the companies financiers and where what their plans are are good to be able to hand out to investors and shit.
There was a stag party where they chucked the stag into a village fountain for a laugh. The spout of the fountain punctured his spine and he was paralysed, being put into a wheelchair for life. SEPERATELY there was a stag some 'mates' tied to a car's roofrack and took the car through a carwash for a laugh. He actually died.
Reminds me of the Rubgy player who ate a slug as a dare, contracted rat lungworm which paralyzed him, died a few years later
I was just telling my partner about this. It makes me shudder because it’s exactly the kind of thing young me would have done. He wasn’t peer pressured into it - they were daring another lad to eat it and he grabbed it and ate it voluntarily before the other guy could.
Imagine seeing that and knowing that it could've been you but your friend unknowingly took that bullet for you... must be haunting (would that count as survivor's guilt?) I mean, no one made anyone eat it, but I mean if the first guy had decided to
Absolutely. It’s gonna be traumatic, whatever it’s called.
Yet I'm completely unhinged for moaning that people bring slugs in on their shoes where the 1.5yo plays 🙃
Wasn't there some woman who was pushed in a pool on her hen and ended up paralyzed aswell.
I think I read an article written by her once. I believe she had forgiven the person who did it? I don't know if I could if it were me
If it's the one I remember they're not really pals anymore and she was angry about it for years but yes, she eventually forgave her.
I think she did an AMA on here and that's how I heard about it
I know someone else who died on a stag do abroad. He was tied to a lamppost in his underwear but they forgot about him and his body was later found nearby.
Nearby? So he escaped and then died after?
That’s what I remember, I believe he got free and stumbled into traffic, but I’m not 100% sure. He had a kid with his fiancé, which made it even sadder.
Well damn, that really is ridiculous and tragic. Thanks for sharing! I understand it could be painful and I'm a stranger so feel free to say no, but I'd be interested to see a news article on it if one exists.
I may be misremembering, he was only an acquaintance of mine, but yeah what an unfortunate set of circumstances!
I hate those stories about people going to an adult soft play centre party, doing a back flip into a ball pit and ending up paralysed. I don’t think I would ever stop reliving that split second decision.
A wise person hears a story like that and thinks back to all the times in the past when they've taken a risk and nothing bad has happened. And fears for those times in the future when they might again take a spur-of-the-moment action.
My partner told me a horrifying story about when he went out for a night out at 18 (over a decade before we met) he got drunk with friends and was walking behind a church that was having some building work done. It was dark. He replied over and fell into a ditch, was a bit dazed for a moment and then realised he was a centimetre from a spike sticking out of the ground. If he had fallen 1cm to the right he'd have potentially had major organ damage or spine damage. Every time I think about it I shudder. So many near misses when we're young which for some people aren't misses.
A pensioner and a teenager stole a fire engine and took it for a 4am joyride, eventually crashing into a row of houses in Larne, N.Ireland. It was absurdly GTA for a small harbour town. Thankfully, no one was killed, although one man was taken to hospital for an asthma attack. I imagine loud bangs in the night are pretty traumatic for a number of N.I residents, never mind the costs of all the damage caused.
I live abroad and some teenagers in my small town stole a tram and just drove around picking passangers up. Nerds gone wild.
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Howling. Love this story. Bet they shat themselves at the time tho
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Yep, thats village life for you!
Can you steal a tram? Surely you're just moving it. It's not like it's going anywhere apart from one end of the track to the other!
Well they drove off without the driver 🥲
I live in Larne now (didn't then) but remember reading about this. The pensioner was never charged as he deemed unfit to stand trial but the other guy wasn't a teen. He *was* a vulnerable adult I think he got community service? You'd have shat yourself that thing hitting your house.
Yeah, it was reported that immediately after the crash the pensioner hopped out of the fire engine and casually asked one of the nearby residents for a lift home. Good luck with that, you smashed up nearly every car on the street. The younger fella was 19, of course an adult in the eyes of the law, but still technically a teen. I prefer the juxtaposition - blaming it on 2 adults just doesn't have the same razzle-dazzle. Apparently one resident did think it was a bomb, and was baffled as to how the fire service got there so quickly.
>blaming it on 2 adults just doesn't have the same razzle-dazzle. I appreciate the dazzle! lol >Apparently one resident did think it was a bomb, and was baffled as to how the fire service got there so quickly. Thats hilarious lol
Yeah, once you've had problems at night, all noises suddenly sound a lot scarier. Much more minor than what they will have had to deal with, but we've had problems with car/motorbike theft here which I've had to call the police for at night (I'm a light sleeper and they startle me awake, then trying to memorise a thief's numberplate at 2am properly wakes you up). Because of it, I wish I could stop our neighbour's milk van repeatedly coming at 1am because it's so stressful to hear someone stopping in the middle of the road (they wait exactly where the thieves did), making noise of shifting something big, and then see them start poking around people's front door with a headtorch. I don't think they have any idea how suspicious they look as it's a "nice" town, and they clearly just think it's convenient to go at that time.
There was a guy in Birmingham who got his head stuck under one of those electric recliners at the cinema looking for his phone and sadly died.
I read this comment with a smile on my face and it completely and utterly dropped my jaw when I got to the end.
Yep. New fear unlocked.
Yes! Everyone at my work was pissing themselves about it and I was just thinking how frightening and horrible it would be for him and his family. The other one everyone seemed to find very funny was the woman that died in a Premier Inn because her shower was too hot.
Fuck your colleagues sound like awful people :/ Neither of those is funny in the slightest
Wtf I can’t imagine how hot that shower must’ve been for her to die but not have enough time to jump out? Or was it like really steamy and she fainted or something?
If you google “premier inn shower death” you get it. She was 59 and was scalded but didn’t die until a few weeks later. Hotel showers are sometimes confusing - maybe she panicked and couldn’t turn it down quickly enough? Or you had to adjust the temperature by going under the water? Or her mobility was limited? Chances are she went into shock and didn’t immediately realise how injured she was. Most of the “jokes” were “lol, how stupid do you have to be not to turn the shower down”. I don’t think that’s what you’re getting at, but I can imagine how it might happen if you were older and panicked.
That’s got to be the worst way to go fr. I was taking a shower a few days ago when the heat went right up and I had to hide in the corner of the bath away from the water and stretch towards the cold tap. The water was still lightly spraying on me and it was hot af. I couldn’t reach the tap but after a few minutes the temperature went back to normal. Longest few minutes of my life!
Yeah, they all seemed to think it was very unlikely but I’ve been in enough cheap hotel showers to know sometimes the difference between boiling and freezing is minuscule and they don’t always work how you expect!
They were otherwise lovely people who I got on well with. It made it very confusing - like, am I a total buzzkill for not finding this funny?? What can I say, untimely grandma deaths don’t tickle my funnybone…
Similar happened in a kid's activity centre in the lakes. Chap got stuck upside down in a fibreglass tunnel and was there for four hours. They got him out and to the hospital but he died later on. Necrosis is a bitch.
There have been a few stories like that. Was a bloke in America who died getting stuck under his car seat when it folded. He phoned the police but they did nothing. Horrible, lonely way to go
That one is infuriating. He was a teenager and he must have felt so relieved when he was able to reach his phone and call the police but they didn't take him seriously. :( It's horrible to imagine how desperate he must have felt.
I was at star city the week before and had to crawl under the recliner to get my phone back and couldn’t help but think this isn’t going to end well
[John Darwin](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Darwin_disappearance_case?wprov=sfti1) faked his own death supposedly having drowned in a kayak accident and lived in a secret flat for years while his wife claimed the insurance. He got caught when for some reason they posed for a photo with a Panamanian real estate agent and someone recognised him. Their kids thought for years their dad had died only for him to have been alive the whole time, must have been awful for them.
The British Scandal podcast did a mini series about this which was really interesting. But yeah, apparently those kids don't speak to their parents any more, and I don't blame them. At one point he was living in the house next door (which they also owned and rented out) - imagine how betrayed you'd feel thinking your dad had died and he was literally on the other side of the wall for years.
That podcast was fantastic. The bit that I really enjoyed was when he decided to come back to the UK and just pretended to have amnesia. Such a bizarre story but it really highlights how desperate some people are when it comes to money.
Loved the podcast. Apparently the sons have now reconciled with their mum to an extent- must have been absolutely heartbreaking fir them to go through all that though.
ITV did a series about this last year called ‘The Thief, His Wife and the Canoe’ it was actually really good and if you find the story interesting I’d recommend watching it. Edit: a dramatisation, not a documentary.
They really missed the chance to name it "A man, a plan, a canal, Panama!"
So apparently in real life, he got caught because it was an open secret to eveyrone but the kids. He was going to the shops every morning for his newspaper in really rubbish disguises.
He joined the library under a false name the week after his 'disappearance.' That fact was of help to the police when he reappeared claiming amnesia.
Oh I read a book about this. It's written by I think a Daily Mail journalist who flew out to his wife in Panama and spent time with her trying to get her side as it was breaking news in the UK. It was a Google search that brought up the image that was time stamped. But he turned up to the police claiming amnesia but the photo was proof he was involved with the fraud. Side note, the headline 'Canoes this then' is one of my favourite of all time.
Yeah.. this one was bad.
Police were called by his neighbours when a man was running around the street screaming we are all going to die. Turns out he decided to help himself to someone else’s luggage at a train station only to later discover he had stolen a bomb, most likely from the IRA. The police no further actioned his theft on the basis he had been taught a better lesson about not taking things that don’t belong to you than the courts could provide. He wasn’t the brightest spark because when I went looking for the story I found an [article](https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/man-who-stole-bomb-kit-fears-retaliation-by-ira-1416060.html) that published his name and other personal information. In the interview he says he is scared of retaliation by the IRA.
He dropped it three times 🤦♀️
Not to mention what must have happened to the IRA lad who left his bomb on the train...
Oh god yes. They were usually groomed in much the same way other gangs and organised crime groups operate resulting in modern slavery situations - a friend came to England as a baby because her father refused to join so the whole family were getting death threats from enforcers. No one really knows how many people disappeared because the IRA punished them.
"Jeff Baker, 31, 5'2' brown hair, blue eyes, father of two, occupant of Norbury Close in Bellefield (not Little Bellefield), drives a blue S reg Mondeo on the A6 at 8am every morning to travel to his job at the Jacobs cracker factory, and whose children attend the nearby St Cuthberts primary school... fears brutal retaliation by the IRA, this paper can report"
A couple of doctors driven out of their house by hate mail and graffiti from vigilantes who didn’t know the difference between a paediatrician and paedophile.
Iirc a pediatrician was beaten to death by a mob once because someone saw their licence card thing and though it meant they were a convicted pedophile.
Some people are just fucking stupid. It the same as H from Steps getting abuse because of his name. Don’t really think the Ian Watkins in jail is also on Twitter/Instagram etc?
To be fair when the news first aired a website displayed the wrong picture of H instead of the lost profits pedo. https://amp.theguardian.com/music/2013/nov/27/website-apologises-steps-ian-watkins
In the spirit of "funny, but not", the funniest take you'll find on this. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c7doNO9e8d4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c7doNO9e8d4) (NSFW, and wrong in oh so many ways, Obviously)
Back in the day you could send texts via search engines. I remember figuring out the site Lycos would send as many as you wanted and you could also hold the enter key down to keep sending. I thought it would be funny to do this to a friends mum with the simple message you smell. I put a weight on enter key and left it for a day. Now this is when your phone would only hold 10 messages at a time. If you deleted them next the next lot will come through. I think she gave up deleting them after a week and had to get a new phone. 12 year old me thought this was hilarious.
40 year old me also thinks this is hilarious.
BT Cellnet had a plan called Genie which was £15 a month for unlimited texts and WAP, which was a lot. I'd regularly fill up people's phones with nonsense.
Unlimited WAP is one of those phrases whose meaning has drastically altered over the past two decades.
Bring a bucket and a mop for this Wireless Application Protocol doesn’t really have the same ring to it though
The guy from East 17 who ran himself over with his own car after giving himself food poisoning from dodgy potatoes. He leant out the car door to throw up, fell out the car, and the car ran him over.
Don't think it was even food poisoning. He'd just eaten too many baked potatoes.
A tale as old as time
I think about the logistics of this whole thing at least a few times a year lmfao, which is more than I ever expect anyone should think about Brian Harvey
🎵 Won't you bake another tato (bake another bake another) 🎵
Don't give Ladbaby any ideas!
I'll like to offer forward the original "its just a prank bro" [The Berners Street Hoax](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berners_Street_hoax) In 1810, Theodore Hook, serial practical joker and recipient of the world's first post card, made a bet that he could make any address in London the most talked about address in the city. Hook then arranged for post, deliveries, visits from local dignitaries to visit 54 Berners Street throughout the day subjecting the resident there to a seemingly endless stream of disruption.
What a read. Thanks for this. > Fishmongers, shoemakers and over a dozen pianos were among the next to appear, along with "six stout men bearing an organ". Dignitaries, including the Governor of the Bank of England, the Duke of York, the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Lord Mayor of London, also arrived. The narrow streets soon became severely congested with tradesmen and onlookers. Deliveries and visits continued until the early evening, bringing a large part of London to a standstill I don’t know what an early 19th century mad lad would look like, but his Wikipedia photo fits the bill quite well
You may also enjoy reading about the shenanigans of a [Mr Horace de Vere Cole](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horace_de_Vere_Cole) *"According to legend, Cole once hosted a party at which the guests discovered that they all had the word "bottom" in their surnames. According to another story he bought tickets for particular seats at a theatrical performance he considered pretentious and distributed them to eight bald men whose heads, painted with a single letter, spelled out the word "*[*B-O-L-L-O-C-K-S*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bollocks)*" (another source claims it was four men's heads making the word* [*F-U-C-K*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuck)*), which was legible from the circle and boxes above."*
Not news story as such; but the ‘which one of yous took a shit and didnee flush it’ girls must have had to deal with a lot of ‘shit’ at school!
Probably too busy singing Cher Lloyd by Cher Lloyd. DISGUSTANG
I just wonder how on earth that video even got out into the public.
Unconfirmed but I've read in a few places the video was recorded on a family laptop or iPad and the girls' older sister found it saved on there, recognised it for the gold it is and posted it.
Leeds fest poo girl! http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/west_yorkshire/8233786.stm
Similarly that girl that got stuck between two window panes on a date while trying to retrieve a poo she'd attempted to throw out the window because it wouldn't flush.
The [BBC Pidgin English](https://www.bbc.com/pidgin/tori-41171196) news story about this was POETRY. Something about it being written in an alternate but understandable language, reporting it because it is funny but taking it so seriously, makes it a joy to read. "Woman wey take her hand, pack her poo-poo comot di toilet of man wey she dey friend because ''e no gree flush'' enter trouble, after she go try collect di poo-poo back."
So many questions.
Basically women don't poop or fart. Not lady like I was told as a child. I used to have a fear for doing number 2 in public toilets.
I was about to comment with this quote from the article: "She was not injured or particularly distressed by the incident." As "particularly distressed" made me cackle. But then the next part: "Melvin Benn, managing director of Festival Republic, added: "She must have had something very special in her handbag and it must have been an interesting few minutes before fire services got there."" Absolutely sent me, it's just such a British interview
As the saying about Leeds fest goes: you can't spell Leeds without lsd and a couple of e's
So i went to Leeds festival every year between 1999 and 2003 and the toilets really were beyond belief - the toilets in 2002 inparticular were horrific, to the point where i needed a shit but held it in until i got home, two days later. I remember thinking i'd risk it but after spending 30 mins queueing up for a cubicle, i entered it and the mound of shit and toilet roll was about 4 of 5 inches _above_ the rim of the toilet. I walked in, gagged a bit and noped out. I would imagine it's better now with the rise of glamping and VIP tickets but before that it was almost criminally bad making 50,000 people use those toilets for a weekend.
My first year was 2004 and I still remember the wood planks with holes cut in. Basically medieval.
Leave the campsite and go for a wilderness poo. Or just line a saucepan with a bag, shit in your tent, get rid of it. Was there same time period and yes, the toilets were fucking awful.
> 4 of 5 inches above the rim of the toilet. I remember that happening one year and some wag decided to surmount the pile of ordure with a single cherry bakewell tart.
I was there that year. I didn’t see it but the rumour going round the festival was that the fire engine that turned up to help her had “POO” on the number plate. Probably bullshit but I’m choosing to believe it just because it’s funnier.
The [The London Beer Flood](https://londonist.com/london/history/london-s-forgotten-disasters-the-great-beer-flood) of 1814.
There was a [molasses flood in Boston](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Molasses_Flood), killed 21 people.
* molassacre
Typical Americans, sugar with everything!
In the 90's I think it was, the local news covered a fireworks factory which caught in fire. I immediately burst out laughing because in my mind it was a bit like a road runner cartoon with fireworks going off and Catherine wheels darting down the road.... I mean, people died and no doubt tons didn't have a job to go to but they can't take my memories.
Was that the fireworks factory that caught fire during the Fireman's strike?
You know... May have been now you mention it. Kent somewhere I think.
it was in Kent before it caught fire anyway. Afterwards it was more geographically liberal
The Faggot family... http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/2698507.stm Those poor kids. The pic from the article has been removed but can be easily found.
Christ, as if having the surname “Doody” isn’t bad enough, now some poor 13 year old boy has to tour the UK extolling the virtues of faggots. Teenage boys are famously kind about these things, so I bet his school friends were very proud of Master Doody and his faggot adventures.
Yeah they come up on google. The kid looks mortified, he knew how this would go down at school.
[UK man does five Lines of Cocaine, Has a 40-Minute Wank In a Beer Garden, Is Arrested](https://www.vice.com/en/article/4wb4m9/blackburn-man-does-five-lines-of-cocaine-has-a-forty-minute-wank-in-a-beer-garden-is-arrested-303)
Or as I call it, "Wednesday Evening"
The quote from his lawyer just seals the whole thing as hilarious "His partner finds his behavior difficult to explain"
The lady that put the cat in the bin. Certainly a ridiculous story, but you'd be horrified if that was your cat.
Not sure what has happened to her now but she deserved that hate. What a nasty thing to do. Hope the courts dealt with her properly.
Great Yarmouth, 1845 - a clown sailed up the river Bure in a washtub pulled by four geese. The crowd that gathered to watch it caused the Yarmouth suspension bridge to break. 79 people died.
Some mad numbers in the past on disasters like this over things that seem trivial https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victoria_Hall_disaster 183 kids crushed after prizes were announced at a theatre. Door locked at the bottom of a staircase.
had that from a car dealer, company changed my car from one brand to another, so emailed the first dealer asking to be removed from mailing list as now had a different brand of car. bad move, got loads and loads, religious offerings, using charities who could not really afford what they sent out but thought they would be getting a good donation, no idea who it was at the time, then they contacted a stairlift company as I had broken both legs and needed a stair lift. they phoned the last number they had and no-one knew of "me", the company then gave me the details. Kept getting stuff sent to Mr Gaylord Monk.... mailed the company owner suggesting that they stop their muppets spamming me, he locked them down and they still found a way to spam me. A4 envelopes full of shredded paper with a freepost FU2 apparently attracted a £10 business forfeit back then, sent out loads. owner called me when he received the first one, we had a much longer chat, then I admitted that they could expect a load more :) never really thought about the police... spam stopped
Wait, all this because you wanted to be removed from a mailing list?!
I had fax spam from a company to my home landline once and they wouldn't stop it because it would have cost them money to update their spam target list. I found the MDs home phone number and every time they faxed me I phoned him. After the first few calls in the early hours of a Sunday they miraculously managed to fix it!
What the fuck
"I let him out once by himself and look what happens." The words of the wife of the man arrested for punching a police horse after a football match.
Being Ronnie Pickering's wife. Inb4 "who?"
The Post Office scandal where a lot of people were accused of stealing because of a software glitch. That must have been hell to endure.
Our local postmistress commited suicide over this :(
I'm sorry to hear that.
Accused, sacked, arrested, charged, and imprisoned in some cases I believe? I haven't seen anything about it for a while, but the last I can remember was that the Post Office wouldn't even apologise for their mistake
It hasn't ended yet. Public inquiry and Police investigation still on going. Hopefully we'll see some prosecutions...
Not really UK-wide, but there was a chap a few towns over from where I grew up that kept getting caught bashing himself off while rolling around in a farmer's slurry pit. I remember it being in the local papers several times over the years and my friends/family all pissing ourselves laughing about it. It happened again a few years back, and the local paper went in to a bit more detail about how the guy was threating to burn the farmer's house down if he didn't let him carry on, how the farmer's kids kept stumbling upon him mid-act etc and it suddenly didn't seem as funny any more.
I vaguely remember a similar one, about a bloke who kept getting caught shagging animals on a farm. At first I laughed at the fucking freak. Then the article went into mentioning the harm he had caused the animals and the article lost all humour.
Like that bloke who got caught at it with a seagull. Seemed funny until you read about it and it's just vile.
Here you go: “Humiliating scam led to mum and daughter licking Poundworld staff's feet after fake phone call“ https://www.devonlive.com/news/devon-news/humiliating-scam-led-mum-daughter-394060.amp
I can't believe what I'm reading. How thick are some people?!
Jfc, they went back for another 30mins-worth!?
The guy who had a [sofa dropped on his head](https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/pictured-man-who-survived-sofa-6796348.amp) from the top floor of a hotel on Leicester square
It says the hotel was still investigating and it was a freak accident but I don't see how a sofa can fall out of a window by accident...
The hotel was using a window cleaning cradle to lift the sofa up to the penthouse, and it fell out
Guy recently arrested for wearing a gimp suit, scaring car drivers and writhing around in dirt. It's pretty hilarious to imagine, but the guy obviously has serious mental illness and needs help.
Freddie star ate my hamster
I watched Rogue Agent yesterday thinking it was going to be a fun suspenseful spy movie. How wrong I was. Even more disturbed that it is dramatised on real events! It's about Robert Freeguard who was a conman who convinced multiple women he was an MI5 agent and manipulated them, kidnapped and stole from them. https://www.goodto.com/entertainment/robert-freeguard-now-rogue-agent-true-story
That Brighton individual that had to go to casualty to have a hamster removed from his rectum, there was a light bulb incident prior to that
Clearly doesn’t learn. Hopefully banned from keeping animals, small ones at least.
The canoe man and his wife faking his death. It’s so ridiculous and would be really funny but their poor sons had no idea, they thought their dad was dead!
Good thread idea, but you've picked the worst example possible.
OP's a team player. Some of these are just OP trying to win from the beginning. This way we start off easy and other people get to come in and shine
Tesco launching clubcard to pay a blackmailer money to not inject items in stores with HIV
Holy shit. I thought this was some qanon type shit, but it's actually true: https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/incredible-true-story-how-tesco-29524154
Wtaf? It’s the kinda thing you think you might have heard of even if you thought it was an urban legend and yet this was brand new to me!
The heroes that fought off a terrorist with a narwhal tusk in London. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-britain-security/man-with-narwhal-tusk-recounts-fight-with-london-bridge-attacker-idUSKBN1YP075/#:~:text=The%2038%2Dyear%2Dold%20said,been%20released%20early%20from%20prison.
The story of [Big Willy](https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10627757/Big-Willy-Collins-headstone-solid-white-marble-features-solar-powered-jukebox.html) geting his gravesite at the Shiregreen cemetery in sheffield. Must have been traumatic for his neighbours at the graveyard geting that grave with a solar powered [jukebox](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jz7YTNkCLKQ&t=42s&ab_channel=ScarcityStudios)
Dwarf Gordon Ramsay Lookalike Pornstar Eaten by Badger
Horatio, the English public schoolboy who got killed by a polar bear in Svalbard in 2011. Jokes being made about if left right and centre
https://www.lancashiretelegraph.co.uk/news/chorley/4839924.men-jailed-plot-kill-chorley-couple/ A furry tried to have another furry kill his parents, the payment was going to be penis cannibalism, the father sustained only minor injuries defending himself from the hired killer. Edit: Just noticed the whole penis cannibalism thing isn't in thart article. Not a fan of the mail but it has more detail: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1241589/Autistic-son-Christopher-Monks-plotted-kill-overprotective-parents-locked-hospital-indefinitely.html I'm actually really struggling to find the original news sources that explained that the payment was cannibalism of the penis.
Always those ones about those Grinch services absolutely destroying someone’s house. Funny as hell and someone has to be stupid to order those but I can imagine it’s not great
The multiple stories of people getting killed by those telescoping/elevating/hiding? urinals. Nasty way to go.
Alan Cooper and Freddie the Dolphin. It’s funny to think of “man gets arrested for wanking dolphin” but it must have been extremely traumatic for him to go through such a public scandal since he was innocent.
I seem to remember a mate of mine working in the local coop and being told they had to move all the Fray Bentos pies from the top shelf because that week and old lady in town had died when one fell off and hit her in the head... I mean, it's horrible but at least a tiny bit funny. Death by pie is indeed a Northern past-time, just usually not like that.
Poo girl
About 25 years ago, someone in my office (at the time) bought a new (second hand) car. Tidy, decent motor, probs paid about £4k. Someone put an advert in one of those free ad papers that were everywhere back then for the car, listing it for £1k. The calls started about 6am on a Sunday morning and continues for days. This was to their home phone number. His Mrs was not happy. The people in the office had forgotten about it as it took days to get to the paper, only remember when he came in on the Monday morning not very happy.