Unbelievable quotes.....

[bozzer]

Loved the Bob story.

We've all heard the air rifle stories of rabbits shot at 200 yards right through the eye with a 0.22 Webley Vulcan.

We had a bloke in our office. Really intelligent guy but a tad weird. Aged late 30's and still living at home with his Mum n Dad. He bought an MGBGT. He lived about 10 - 15 mins drive down an A road dual carriageway from work, but he chose to start off driving in the other direction to pick up the M6. He then headed North on the M6 and exited at the next junction. This now actually took him way past the factory. He then picked up that same dual carriageway and drove back on himself to get to work. So his journey took over twice or three times as long, but he would storm into the office every morning and exclaim " The traffic on the commute on the motorway this morning was horrendous ".

This guy, bless him, wasn't a ... er ... handsome chap. He was about 5'1" and just a strange looking chap. Our office secretary had to have 6 months sick leave ( lady things ). So during that 6 months we had several young ( 18 - 20 ) stand in secretaries from an agency. All these girls were tidy looking lasses. After being there for a week or so each one would confide in me that this guy had pestered them to go out at lunch time and see his 'Sports car'. They'd kept putting it off but he was terribly insistent so they'd all agreed just to stop the pestering. At lunch he would take them out to his MGBGT and then open up the doors and the back and insist that the girls posed on the bonnet whilst he took a photo. He'd told them that he would give them a copy of the photo so they could show their mates that they had been in a classic sports car. They again tried to decline but he'd pestered again and feeling a tad uncomfortable being alone with him in the car park they'd agreed just so they could get back to the office.

Around the time the 6 months was up I was visited by a rep from a local company. He spotted this guy and they waved to each other as we left to go into a meeting in a private room. In the room this rep said to me " Hey ... he's a lad isn't he that guy. You'd never believe it to look at him ... but what a lady's man ". I asked him to explain. He said " Well ... he's a member of the local MGB Owners Club, as am I. The group meet regularly and he's been showing us the photos of the beautiful girls he's been sh**ging over the last 6 months, all sprawled across his MGBGT ".

This guy from our office started telling the most ridiculous stories. His stories just got more and more bizarre. They included his Great White Shark attack at Weston Super Mare ... his flight in an RAF fighter where he'd had to eject because a heat seeking missile had been tested and then the plane had overtaken the missile and the missile was then chasing the plane ... his Formula One experience when he'd been to watch a F3 race and he was chatting to a mechanic and had told the mechanic that he owned an MGBGT. The mechanic had said " Our driver isn't well ... I don't suppose with your experience of sports cars you could do us a favour and stand in for him and drive in tomorrow's F3 ". Of course he obliged and was involved in a high speed crash which he walked away from. He marched back to the pits and knocked this mechanic out with one punch for not preparing the car properly.

One of his favourites ( or probably mine ) was a story where he was on holiday somewhere on a river. He apparently owned a boat that he cruised around rivers on. He was on his boat and another boat owner said he was having problems with his boat and asked this guy, seeing as he was an experienced boating man, if he would mind taking his boat out and seeing if he knew what the problem was. So my man takes out this guy's boat ... on his own. I kid you not this is how he told the story to a room full of engineers ... I was cruising along the river and all was going well. I then remember a strong smell of fuel. I then remember a very loud 'BANG'. The next thing I know I'm waking up on the river bank surrounded by holiday makers and I'm naked. The boat had exploded, the explosion had blown all my clothes off and thrown me 50 metres onto the river bank. If that's the story he used when he was trying to mitigate in front of a local magistrate then fair play to the lad.

Each time he'd tell these stories he would leave the office and 5 educated engineers would literally collapse on the floor in fits of laughter.

Sad really. He clearly had some sort of problem. I actually used to hope that he didn't actually live at home with his Mum n Dad, but actually had a reasonable looking wife at home and each day he would go home and say " You won't believe the story that I've told the idiots in the office today and the gullible b*stards seemed to believe it ". Unfortunately, I think he was just a full on Walt.

[Craig-P]

They included his Great White Shark attack at Weston Super Mare ...

Brilliant. I’m actually jealous that I didn’t hear that myself. Tremendous

[bozzer]

Bizarrely, I think the Great White Shark story was the one that actually made most of us have sympathy with the lad.

He'd booked a fortnight off in the summer to go to Weston Super Mare with his Mum n Dad. He explained that the first day there he'd gone into the sea and then felt something grab his leg. He was then pulled through the water kicking and screaming. He eventually felt his leg be released. He made it out of the sea onto the beach and his right lower leg was pouring with blood. His calf muscle was hanging off. He then fainted and woke up in intensive care.

The docs explained that they'd had experts to look at his injuries and there was no doubt ... the bite pattern was a Great White Shark ( I know ... we were also thinking there aren't any Great White Sharks off Britain ).

He explained that he'd had reconstructive surgery on his leg and blood transfusions and so on. After two weeks he'd insisted he was released from hospital as he had to go back to work. The docs had told him there would be no work for him for several months. He said that he couldn't let his workmates down and would be in next Monday.

Now the golden rule during all of these stories was that no one contested the stories. We all knew they were nonsense but they were so funny that no one wanted to stop the magic. On all other occasions as crazy a the stories were, there was no actual proof that they didn't happen. On this occasion one engineer said " I've always wanted to see a shark attack wound ... Let's have a look at your leg ". Oh no ... the room went silent. What was this bloke thinking? The story teller explained that the docs had said to keep the leg covered. This other guy kept insisting. So ... to our surprise, he lifted his foot onto a desk and started to lift up his trouser leg. What was going to happen? Well he lifted his trouser up to the knee exposing a perfectly normal and healthy lower leg. The room was silent. I was expecting him to suddenly burst out laughing and exclaim " HA HA HA I've had you guys going for the last few months with these crazy stories " and we'd all fall about laughing.

Instead, he used the tip of his index finger to point out the various details ... " You can see the teeth marks there and there and there ... and that's the line where my calf was sewn back on ... and there are all the stitch marks ... the doctors were amazed at my healing rate ". There was absolutely nothing there. He'd continued with the story despite him being undone ... the story remained real in his mind. He pulled down his trouser leg and hobbled out of the room on his stick. I think that's when we realised he wasn't just a bulls hitter ... he really wasn't quite right.

[ChrisC]

Sometimes....just sometimes

https://www.warhistoryonline.com/wor...ank-ww2-m.html

[rhyslightnin]

Sometimes....just sometimes

https://www.warhistoryonline.com/wor...ank-ww2-m.html

Brilliant!

[Zomboid]

From my dad...


In his younger days my Dad was a very fit builder. On sites in the summer with his legs exposed he often got remarks concerning his extremely muscley legs. This is something I'm very happy to have inherited from him. Anyway he used to play a lot of squash too - another reason for the muscley legs. This is adding colour to the story and nothing to do with the main crux.

Every week he used to meet up at the local squash court with some chap and basically thrashed him for an hour. The bloke, let's call him Derek, didn't seem to mind as he came across as enjoying the exercise rather than the winning.

This continued for a year or so.

One day my mum is shopping and gets chatting to a woman who turns out to be Derek's wife. They start talking about their husbands and she says something along the lines of "I must say its very decent of your husband to lose every week. My Derek says he thrashes him...." Mum relayed the story back to my dad who confronted Derek at their next meet up. That was their final match - my Dad hates bullshitters.

[Craig-P]

Bizarrely, I think the Great White Shark story was the one that actually made most of us have sympathy with the lad.

I can relate to that, mate.
I went to school with someone called, Paul Mycock (genuinely).
Now although others were mercilessly berated for having even slightly odd sounding names, Paul was (thankfully) given a free ticket all throughout those teenage years. I can only assume the mickey takers just found it too obvious.
Strange world isn’t it?

[Geezer]

Nominative determinism - and its reverse - is quite interesting.

I (genuinely) have met a bloke called Richard Head. Poor sod.

I have also met military personnel whose surnames were Coward and Chicken. Always wondered if they were proving something by their job choices?

I also once knew an Army guy called Major Fury. Instant Marvel superhero, beats Captain America?

On BS merchants, there was a kid I was friends with at school for a few years, then his parents broke up. He and his sister stayed with mum. After which he kept telling stories about how his dad was a deep-sea diver (may have been true), SBS, astronuaut, had a car that would do 200mph, whatever, I forget the detail. We all wrote him off as a BS artist. Sadly we weren't adult enough at 14-15 to realise that all that nonsense was a way of dealing with his parents' break-up and his dad shacking up with another woman and his sense of loss and reduced self-worth and possible misplaced sense of responsibility for the divorce.

We all present a public persona that is not a full representation of who we really are, or how we really feel. Not least on anonymous forums, I as much as anyone else here. But also you guys reading this. So we should understand (even if we have not done it) how easily people can move from a "curated" (I hate that word, outside museums) version of themself into outright lying and get locked into it.

My old schoolmate did that. But, looking back, he wasn't a bad guy. Just an OK guy in a bad place. Probably we should have "intervened" and had a conversation to help him deal with his issues. Instead we either ignored him or called him a wanker. As a divorced parent, trying to do the best with my son, I feel a bit guilty about that.

Back on topic. Yes, I have heard cobblers about guns and shooting over the years. In the airgun sphere, mostly about OX springs and galvanised dustbins, or guys who confused feet with yards.

[bozzer]

Certainly is a strange world Craig.

Nice post Geeze.

I worked with a German guy re automatic test equipment who was called Hans Zoff.

I also worked with a Chinese guy who I had to call to discuss quality issues. His name was Dave Wong ... but because of the nature of his job we called him Wots Wong.

[Rickenbacker]

True story: My GP (now retired) was Dr Payne.

[Geezer]

Certainly is a strange world Craig.

Nice post Geeze.

I worked with a German guy re automatic test equipment who was called Hans Zoff.

I also worked with a Chinese guy who I had to call to discuss quality issues. His name was Dave Wong ... but because of the nature of his job we called him Wots Wong.

Thanks boz.

The Times employ a journalist called Roger Boyes.

He was their correspondent in Italy about ten years ago.

When the Vatican child sex scandal broke, he wrote the story.

Byline was "By Roger Boyes in Rome".