NOW THAT'S WHAT I CALL CAB!

[Ferris]

Jokes aside, Diaz and Torso are both excellent writers and I always enjoy their stuff.

I'm also a huge fan of the much-maligned silliness in HS Art. Always raises a smile.

[Old Thrashbarg]

The John Self one I often still think about was where he said every time he saw a policeman he wanted to knock their hat off and run away giggling "Hee hee hee, can't catch me, copper!"

Yeah, let's have that one in here as well:

Sometimes I want to take this thread and hug it to me like a dear dear friend, 'cos it lets me know that I am not alone.

I don't think I've ever posted to it though, as most of the mad thoughts and insane impulses I've had involve people very close to me, and I sometimes think that any one of them could be lurking here, watching my every post. I'd be pretty miffed if they all aren't, actually, thinking about it. Cunts.

But I've had a couple of ones in the last week or so, that, though quite disturbing and detailed, involve no one close to me -only two of the most powerful groups of people in the world- so I feel it only right to share them, what with the amount of succour and sustenance this thread has given me. Maybe someone, somewhere, has experienced something similar.

1: A Brush With The Law

A few days ago, I was walking along an alley: a narrow, long alley, about three feet by three thousand, enclosed on both sides by a high wooden fence. Pretty soon, I saw, up ahead of me, walking slowly, two rather large policemen. It didn't take me too long to catch up with them, and fairly soon I was walking right behind them. They didn't hear me (for I wear trainers and stealth), and as they really were ambling along at quite a slow pace, taking up the entire width of the alley, I was placed in the position of either saying 'excuse me' and getting past them, or checking my own pace and following them for what I estimated would be about five minutes. I checked my pace, took the chance to observe them. I've got no issue with the Police, I'm not one of these fuckwits who go round saying they're 'killjoys' or 'pigs' , I'm grateful for their presence and the job that they do, but I do sometimes feel a bit paranoid around them –are they watching me? do they have reason to?- and it seemed that here, I had a unique opportunity to watch them, but not be watched: the tables had turned, I held the power.

Once I'd gotten over their really-quite-serious obesity (just didn't seem right somehow; a bit unreassuring, like a very young doctor), and I'd had enough of looking at their handcuffs and stuff, stupid mischievous ideas started bubbling up in my head. The first was, quite naturally, that of knocking both their helmets off. I nearly had to put my hands in my pockets: it really is so tempting, it's no wonder they take issue with it. But then again, you've got to consider the technique: at first I thought I had it sussed, how to do it, but then realised that my method would also entail giving them both a pretty serious slap round the back of the head. Well, that wouldn't do: don't want to go down that road. So I then thought, No: what you need to do, is place your hand, palm facing upwards, at the back of their head, finger-tips above the nape of the neck and just under the rim of the helmet, and then a sharp upwards flip! Heh, that'd be good: the things might shoot five or six feet up in the air! Or, no, no, better, even better: same movement, but with each thumb as a pincer, grab the rim of each helmet, and then Yoink! Actually, no, fuck it, it really is such a good word I may as well say it out loud, "Yoink!" And then I'd wait for them to spin round, confused, and I'd shout, in perfect Bertie Woosterish, "Hullo coppers! Can't catch me! Pip-pip tally-ho!", and then I'd hot-foot it back down the alley with a helmet in each hand –my trophies, souvenirs of the 'lark'- with them fatly failing to catch up with me (all the while blowing their whistles and huffing and puffing and shouting thing like, "Get back here you cheeky young pup!"), and eventually I'd come out on the High Street, where there'd be a cab waiting for me to hop into yelling, "The Berkeley Gents Club my man- and don't dawdle!", whence I'd make my getaway.

Yeah: I had it all planned.

As I imagined this, I started to giggle to myself, and this in turn made me paranoid. I was worried they'd hear me, spin round, see me grinning to myself, ask me if everything was all right, maybe ask me to turn out my pockets. Because I was slightly worried I might have drugs on me: just a joint or two, but still. I started to resent them then, because they were, without knowing it, stifling the natural flow of my giggling and my thoughts: huh, bloody killjoys. And what the fuck's so bad about someone smoking a spliff or two every now and then? I then started thinking about stuff like that, the illegality of drugs, the unfairness and harshness of certain perceived misdemeanours, i.e., the shit I could get myself into, the laws, who passes them, and then, through a rather dubious leap of logic, I somehow got it into my head that the classification of Cannabis as a prohibited substance was, as a bill, proposed and passed through parliament by these two fat-arsed plods in front of me.

Made me a bit angry, the control these coppers seemed to have over me, even with their backs to me (stealing my God-given right to giggle!), so I then stopped thinking about knocking off or nicking their helmets, and instead about giving them both a really good hard kick up the arse. Christ, it wouldn't be hard to miss- I could lose both my shoes between this pair of blubber-boys. Yeah, I thought, a really good firm toe-punt between each buttock –as near to as possible, if not bang-on, the perineal divide- and then stand back and wait to see their reactions. Maybe even spread my hands out invitingly: "Your move, gentlemen."

I imagined that their reaction to such an introductory gambit would be either one of two things: the first from P.G. Wodehouse, the second from Bad Lieutenant. They'd either both spin round, chubby cheeks flushed, sporting the obligatory clipped 'tache, saying things like, "Sir! Have you no code?"; that, or they'd both spin round, cold cruel unshaven faces hidden behind shades, then they'd both place the nuzzle of a gun into one of my eye-sockets, say something like, "Wrong move, ASSHOLE- you picked the wrong fuzz to fuck with today", and between them they'd blow the top half of my head off. Well, I naturally found this hilarious, and so started giggling again, which in turn led to the paranoia again, the having to think of boring unfunny things to try and calm down. It's not as easy as it sounds: I felt like turning round and walking the long way home. Or at the very least rifling through my pockets, see if I did indeed have any 'spliffs' or 'joints' or 'bad-boy fatty-boom-batties' and chucking them over the fence so I could giggle in comfort. This was Police harrassment, mind-control, 1984: fucking pigs!

So then I thought, Well, if you're gonna kick them up the arse, you really shouldn't stop there, this is one of those 'in for a penny' things (n.b., this reasoning is deluded on both levels: there is no financial gain in police assault, plus, of course, I really would have done well to 'stop there', it just didn't feel like that at the time: mad thoughts are like a gas, they never shrink, they expand to fill the room they're given), and this whole thing about booting their balls blue is a bit silly. What I should really do would be –hehe, oh dear- would be to get behind one of them, bring my knee up and in toward my chest, and then sharply shoot my foot out- like stamping on his arse. He'd go flying forward to the floor, then I'd do the same for his partner.

The I imagined them having to this: again, highly polarised, again Wodehousian and Tarantinoesque, but now, simultaneous and shared. Well why not?, I thought: they're most likely partners, we've all heard of the 'good cop bad cop' thing, maybe I'd get a chance to finally see it in action. I imagined one of them, post self-harm, sprawling round on the floor, slightly tearful, saying, "I say! This little rotter's made me graze my knee!", while the other grabbed me by the shoulders, slammed me hard into the fence and sneered, "You punk, you dirty little punk fuck- ya had to do it, didn't ya? Ya had to do it! And he only had one week left till retirement- ya HAD to fucking do it!"

I started laughing again, I started getting paranoid again...

By the time we reached the part of the alley that opens up onto the next street (a route they, unlike me, chose not to hurriedly take), I'd gone through this cycle a few times, the imagined assaults getting increasingly brutal, and their reactions increasingly funny. Like I say, I normally have no issue with the Police whatsoever, but that afternoon, perhaps all owing to the fact I thought I may have had a spliff on me (turns out I didn't), I'd fantasised about, amongst other things, pushing said spliff into one of their mouths while stabbing him in the eyes with my keys. And that wasn't as bad as it got.

Now that sounds horrible, I know: but you really should have seen their reaction.


The Moral: Kids! Leave your drugs at home

______________________________________________________

Here's the next one. It's not quite as light-hearted as the previous. Don't judge me. Oh, and it needs some geographical and emotional context.

2: It Was That Chris Morris Made Me Do It

I love where I live: I've lived here two months, in a second floor flat with a balcony, and the view from my window is fantastic. There's some old Edwardian terraces to the left, some weird interesting flats like mine just opposite (Housing Association, mostly tenants on benefits, but built in the Hampstead way: "At least try and make it look like they're rich"), a fantastic bit to the right where they're doing up some old building, cranes and scaffolding and all that kind of yummy scuzzy urban mess, and, right in front of me, just over the street from me, there's a small playing field with, next to it, a playground. There's a swing, a slide, a couple of benches, some wooden animal-shaped seats on springs, two 'NO BALL GAMES' signs that go joyously ignored. There's usually, in the day, kids there, playing, which I like: it's a nice noise to have in the background while I write, them laughing and swearing and threatening each other, always makes me smile. (In the evenings, of course, the nippers are all tucked up, and then the baton is handed over to the teenage cider-and-spliff brigade: and they sound like they're having fun too.)

Anyway, one afternoon last week, two o'clock or thereabouts, I was standing by my window, the one that opens up onto the balcony, drinking tea, smoking, watching the world go (as they say) 'by', wearing nothing but a towel round my waist from the shower. The playground and the playing field were full of young children, and a few parents: I think it was half term or something. Then an ice-cream van came along, and so, more kids came out. There were about fifty by now, all primary school age I'd say (by my inexperienced estimate- yeah that's right, getting the disclaimers in already).

Anyway, I was just standing there, by my open window, enjoying the breeze on my bare top-half, watching, alternately, the kids playing, the teenage mums talking, the builders to the far right, and the sky. I knew that no one could see me, 'cos I was behind my good old English net curtain. I'm actually quite paranoid about this, people being able to see me through my window when I might be undressed, and I'd already checked, just after moving here, with a friend, that my nets gave me safety. But then I thought: Heh, it would be quite funny just to pop the knot on  this towel, let it fall, and then step out onto the balcony. Just to see what'd happen.

Of course, I ended up not doing this, but fucking hell, that's a mad one, isn't it? My first thing, murdering a couple of Policemen, well, that was just a sort of silly thing: naturally, I'd never actually get to carry it out even if I tried. At best, I'd get a couple of punches in and then that would be it- couple of months in prison. And I'm terrified of prison, the prospect scares me shitless: I've had a few mates who've been inside, and I've sat and spoke to them at great length about it, the experience (they've tended to think it's me 'doing research' as a 'writer', but they're wrong: it's just me 'getting to hear some cool scary stories' as a 'prurient twat'), and I of course asked them how they thought a chap like me would get along in there. I think perhaps I'd imagined myself as the kind of con who'd get such a nickname as 'Brains' or 'Shakespeare', that I'd get given a job in the library, and I'd be accorded a respect for my intelligence by my peers, being called in to adjudicate upon, for example, literary disputes. At least three of the blokes I said this to replied, independently of each other, something like: "Don't know about all that john, do know one thing though: you would get bitched. Hard."

I see their point. It's not that I'm particularly good-looking, that's missing the point of prison-rape entirely. It's that I'm skinny, quite effeminate features, softly-spoken 'posh' voice, and have a tendency of using needling sarcasm to convey the fact that I think I'm always right: basically, all feminine characteristics. And that's the main reason I tend not to break the law: terrified of getting fucked in prison. Good deterrent. So yeah: to me, the natural and healthy impulse to knock a Policeman's helmet off is tied up, perhaps wrongly, with an incredibly nasty outcome. Fucking pigs! Dirty cons! Girly me! I guess, though, that if I had done it, and ended up in the nick, the nature of my crime would stand me in good stead, accord me some arse-saving kudos. "What you in for?", "I knocked a Policeman's helmet off and shouted 'Pip-pip tally-ho!" "Hmm, not bad. I'm still gonna bum you blind though, whether you like it or not." "Well, I did also stab him in the eyes with my keys." "Yeah? Nice one. Do you like people bumming you blind?" "Really not that keen on the idea, no- sorry." "Oh, okay. Fair enough. I'll be off then." "Oh okay, well thanks awfully, take care." "Yeah, we'll leave it for a few days- see how you feel then."

But that second one, that's so much worse than that, isn't it? If I had gone through with my finalised Mad Thought then, and stepped naked onto my balcony, masturbating furiously and declaring  "MY NAME IS JOHN SELF AND I AM NOT ASHAMED OF MY APPETITES!" (yeah that's right: I'd payed the old 'in for a penny' deal again), well, that'd end up with me getting paraded round the streets in a comically oversized burning wicker phallus, wouldn't it? That or going to prison, and enduring one of the most horrible experiences a human being possibly can. Bloody kids!

As I let this Mad Thought expand, of course, the main thing I wondered was: what would the reaction be, if I did go through with this? Well, I'd rather like to think that the kids would start screaming and the mothers would be shouting and swearing at me with righteous disgust (imagine the shame though, if they all just laughed! I'd never live it down!), but I was actually more interested in what, if anything, would happen in those terraces to the left, the flats opposite, the building site, if I were to just... step out onto the balcony to greet the little people below like some young underfed naturist pope? I've only just moved here and, like most people I'm sure, I often wonder, what do my neighbours think of me? How would they react to this frank revelation of character from me? Maybe a dozen student nurses, stood by the windows of their Edwardian bedsits, would already start hatching plans for suicide as their tears slid down their telescopes; maybe, in one of the flats opposite, a naked man would step out onto his balcony, one eye on the children, the other on me and shining with the relief and warmth of a long-sought solidarity finally found, his hands otherwise engaged; perhaps the lads on the building-site would stop work for a minute or two, for an exchange of tenners and "told-you-so"s. Well, only one way to find out.

A slight problem was that I didn't have anything even approaching an erection. Well, you might think, does that matter? After all, indecent exposure's indecent exposure, and 'flaccidity' as a mitigating circumstance would hardly stand up in court. And that's true: but I was in the grip of a mad and expanding thought remember, and so reasoned: yes, yes it does matter- if you're gonna do this thing you're probably gonna end up getting stabbed in prison, so you could at least for fuck's sake do it properly.  Turns out the thought of getting stabbed in prison doesn't help in that regard: nor, surprisingly, did the realisation that I'd probably end up posting the thoughts I was undergoing on Verbwhores (which is normally a dead cert in that department). And those teenage mothers- nope. I then made up the Wildean epigram "There is only one thing worse than masturbating in front of a large crowd of children, and that is not being able to masturbate in front of a large crowd of children": and then thought, Well, you'll never know johnny-boy, and then I walked away from my window and did something else. The Mad Thought, in its entirety, had taken about twenty seconds, my hands occupied with tea and tobacco the whole time. I can't remember what I did after that, got dressed maybe, put on some music, can't quite remember: life, for a while, seemed a bit blander after what I'd just gone through in my mind; a lot safer and nice, but less memorable. I was back to being me.

And no, I did not do any of the following: take an hour-long cold shower, board up my window, phone the housing association to request relocation, masturbate, don sackcloth and ashes and swallow seven rosaries and wait four hours then pull them out the other end praying to God for forgiveness the whole time, phone my counsellor and say, "It's beginning again!". It was just a Mad Thought, that's all, an insane impulse, and, really, they're just thought-experiments, aren't they? Acting oppositionally to character in your mind. "I wonder what would happen if I did x..." And, quite often, as you conduct them, you labour under a sense of power that's often false, or incomplete and misguided: especially with that second one, the huge amount of people involved (I would have actually felt a bit like a scaled-down version of the pope giving an address at the Vatican, in a World Gone Wrong), with stuff like that, you kind of think Heh- I could really change the world for someone today. But that's bollocks really- it's your world that'll change the most, and in a way you can't change, once you've started: you've set the wheels in motion, the power's out of your hands. If I had stepped through those curtains naked, and not really got much of a reaction, as is perfectly feasible (the mothers, for instance, doing the right thing and saying to their kids "Don't look, don't say anything: just ignore him: no, most ones are bigger than that"), I'd start to maybe feel like a bit of a div after a while, and I'd slink back in. Then I'd have to get dressed, collect some stuff together, sneak out the back door, and stay with friends or family until I could arrange to find a new place to live. And I like living here. I'm not talking about going on the run from the law: I'm talking about avoiding serious hassle, maybe death, from my neighbours. Seriously: I've thought it through. Someone, some angry idiot or hired thug probably, would most likely chuck a petrol-bomb through my window one evening, shouting, as he did, "Chocks away! This'll teach the filthy blighter, what-what!"

And, if I did get arrested for it, when they're filling out my charge-sheet, and they ask me if I've any religion, I'd feel dutibound to answer, "No God in the conventional sense, but I do have a fierce devotion to  the Godlike genius of Chris Morris. And, to a far greater extent, a website in his honour."
"Oh really sir? What... 'website' would that be, sir?"
"It is called 'Cookd and Bombd'," I'd proudly (unthinkingly, stupidly) reply, "it is run by Neil, and is to be found at http: //chilled.cream.org/forums/. Now can I have my keys back, please?"

And then this place would probably get investigated: you might get dozens of Daily Mail journalists logging on to find out what you're all saying, it might even get shut down.

Which would be terribly unfair on you kids: I think you need somewhere safe to play.




Next Week On john's Insane Impulses: Granny-bashing, incestual rape, signing up for Chortle




john self would like to point out that he is neither a cop-killer nor a paedophilian: merely a crazy dreamer with a big ol' kooky imagination who, in his sweet silly way, sometimes sets the bar just a little too high

[Ferris]

Actually - Wegger with his musical stuff is always really good. There have been some absolute gems dropped into threads with 0 fanfare over the years.

[popcorn]

Doomy Dwyer. That post was an absolute masterpiece.

Finally I see the gents, and I break into a canter, there's a stool in my path which I clamber over, unfortunately my leading leg lands in a puddle of beer, causing me to perform the splits.

I've never forgotten the line "causing my to do the splits". I can't work out what's so funny about it. It's so matter of fact, and it's about the worst thing that could have happened at that point in the story.

[gib]

The John Self one I often still think about was where he said every time he saw a policeman he wanted to knock their hat off and run away giggling "Hee hee hee, can't catch me, copper!"

hadn't seen that before, proper laughing

[Video Game Fan 2000]

lurked here for donkeys and I can't believe I missed wank den until now

[Chedney Honks]

All the long tryhard, tell-me-I'm-so-funny posts are really good, especially john self, my favourite ever poster.

[mr. logic]

Am I in the minority in thinking that Castro Diaz is a birrova try way- too- hard merchant, in an " I take what Doomy Dwyer does and extend it"  vain?

No.

[turnstyle]

Imagine this as a product on an actual shelf in an actual shop with a sticker on it proudly boasting:

'INCLUDES THE SMASH HIT WANK DEN!'

[The Mollusk]

Years before the infamous Satan House, alan nagsworth's harrowing tale of the festival from hell, Ponce In The Park

I was trying to find this recently but had no luck with the site:cookdandbombd.co.uk command searching "ponce in the park". All it finds is threads with the festival name in the tags, annoyingly! Anyone know wheee it can be unearthed? Not to toot my own horn too much but it's a good story and a night I'll never ever forget.

[Captain Z]

Imagine this as a product on an actual shelf in an actual shop with a sticker on it proudly boasting:

'INCLUDES THE SMASH HIT WANK DEN!'

Now I really want to see this thread as a 'Take A Break'-style magazine cover.

[buttgammon]

I was trying to find this recently but had no luck with the site:cookdandbombd.co.uk command searching "ponce in the park". All it finds is threads with the festival name in the tags, annoyingly! Anyone know wheee it can be unearthed? Not to toot my own horn too much but it's a good story and a night I'll never ever forget.

I'd love to see this again too - it was a classic!

[Brundle-Fly]

I remember enjoying an old thread when alan nagsworth was delivered a neighbour's fancy dress costume by mistake so he decided to keep it for himself. It was giant starfish or something. jpgs and everything.

Oh, and Duke De Mondo's tales of his shenanigans. I knew the very Morrissons toilets he spoke of.

[idunnosomename]

Now I really want to see this thread as a 'Take A Break'-style magazine cover.

THAT'S CaB!

[The Mollusk]

I remember enjoying an old thread when alan nagsworth was delivered a neighbour's fancy dress costume by mistake so he decided to keep it for himself. It was giant starfish or something. jpgs and everything.

It was a spider! I think I got two good uses out of it, the second being a rave, before resigning myself to the fact that it was caked in sweat and stank like shite so I chucked it away. Good times. Mental to think that was pretty much ten years ago now, maybe a bit more.

[buttgammon]

I was trying to find this recently but had no luck with the site:cookdandbombd.co.uk command searching "ponce in the park". All it finds is threads with the festival name in the tags, annoyingly! Anyone know wheee it can be unearthed? Not to toot my own horn too much but it's a good story and a night I'll never ever forget.

Found it!

[non capisco]

Still a vivid read. Those poor cowering emos in that multi-storey car park, so traumatised they're frightened at the sight of Nags of all people.

[lankyguy95]

I'd quote the algorithmic cats thread but I wouldn't be able to narrow it down to one post.

[The Mollusk]

Still a vivid read. Those poor cowering emos in that multi-storey car park, so traumatised they're frightened at the sight of Nags of all people.

Heheh, I would've been about 19 at the time so I dread to think what I looked like then. This might have even been the time of the infamous "skinhead nags". Brrr.

[Jockice]

The crap nightclubs thread is probably my all-time favourite.

[idunnosomename]

The facebook thread with Gav and his dinners that would become dimly-lit meals are some of the funniest things I've seen on the internet

[Twit 2]

The thread about the reality TV show house where everything is adjusted to be annoying and gradually drive the contestants mad.

[non capisco]

The thread about the reality TV show house where everything is adjusted to be annoying and gradually drive the contestants mad.

That was great fun. I don't remember the finer details but recall them being woken in the early hours every morning  by Kris Akabusi shouting 'AWOOGA!' through a PA system "at atom shattering volume".

[Twit 2]

Heh, yes. Lots of individually funny bits like that but if I remember correctly the power of the thread was cumulative: the more you read, the more funny it became.

[rue the polywhirl]

The following I've found to be one of the funniest takedowns of a movie that is otherwise a much cherished classic but with one fatal design flaw, it turns out, that is impossible to look past. Nausicaa and 'balloon knot' are now interchangeable terms, thanks! The rest of the title 'and the Valley Of The Wind' just makes it even worse.

Nausicaä and the Valley of the Wind last night. Fuck me that film's boring. This was clearly Ghibli finding their feet and historically just comes across as a bit naff and overly long, especially compared to Castle in the Sky, which came out two years later, admittedly with a similar runtime but far more gripping and fantastical.

Also the flimsy argument from fans that she's wearing "flesh coloured tights" when she is clearly an exhibitionist and roughly 80% of the film is up-close-and-personal bug's-eye views of her anus is more than a little strange and quite distracting from the total slog of environmental guff laced with occasionally nice scenery we're bombarded with elsewhere.

Maybe I wasn't quite in the mood for it, but this is my second time watching it and I seem to recall I felt the same way the first time around.

There's something about it that I find disengaging, and if I'm honest I think it's the overall aesthetic that has a sort of melancholic vintage Sunday afternoon vibe going on which seems to invite me to fall asleep while it's playing. The soundtrack and the definitively old-school anime sound effects and animation style really play into that feeling. Also, crucially, the film is almost entirely bereft of any sense of humour or even playful charm that bolsters so much of the studio's other work. The whole thing is so bloody serious. Even in other titles like Princess Mononoke or (gulp) Grave of the Fireflies which also carry a much heavier message, there are elements of magic, raw beauty or childlike wonder that give them a captivating buoyancy. Nausicaä lacks that, for me.

Mate there's so much grubby balloon knot on display you'll be howlin like a fuckin wild ape at the end of it. It is basically two hours upskirt perspective of her slatternly towel holder as she whizzes about on some flying bollocks contraption cooing at massive fuck off insects. Bizarre.

[Chedney Honks]

Yeah, I'll never forget that, totally ruined one of my favourite films but worth it.

[Goldentony]

can someone remind me where the saga of someone thinking FACE MAN from The A Team's real name was Templeton Beck and not Peck? I seem to recall it drove someone fucking mad in a thread

[Attila]

I'd quote the algorithmic cats thread but I wouldn't be able to narrow it down to one post.

I posted in that thread

https://www.cookdandbombd.co.uk/forums/index.php/topic,58512.0.html

There were some great images there, but a lot of the image links are broken now.

It's where my avatar (and xmas avatar) came from.

[The Mollusk]

The following I've found to be one of the funniest takedowns of a movie that is otherwise a much cherished classic but with one fatal design flaw, it turns out, that is impossible to look past. Nausicaa and 'balloon knot' are now interchangeable terms, thanks! The rest of the title 'and the Valley Of The Wind' just makes it even worse.

Yeah, I'll never forget that, totally ruined one of my favourite films but worth it.

Thanks so much, really honoured to be mentioned in this thread!

[Jockice]

Yes.

Fantastic. Special kudos to whoever did the 'Stairways, Here We Come' one.