Category - Funny

Insensitive? Moi?

09/08/2011
DOAADI
ADI, Funny, Training

Insensitive Driving School

I saw this cartoon and it made me laugh.

Funnily enough, though, I sometimes use that line with my pupils! When I know I can get away with it, of course.

But it’s even better when I ask them how they thought something went – when it didn’t – and they say it themselves.

On a slightly different note, I was out with a pupil yesterday. He is classic “that was crap” territory – everything he does is “absolute shit” unless it is 100% right in his eyes. Even when what he’s done is perfectly OK, he’ll decide it isn’t and go into a sulk over it.

One of his more irritating habits is his defensiveness, which often manifests itself as having an answer for everything. I may have mentioned before the time when I was trying to get him to tell me why getting too close to the kerb with the risk of hitting it is dangerous and expensive. I’d managed to get to the part about the damage it can do to the tyre, and asked rhetorically who he thought had to pay for it. He came back with “Me! I’ll pay for it, obviously.”

I just said “look. Let’s get this straight. You are NOT going to drive into the kerb”.

Anyway, he was off on another of his bizarre thought process excursions yesterday. He’d stalled at a roundabout by trying to move off too quickly in the wrong gear. He was annoyed that he’d done it, so it snowballed for a few hundred metres (with him forgetting to get in lane for a right turn, not checking his mirrors or signalling, and so on) until I could pull him over.

Now, the reason he’d messed up on the roundabout was dead simple. He’d intended not to stop, was going too fast as a result, had to stop for a car which appeared after he’d made his initial decision to go, then rushed moving off without having changed gear.

His explanation was far more entertaining, though. He started with:

Well, let me just stop you there. I can tell you exactly why that happened. About 40 seconds ago further down the road…

Bollocks-o-meter

At this point, my “You’re Talking Total Bollocks-o-meter” had maxed out… he continued with some stuff about another car, and how it had distracted him by pulling out. I listened patiently until he’d finished. I just said “I’m sorry, but that’s a load of bollocks, Dave!”

I went on to question why something that happened 40 seconds ago should in any way justify a dangerous attempt to pull out without checking properly and the subsequent need to brake harshly. I questioned why the same event had apparently led to dangerous omissions from that point onward.

I asked him if it would be OK to drive into a brick wall at 70mph, just because another car had caused some sort of distraction.

He had to admit that it wouldn’t.

From there, we had a chance to discuss the importance of planning ahead and not backwards.

Too Stupid for Words (or a Licence)

02/08/2011
DOAADI
ADI, DSA, Funny

This classic yarn is covered by The Guardian. Also in the Daily Mail.

Hadi Mohammed had failed his test five times, so he got Derbas Hamed (who had a full licence) to take the test for him. Mohammed is a former Iraqi police officer.

What happened was this:

  • Hamed drove to the test alone
  • He took the test as Mohammed, but failed with 16 faults
  • Suspicious staff called the police

The article says:

When the police interviewed Mr Hamed at first he gave his name as Mr Mohammed but when he was arrested he confessed. When Mr Mohammed was also arrested he said he had been too tired to take the test.

I love this part. The usual idiotic mitigation spiel by Mohammed’s lawyer:

My client did not actively commit the deception and played a secondary part.

It was an extremely unsophisticated fraud, ridiculously unsophisticated and amateurish. He got nowhere near succeeding and is thoroughly ashamed.

Utter bollocks. He had every hope that it would succeed, but was too stupid to realise it probably wouldn’t the way he was doing it. The frightening thing is that with a few tweaks it could easily have worked. The lawyer adds:

Since coming to this country from Iraq he is desperate to find work and needs a driving licence.

Exactly.That’s why he did it. It’s the only reason: it was for his benefit.

Even better is the Recorder’s summing up:

This is a very serious offence and had you both been successful a completely unqualified driver and not a very good one at that would have been let loose on the roads.

This would have meant a danger to other road-users and only a custodial sentence is justified. I do not accept Mr Hamed’s contention that he failed the test deliberately.

So Hamed reckoned he failed deliberately! I wonder how much he was paid?

Mohammed was jailed for two months, and Hamed (already with form for fraud whilst impersonating someone for the theory test) for three.

You couldn’t make it up, could you?

Dead Parrot Sketch

23/07/2011
DOAADI
ADI, Funny, General

I love this one from the Daily Mirror in the week!

ParrotA father-of-eight (good start) was involved in a high-speed police chase through Portsmouth at 3.30 in the morning. The chase lasted for two miles and four minutes, and ended with John Williams crashing into a fence.

Williams tried to blame the episode over grief at the death of his pet parrot.

Bearing in mind that Williams has a list of previous convictions (he’s been banned from driving nine times, and at the time of the incident was on bail for stealing from a car and going equipped for theft. He was later jailed for 25 weeks for that) it is hardly surprising that he “panicked” when a police car started following him on his 3.30am drive.

He was jailed for a further 4 months and banned for another three years. Not referring to Williams, but speaking hypothetically about someone I made up with similar previous form, such a sentence could easily translate as only being banned for a couple of months until they get out and start driving in the middle of the night again. I just wonder what excuse such a person would have next time now the parrot one has been used up?

Stop the Pigeon!

04/07/2011
DOAADI
ADI, Funny

I was on a lesson Saturday with a pupil and we were doing the parallel park exercise. Part of the way I teach it to most pupils involves reversing the car back to an angle of about 45° (half past one, or whatever), and to do that most of them need to look for where that is and pick a sort of reference point (until they can do it without).

My pupil had reversed back to her starting position, so I asked:

Have you picked your reference?

She thought for a moment, and said:

Yes. That pigeon.

There was a wood pigeon walking on the grass. I replied:

Don’t you think it would make sense to pick something a little less animated? You know, less likely to fly off in the middle of it? How about that big tree stump that the pigeon is standing in front of?

A few seconds later it DID fly off, which enabled me to be even more witty!

Mind you, a couple of years ago I was with another pupil on the same manoeuvre. When I asked him what reference he’d chosen he said:

That plastic bag.

The wind was blowing a plastic carrier bag across a field, and it had come to a temporary rest.

And then another time on the same manoeuvre, a pupil did the whole thing perfectly. After I’d congratulated him I asked how he had managed to get the 45° position. He ruined it all by saying:

I used that blue building over there because that’s what we used the last time we came here.

And once, when reversing around a sharp corner just prior to her test, I asked a pupil how she had determined that she was at the right place to turn, she said:

I lined that Post Box up in the corner of the window.

Language can be very confusing all round. A while back a Chinese pupil completely ignored a speed limit change from 40mph down to 30mph. When I questioned her over it, she said it “wasn’t very clear”. In fact, the signs were visible a quarter of a mile away, were about 1.5 metres in diameter, and had their own lights – plus, I had narrated the approach as follows:

Now plan ahead… [nothing]… look at the signs… [nothing].. what is the speed limit..? [nothing as we sailed through]

It turned out that when she panicked she saw things in Chinese! It would be like me going to China and having to make a snap decision between two routes signposted in Mandarin Chinese. I’d have no chance.

But my most recent one was last week with a new pupil whose native language is Urdu, and whose English is not perfect. At least half a dozen times, when I said “keep left” as he wandered wide he tried to do a sharp left turn in response - twice when there was nowhere to actually turn left into. All he heard was “left”. I’ve told him I am not able to teach him and have given him some phone numbers of Urdu-speaking instructors.

The Darwin Awards 2011: Competition Hots Up

20/06/2011
DOAADI
Funny, General

I love this story on the BBC. Apparently, people visiting Holy Island (the Lindisfarne one) in Northumberland keep ignoring signs warning that the causeway joining the island to the mainland is only passable at low tide.

Warning Sign on CausewayAs you can see, the signs are extremely misleading and could easily be misinterpreted by, say, an orang-utan or perhaps a small dog. But you’d think that those who outwardly resemble humans would understand (even if they are Australian).

Not so. The story reports that an Australian couple were the eighth rescue the Seahouses RNLI crew has had to make this year alone.They were in a hire car, and that has been written off as a result.

The thing is, it’s not just the signs. Unless the locals have a very warped sense of humour, chances are they are telling everyone repeatedly not to venture on to the causeway when the tide is coming in.

A couple of years ago islanders specifically warned a man to leave the island before the tide came in, otherwise he would get stuck.

He pooh-poohed it, saying it was just something to frighten tourists, but half an hour later he was hanging onto the roof of his car and his wife was up to her chest in water, clinging on to their two children.

Imagine that. Someone who wasn’t aware of what tides are all about, visiting a place where access is tide-dependent, thinking he knew better - and being allowed to have kids.

Must be a front runner for this year’s Darwin Award.

Angel of Death: Update

03/05/2011
DOAADI
ADI, Funny, General

Birch PollenFurther to the story about birch pollen “ripping” paint off cars – and you wouldn’t believe how many hits on that exact search phrase I’ve had – mine is still firmly attached to the car and I haven’t felt ill or anything (I am the first born son).

It looks like the Angel of Death gave the UK a miss after all, so I can only assume it was all media paranoia again.

Royal Wedding? Phooey!

28/04/2011
DOAADI
ADI, Funny, General

Puking DogA nice article in The Spoof. It just about sums up the way I feel about the Royal Wedding.

As they say, we’re shipping the cranks in from all four corners of the globe – and that’s like we didn’t have enough of our own already. Mind you, the foreign ones are not as bad as our homegrown ones. People from overseas (well, apart from the Americans) are just over here to see a spectacle – they’re tourists.

Our lot (and the Americans) are a few olives short of a pizza.

They’ve been sleeping out on the pavement for days already. At any other time you’d get arrested for that. Clad in cheap plastic Union Jack hats and waving flags left over from England’s attempt to play football at last years World Cup (and yes, we all know those flags are overstock, otherwise they’d be Union Jacks), you can’t help wonder how they go to the toilet – though I suspect it involves swapping bags over in many cases.

We’ve had weeks of it – and there are weeks still to come as the paperazzi follow them on honeymoon, and then the newspapaers get in trouble for going too far. Again. And after that will be their “first” Christmas as a married couple at Balmoral, their “first” Royal engagement as a married couple, their “first” (this makes me shiver) trip to the USA as a married couple, and so on.

Even now, the BBC news is rattling on about it – no mention of the impending Biblical Plague (aka “high pollen count”) which is due to sandblast the entire country anytime now. Obviously, it’s far more important to keep interviewing dysfunctional Americans about why they are here.

When you look at it, all it is is some bloke and his bird getting hitched.

Last week I was on a lesson and there was a car decked out in flags, and the silly woman driving it was wearing a red and white wig, and red and white everything else (so far as I could tell without getting intimate). And the number of houses with flags hanging outside is surprising in this day and age.

I’m working tomorrow. I hope I don’t get held up by any bloody street parties.

I have also managed to resist the temptation to use the obvious sort of graphic to go with this article.