This was fun, doing this with you

In a seminar today there was a fictional scenario which concerned somebody who lived at '33 Acacia Road'. I joked in front of the rest of the class that they must have been neighbours with Bananaman (as he also lived on Acacia Road).

The 'joke' wasn't very well recieved, in that no-body laughed at it. At all.

Fair enough I thought, but I justified it to myself on the basis that it surely has to be funnier than not saying it. This is a justification I seem to be using for alot of my jokes recently (not out loud however, thank god) but I didn't let that phase me, and powered on through till the end of the session.

It is possible that the tutor may also have given me (what in Durham we call) a 'black look', but in hindsight I may just be misinterpreting his look of abject confusion and despair for distain.

The Canteen after the seminar brought good craic however, in that a few of my colleagues commented that they had actually understood the joke and even found is amusing. Some didn't.

This gave rise to some general 'Bananaman' chat, which ( as nobody seemed to have actually seen the cartoon in a good 15 years and so recalled very little about it) I will admit was majorly speculative in nature.

My mate Matt piped up at this point asking if 'Bananaman' was so called because he actually attained his 'super-powers' from eating a banana.

Everyone fell a little silent at this point and asked Matty to repeat the question, which he did. What followed was some frenzied 'riffing' around the theme of how fucking obvious it was that Bananman had aquired his moniker as a result of his love of the yellow stuff, ostensibly to embarass Matt, but it quickly became apparent it was just plain funny.

I pointed out if Bananaman's powers didn't actually stem from banana eating then 'Bananaman' must go down as the shittest 'superhero' name ever.

Bloke 1 - Hey duuuuude ! why do you call yourself 'Bananaman' ! It must be because you eat bananas and then get these like, special powers and that isn't it !?

Bananaman - Hey dude ! Awesome question ! No, its not that at all, I don't even like bananas, I'm more of an apple man myself. I just thought that 'Bananaman' was a really cool super-hero name man !!!! I love it !!!!! Don't you think that 'Bananaman' is a really cool super-hero name !!!!!!!

Bloke 1 - No, its fucking shit ! you idiot, whats wrong with you.

Now,I know that if I was a dude who possessed super-human-powers, (that were in no way connected with my consumption of bananas) I was looking for a super-hero name and for some inexplicable reason I really wanted to be called 'Bananaman' I would make damn sure that I ate a banana immeadiately prior to indulging in any super-hero like activity to at least give the illusion that my powers stemmed from fruit consumption. The main purpose of this to cleverly side-step any questioning along the following lines -

Bloke 2 - Bananaman! you total cock ! couldn't you think of a better name for yourself than 'Bananaman' ! You're a loser mate, its a shit name, and this bloke before told me that you don't even get your powers from Bananas ! You've got issues mate, you arsehole !

Bananaman - No no no no mate ! thats not true ! I love bananas, they are the source of all my powers ! Look, watch I'll prove it, I'll eat this Banana and then I'll fly about and shit and it'll be ace, cos they are the source of all my powers ! why else would I be called 'Bananaman' !

Bloke 2 - Ah right, yeah, fair play mate, thats some good shit, I must have got my wires crossed. Sorry for being so abusive before. I guess that 'Bananaman' really is the only suitable super-hero name for you !

Bananaman - That's quite alright, tell your friends.

Then I thought I'd taken the piss out of Matty enough for asking if Bananaman gets his powers from eating Bananas and we talked about something else.

Ha ha, great times.

My mate George (Johnson) came on a Family skiing holiday with.

We (The Rooks)went with a couple of other family (The Hayters and The Slees).

George just came along cos he thought it would be a laugh. There were no other members of the Johnson family present on the trip.

It was fun (great skiing, great times) apart the cost of alcholic refreshments (over priced beer, average times).

At the end of the week there were some family photos taken in the hotel bar. Each family divided up and some homely snaps were taken. George (having no family to join in the pictures with) was reluctant about joining in our Rook family photo for obvious reasons, but he was assured that he was an 'honourary' Rook for the week and that it was totally appropriate for him to be in the photo.

George is on the left as you look at this photo.

Ah the classic 'Who the fuck are you' pose.

The trick is to smile pleasantly and politely right up until the very last moment before the picture is taken, then get your pose-on.

I have sucessfully employed this technique many times subsequently, resulting in, what I am sure you will agree are some of THE all-time great photographs. It is far funnier when the other people are obviously really putting the effort in to make the photo as good as it can be too....for example here

and here....

or indeed if the 'who the fuck are you' look is entirely necessary, irrespective of any comic value it may have....

or if people think you should be taking the picture more seriously than you in fact are...

under no circumstances should the pose by embellished with hand gestures of any kind, this young man clearly has a lot to learn. sort it out donnelly.

in other news, i also enjoy taking photos of my brother when he is asleep. because its funny. and if we have learned anything from all this, it is that fun is fun.

A little while ago I was a little bored and I 'hilariously' doctored this photo of my friends at Glastonbury (in classic 'pointing into the distance' style).

My friend George had a particularly big afro at the time, and I thought making it even bigger would be funny.

I was right.

Funnier still, when I sent it round to a few mates including everyone actually in the photo (and this is a good 6 months after the photo was taken), none of them even realised it was photo-shopped at all. Their memory was just of George having really crap hair. The ammeneded version of the photo wasn't any different to how they pictured his hair in the minds.

Never mind George. The ladies all loved it....oh hang on...

Anyway, my mate Pete was impressed by my photoshopping expoits and sent me this photo of him on holiday in Rome.

His Girlfriend didnt want the fat guy on the right to be in it and Pete wanted to 'rub him out'. And also remove him from the picture.

Anyway, i made some throw away comment about how i liked his
t-shirt and that I used to have one just the same until I lost it about a year earlier. I may have also added something about how this was a shame because it was my favourite t-shirt.

We continued chitty chatting and got onto what he had done for his birthday, which had been the night before. We also lamented the fact that we hadn't seen each other since his last birthday (when we went down to stay at his place) and could it really have been a year already, blah blah blah blah.

It was at point I realised that Pete was a T-shirt thief who had been totally busted and I began to berate him, possibly using language not repeatable here.

To be fair he admitted the theft but said he didnt know it was my shirt.....

Oh really Pete !

Pete is very naughty boy. And also a fibber (who also seems to enjoy the 'hands in pockets' pose in photographic situations. I guess he would never have fitted in the glastonbury photo above, it just wouldn't have worked).

May mate gaztopher just sent me the pictures of our lads bank holiday excursion to Keswick in the Lake District back in August. Good times. Just to give you a flavour of what was on the agenda before we set off i thought i would include this email from one Mr Robin Huntley I received the day before we set off...

As part of my on going disgust at people who take days off work to do
things other than get shit faced, I would like to refer you all to a
conversation I had 2 minutes ago.

A lass at my work who was coincidentally also going camping to the Lakes
this weekend and, like myself, was also taking this Friday and Monday
off work for her trip is no longer going away (but still having the days
off).

The reason for no longer going, and bear in mind, she is the same age as
all of us lot.

"I'm staying in to get the carpets fitted"

Life on the edge must be truly awesome, I'm seriously thinking of making
a Lance Armstrong style wristband for party people like us to wear, to
promote "get lashed on your day off awareness"

So yeah, that turned out to be pretty much prophetic.

We spent 3 nights on the trot 'dominating' this establishment -

Took lots of photos, all very similar to this one -

Managed to catch up with Professor 'Dexter Fletcher' off the Fast Show who now resides in Keswick -

And generally had a splendid time. My mate Laurie, who is on the far left of this picture, was visibly upset when the fun and games were stopped at 1 a.m one night...

He would later claim he was having a reaction to the air in the smokey bar, but I know what I believe.

The next night, whilst frequenting Keswicks premier Carry-oh-kee bar, one elderly gentleman seemed to get a little over-excited when 'American Pie' was being butchered by a local keswick woman, and proceeded to leave the club. Alas, this was only for him to give himself a little more room in order to perform what can only be described as an 'expressive' dance, out in the street. My mate Robin hated to see him 'working it' all alone, and dashed out to provide him with a dancing partner. They got their 'jig' on. The whole bar followed them outside to cheer them on. It was beautiful. A new friend was made, who then bored us all with some sub-par cricket chat.

Incidentally, whilst rocking the mike in the afformentioned establishment, we made it clear, in no uncertain terms that we were all memebers of the 'TEAM GB' handball squad for the next Olympics and that the tune we were 'performing' was dedicated to our chances. Strangely, nobody appeared to disbelieve us, but neither did they seem to care.

Anyway, 3 nights in the loft is enough for any man, home time.

You will notice the pictorial evidence of our 3 days in the lake district does not include any lakes, or mountains or fields. This, I feel, is accurate.

Oh yeah, before I forget, I quick shout out to some losers.

Earlier that night, some 'hilarious' individuals asked if we could a photo of them. Gaz agreed and left his seat to walk over to a position which I felt was a reasonable photo taking distance away from them. He stood and waited for one of their number to provide him with their camera, as he quite reasonably felt was the standard procedure in such situations. When he had waited a few seconds more than he felt he should have to he even took an picture with the imaginary camera he had to indicate their failure to provide him with a real one. They thought this was hilarious and indulged in some light mocking of Gaz. We were all confused, and a little bored by this point. When they stopped laughing they 'explained' that they wanted Gaz to take a photo of them with his OWN camera. Oh yeah of course. Well cheers for that guys. Here's to you all.

Got another mail from George this morning, at the risk of this turning into the george johnson show, i felt this was funny enough for inclusion.....

georgey porgey pudding and pie kissed the girls and made them cry johnson wrote......

haha i was sleeping with this girl called Summer for a few days, i explained to her why i thought this was funny, however she had sadly never seen neighbours.

ah good times !

Personally I was always a Skye Mangle man. oh yeah.

My mate George, currently getting his 'round the world' on, sent me this email today.......

Hello people,

i would like to share with you a conversation i had in a fast food resturant with the burger girl.

girl - "hi whats up"
me - "hi there, erm, well i'd like a Jr. bacon cheese burger please"
"eat in or take out"
"erm, to go please"
"are you rushin?"
"er, no, just you know, eat as we drive"
"no, are you rushin?"
"am i rushing??"
"yeah"
"oh!... am i Russian!?"
"yeah!"
"erm, no, i'm from England, do i sound Russian?!"
"yeah"
"well i can assure you i'm not" and i smile.

In a nice completion of this story i actually met a Russian guy called George in Las Vegas who was working at a casino. He suggested that maybe my curly hair could be the reason she thought i was Russian. That is i feel being very kind.

George.

Anyway, so this got me thinking about my long lost pal, and I remembered the last time I was in a foreign burger bar with him. I think it was in Paris, and it went something like this.....and 'this' must go down as the shittest ordering of food (of any sort) ever.

server - (in halting english) 'hi what would you like'

george - (in shitty whispery whiny voiced english) - 'errr mucmuffeeeeen'

server - 'what ?'

george - 'errrrrrrrrrrrrrrr mucmufeeeeeeen meal please'

server - 'i not understanding, what would you like to eat'

george - (looking round at us for help in communcating that he wants a fucking mcmuffin meal) 'errrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr mucmuff......'

server - (giving up on the muppet in front of her and punching in god knows what as his order on the till) - 'and to drink ?'

george - (starting to visibly feel the pressure of ordering food by this point) - 'errrrr orange juice'

server - 'what ? a coca cola'

george - (wearing a look of terrible world weariness as he resigns himself to being utterly shit, letting out a sigh as he replies) - 'yes a coca cola please'

Ha ha ha. chump.

But now he is all grown up and not only getting what he ordered in burger bars but also having some passable ruski craic with the (presuambly hot) girl behind the counter. progress.

some things never change however and it would seem that the girl in georges story was not convinced that his command of english was consistent with it being his mother tounge ! god knows where the server in the paris story thought he was from.

Yours in banter,

Stu

Oh yeah, the picture is of George eating a kebab in the middle of a roundabout in wales, big night. Check out the smooth pose coupled with a piece of lettuce in his crotch. classic.

From Guardian.co.uk

A disturbing number of Newcastle fans crowded into St James's Park to see Michael Owen on parade.

He's having a shocker.

I'm only gonna post funny stuff up here, great pizza great times.