All's Fair

My barber is a very beautiful woman. I can truthfully say that the last time I saw her I got her soaking wet and made her scream. Sadly the experience involved a trip in an open top car, it rained and I nearly crashed.

A few days later she texted to thank me for a lovely surprise, and to tell me how sweet I am. Her message ended with numerous lower case x's

My compulsive honesty got the better of me and I admitted that I had no idea what surprise she was talking about. It turns out that another of her customers, who shares my Christian name, had sent her flowers. At least for a few minutes she thought they were from me.

Richard "bollocks is honesty the best policy" B

Castle Combe

This weekend I did a track day at Castle Combe in the car that I built. It behaved impeccably, the car, my passenger and I came back unscathed (although the soft-top doesn't look too clever at 115mph and the brakes got nearly red hot).

The track marshals communicate with the drivers by flag signals which we had to learn. Track days are strictly non-competitive so there are subtle differences to the signals used in racing.

Yellow – incident ahead. Slow down. No overtaking.
Red – Serious incident. Slow down. No overtaking. Exit to the pit lane.
Red and Yellow – Slippery or contaminated surface ahead.
Black – You or your car are misbehaving. Exit to the pit lane. Report to the marshals.
Black and White chequered – lunchtime.

Richard "I never knew racing drivers were so keen on getting their lunch" B

Wake Up

About 20 years ago I went out to a pub lunch to meet my friend's new girlfriend's, to celebrate her birthday, and to meet her, her family, and her friends. I accidentally drank far far too much with lunch and my next memory is waking in her parents' kitchen with my head on the table. Tea, cakes and sandwiches were being served around my unconscious form. Unbelievably I made quite a good impression on her parents.

I have a friend who used to play guitar for a living, and he used to really drink. He has a couple of even better stories about waking up in unlikely situations:
He woke up to the sound of braking glass and spilled liquid and found himself in the middle of a road accident involving a milk float. As he came closer to wakefulness he remembered that he was supposed to be working as a milkman.

Another time he was woken by very loud music. He found himself with a guitar, on stage, in front of 15,000 people. He had dozed off while playing it.

Richard "Alarm Clock" B

Divorce!

Imagine having to sit down and tell your wife that you've been having an affair, and at exactly the same time she tells you (for completely unrelated reasons) she wants a divorce. It has all worked out for the best. As long as "the best" includes no longer being with one of your favourite people, someone with whom you have built up decades of shared experiences, trust, communication and respect.

That's pretty much what happened to me this weekend, except I'm not married, it was my band's drummer.

Richard "We'll get him back, we always do" B

Misunderheard

There's a phenomenon called an "earworm". When you get a particularly catchy tune stuck in your head, and then you pass it on to other people by singing it involuntarily.

In the mid 20'th century there was a surprisingly common treatment for mental illness called a transorbital-lobotomy (colloquially an ice-pick lobotomy). You hammer a probe up through the eye socket into the front of the brain and stir it around. I have no idea why anyone ever thought that was a good idea. By Sunday morning I was just about ready to try it on myself to get the annoying tune out of my mind. I picked my sister up from the station on Friday night, about the second thing I said to her was "Put your bag in the back." She ruined our entire weekend by replying "...said 'everyone attack' and it turned into a ballroom blitz". From then on every second though either of us had had was a hazily remembered version of "Ballroom Blitz"

We also had a fantastically surreal misunderstanding. I'd like to say that she misheard me, but as the two words are homophones it's more complicated than that. She was drinking coffee after dinner and I asked if she wanted a Digestive (meaning biscuit). She thought I'd said "digestif" and was thinking of port, cognac, armagnac, ouzo, pastis, grappa, limoncello, schnapps, etc.

"Any one in particular?"
"Well I was thinking of the top one, but we can skip that one if it's stale"

Richard "something something lightening something something fighting" B