h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Your anger management joke.
If it was 'you', you must have worked in an architects office opposite the British Museum in Bloomsbury in 1970-1. It is true - I was there the car was a Mini Cooper S and the final address was in Welwyn Garden City - Dellcott Close if I remember right. The same person pulled some other brilliant ones - the best were very simple an was just getting crossed lines (90% of the time then) and just saying 'Oh', 'No', 'Really' at the wrong times.
If you are the same man, you wiped the mustard off your fingers in the pub with your hankerchief and tied a knot in it. When I - young and innocent - asked why, you replied "So that I remember that it's the mustard".

Oh how I wish I could lay claim to that one PBS but no, it was passed to me by a mate (I don't think he was involved either).

If it actually happened then it must be one of the best.

The nearest I ever got to it was when I was stores manager in a medium size factory. They employed a young lad who wasn't all that bright, now that's fair enough, there's room for everone in this world. However, this kid was a bad mouthed lazy little git who really got up the nose of just about everyone who had the misfortune to work with him.

In cahoots with his team leader we conned this pillock into believing that Graham ****** (one of the shop floor workers) had recently been released from prison following his third conviction for setting factory premises on fire. He was told that if he saw Graham outside the building with any kind of lighter, matches, etc, he should douse him with water and then make himself scarce.

Now Graham had a habit of sneaking out of the back door into the stockyard for a crafty smoke....

I can send you the original and the rest if you like. E-mail me at [email protected]. It is true and does work.

I tried to send the original but get "This message has been blocked as it contains a word which other users may find offensive. Please edit your message and post it again."
I am not sure which word offends the BeeB - maybe Welwyn Garden City.

One, by no means unique, conversation went as follows:

Bank: “Hello – Is that International Office Supplies? It’s Bankley’s Bonk here – Bloomsbury branch – can you put me through to the order department.”
IOS: “Hold the line please – I’ll put you through”
There was a short pause (and this was long before telephones, on hold, started to play ‘Home on the Range’ – indicating that you really were talking to a bunch of cowboys):
Peter: “Hello – order department – can I help you?”
Bank: “Yes, it’s Bankley’s Bonk here – Bloomsbury branch we need 1,000 more sheets of the special headed paper ref YZ123-A. It is really extremely urgent and we need it today.
Peter: “Got that – 1000 sheets ref YZ123-A. Yes – we should be able to do it and it can be round there this afternoon by 3:00pm.” The bank hangs up – Peter holds on. Eventually the IOS order clerk comes on the phone.
Clerk: “Hello – IOS order department – can I help you?”
Peter: “Yes, it’s Bankley’s Bonk here – Bloomsbury branch. You have completely cocked up our order – once again. We are totally dissatisfied with the service you have been giving and your behaviour has been slipshod and insolent. From now on we shall place ALL our orders for office supplies and stationary, elsewhere. You can be sure that you will be hearing from your superiors.

Peter hung up – leant back in his chair and stared happily at the ceiling, as if in a hallucinogenic trance. The reverie passed in but a moment and he returned to work, totally refreshed, immediately solving a problem that had been driving him mad for hours.

I wrote this originally as a phrasal verb exercise for my EFL students. It is true - however - and was immensely satisfying.

In 1975 I was building my house in West Devon. As an impoverished, newly qualified architect, I'd given up work in order to re-construct a derelict house in the middle of a wood. The house was one kilometre from the nearest road but on a track that led to the River Tamar and one of the most expensive fishing reaches in the West of England.

One Saturday morning, Hugh, a friend from university was helping me. We were dressed in old jeans and dirty T-shirts. We had long hair and beards and we looked like what we were, building labourers.

As we were finishing off a wall at the back of the house a very expensive car drove very slowly down the lane and rolled up in front of the house. An expensive looking gentleman got out of the car, wandered around, looking at the house and then proceeded to undress and change into equally expensive looking fishing gear. "Hey boys", he called out to us, "keep an eye on the car." with which he gathered up his fishing tackle and headed off down the track in the direction of the river.

Hugh looked at me. "Maybe he needs a touch of the 'werrie-bento's'. Wanna go to the pub?" Now it happened that I also had a well-equipped garage as I had built my own car. Hugh went to the garage and took out the jack, which was able to lift up either end of any car. We took off all four wheels, set down the car on four concrete blocks, and locked up the wheels in the garage. We then headed off to Rat & Trumpets, the nearest pub where we stayed for the next four hours.

We arrived back at the house, a bit the worse for wear, to find one extremely irate expensively dressed gentleman sitting in an expensive car with no wheels.

"Werrie-bento?" said Hugh in a broad-Devon accent, "Us some worried 'bout car so us took 'im wheels off so no-one touch im". The expensive looking gentleman exploded. What he said was neither polite nor complimentary. It was certainly not printable.

I then spoke for the first time. I spoke carefully and clearly in my best Public School English. "Excuse me", I said, "could you give me your address?"

"What's the ******** that got to do with you?" shouted the expensive looking gentleman. "Well this happens to be my house", I replied, "perhaps I might like to come and park my car in front of your house and order you to 'keep an eye on it', you are trespassing."

Hugh fetched the wheels from the garage, I got the jack and within five minutes the expensive looking gentleman had a driveable car. He never came back