Wednesday, August 15, 2007

RUBBISH URBAN MYTHS AND LIES

1) SHIT-EATING ALLIGATORS

Grown men - grown fucking men with professional jobs -I'm talking doctors and lawyers - used to sit around in private clubs discussing the giant alligators that supposedly roamed the sewers of Hampstead and Belsize Park. This has to be the most pathetic London urban myth ever spawned. Oh, that the toffee-nosed denizens of Hampstead Village HAD encountered 800lb of scaley green death! Luckily, I haven't heard anyone come out with this rubbish for years. If they do, tell them to fuck off. It's the urban myth equivalent of a 'Knock Knock' joke.

2) THE MENSTRUATING AUSSIE SLAG

"My mate met this Aussie girl down a club in Shoreditch...they were getting on really well, she seemed really cool...anyway, he went back to her place, and she turned round and said, 'I'm on the rags at the moment, so you'll have to woof me up the shitter'."

I've heard this from THREE separate people. Now, EITHER these people are all mates with the same guy, who's obviously misconstrued this incident as being the stuff of immortal anecdote. OR it's yet another urban myth, spreading like herpes across the watering holes of London. Or maybe it's a line from some obscure, cult film and these sneaky liars think they're being clever. Or maybe I just don't meet enough Australian girls.

3) NATIONAL FRONT AIDS SYRINGES

Back when everyone was panicking about AIDS and thought you could catch it off toilet seats or cheese rolls, a hundred urban myths went into circulation about the fatal condition. The most idiotic one was that the NF were somehow affixing the tips of syringes, dipped in AIDS-infected blood, to the backs of their propaganda posters -meaning you risked a death sentence if you tried to tear them down.

I'm not sure how this rumour ever started. Did it originate from the NF themselves? If so, it was tantamount to admitting that their members had a reservoir of AIDS-infected blood on tap, which isn't very 'master race'. It did make them seem really sinister though, like a shadowy underground organisation of highly-skilled, blood-sucking assassins and toxic terrorists - IF YOU WERE SEVEN YEARS OLD. Which I was.

There was a similar rumour about prostitute phonebox cards. Woe betide the moralist who tore TS Tony's details from the window, only to find themselves jabbed by the, er, non-existent AIDS spike of death.

4) THE HIGHGATE VAMPIRE

Ditto number one, but about a vampire prowling Highgate Cemetery. Admittedly, this one was quite funny, culminating in some right-wing nutcase being jailed for fiddling with a corpse, and a kid-fiddling magician accidentally burning down his flat during a Pan-summoning rite. The vampire was allegedly killed, or exorcised, or whatever you call twatting a vampire. However, it's more likely that the vampire was actually the reanimated corpse of Karl Marx, and as we all know, Marxism never dies.

5) I WRECKED THE BLUE PETER GARDEN

If all the people who've claimed responsibility for trashing the Blue Peter Garden really had been there in 1983, there'd have been queues of teenage vandals stretching down to Shepherds Bush tube station.

This myth has become the Holy Grail for liars and braggarts, with third-rate footballers, shit rock stars and halfwit TV presenters all pretending to have played a part in wrecking the venue of the awful children's show. The real wreckers are hardly going to come forward and say "Actually, we did it and here's the proof", and end up getting charged. Which makes the people pretending to have been there utter cowards.

6) I NICKED A TRAIN

I don't know where this one came from either, but every couple of years, you always meet someone who tells you they once nicked a train when they were younger. They literally walked into the driver's carriage (which was conveniently empty and unlocked), flicked on the switch (it's always 'the switch') and took the train to the next station. After knowing full well how to bring the train to a halt, the prankster was collared by the station master and handed to the police. The police, conveniently, gave the offender a slap on the wrist and let him (I've never heard a woman tell this story) off with a caution - but it was well funny! OH FUCK OFF, you never even nicked a Mars bar.

7) THE MUSLIMS NEARLY SNUFFED ME OUT!

And all of you "Shit, I would have been on that tube!" types who work and live nowhere near the blast zones can fuck off with your "stoic" recollections of 7/7.

8) KENTUCKY FRIED RAT

One of the cretinous relatives of the idiot who married my sister (proof of his stupidity couldn't be more evident) once came up with this old chestnut - a visit to KFC, then on to the cinema, the crunchy, unpleasant tasting meal in the dark, and then discovering that the box contains a rat's head, floating in a pool of grease.

Yeah yeah, only everyone's heard this a million times. I'm not denying that it's easy to mistake the shit that KFC sells the public for genuine rat. But, if urban myths 5 to 7 highlight a tragic, juvenile desire for attention based on fantastic daydreams of action and machismo, this myth's more of a masochistic cry for help. That's what I'd say if I was a psychologist, anyway. The funniest thing is that the people who come out with this one and expect you to be shocked and impressed don't realise that the bloke behind the counter probably lobbed a wad of watery jizz into their coleslaw - which they heartily smeared all over their fries, while working out which urban myth to adopt next.

9) THE DOG THAT SAYS 'SAUSAGES'

This isn't common at all, but some complete cunt from an advertising agency tried to bullshit me that his grandmother's pet terrier used to say 'sausages'. I pointed out that the dog that says 'sausages' was a 20-year old story from a deeply shit BBC 'current affairs' programme, and he said "Oh, was it?" and looked slightly uncomfortable - but not nearly uncomfortable and ashamed enough to ponder the emptiness of his existence and to do the right thing with a razor blade in a piping hot bath - more's the pity. He's never invited me out for a drink since. Fucking loser.
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