Oliver Cranfield was not fat by any means, but he did have a very round face. Bear this fact in mind towards the end of the story, and all will become clear why it is relevant.

So, back when I was about 18, 19-ish, my semi-cousin Ivan and I went to a pub, referred to by locals as the Athy Arms.

After purchasing a pint, we noticed Oliver was also in, so we went to sit with him. I hadn't seen him much since leaving sixth form a few years back, so it was nice to catch up with him. He hadn't changed much, other that he now had spikey hair. We sat there, chatting. We chatted and drank for a few hours.

Back then, you could smoke in pubs. Oliver was a smoker, and his cigs were on the table next to his lighter. He announced he would be "back in a minute" and ventured towards the toilets.

The lighter he left on the table was one of those cheap disposable ones that you can take to pieces, tamper with, and make the flame massive. When I say "massive" I mean change the flame from 2cm to about 30cm, so that it roars as it burns just like they have on oil rigs. You could make the flame that big that you can see the gas bubbling and draining through the translucent sides. It is very dangerous and I do not advocate doing it.

I thought it would be amusing to do this, just for a laugh. Obviously the moment he went to use it I'd stop him. I'd stop him and say something like "Oli! I've made your flame massive, so watch out when you light it!"

So, Oli came back and sat down. He picked up his cigs, took one out and put it in his mouth. I was poised to jump in and warn him just at the most amusing time....... Then he suddenly put his left hand over his cigarette end, like you do when you're outside trying to shield the flame from wind, and whooshed the lighter up in his other hand. If he lit his lighter now, his hand, his nose, his eyes AND his cig were all in severe jeopardy.

I blurted out "WHOA! NO!" which made Oli jump. He froze and stared at me. I said "I've made your lighter flame massive! You'll burn your face off!"

He took down his left hand, gave me a sarcastic look, didn't move his lighter from directly under his cigarette, then suddenly lit it.

The flame WHOOOOSHED up literally 12 inches, singed his cigarette, scorched his eyebrow, and up over his head. He jumped back, not really realising initially what had hapened.

Bear in mind that everyone around the table was just a little bit "very drunk", including me. Oliver looked at me, and I looked at Oliver. In fact everyone at our table looked at Oliver, amazed he'd survived. We were all drunk, so we all slowly tried to make sense of what just happened.

Although we could all see, Oliver hadn't yet realised that a few strands of his spikey hair at the front were on fire, and that the flames were slowly burning their way towards his head. WE could all see, and none of us could comprehend why he didn't also know. So we just stared at him.

He didn't change his sarcastic expression at all. He just sat there, staring at me, smoldering.

With his spikey hair slowly burning down onto his round head, honestly, my initial thought was "Oh my GOD! OLIVERS HEAD LOOKS LIKE A BOMB!"

We all stared at him for what seemed like minutes, with him staring back at us. We all watched the flames slowly descend. Finally, he must have felt the burn, and he brought his hand up and smacked his own forehead to extinguish the flame.

He was mightily displeased, which I thought was unfair. He'd brought joy to many spectators, but still seemed quite grumpy. After a few minutes of me apologising, Oli checking his hair in the mirror, we agreed that it wasn't really noticable. Only a couple of strands had been removed, and unless you knew where to look, you really couldn't tell.

We finished our drinks, I apologised to Oli for igniting his head, and Ivan and I left.

The day after, Ivan told Neil about what had happened. Neil found it funny and decided to also tell everyone that he knew about what had happened, but that they shouldn't tell Oliver that they knew about it. Instead, they should stare at his head and say "What the hell happened to your hair?!?"

So for the next three months, every time Oliver saw anyone that he knew from school, they ALWAYS asked why his head looked odd, which probably made him hate me more.

I laugh when people slip on ice and fall over in the street.

I don't just mean I laugh, but I LAUGH. I laugh a lot. Often, I point and laugh. I do it far too much to be socially polite.

The more arm-flailing they do on their way down, the more I laugh. Their arm-speed is usually a great indication of how funny I will actually find it.

If they are walking normally and their foot shoots out from under them, but they manage to swap from one foot to the other in mid-air and STILL fall over, I'm in hysterics. I like to think that it looks like they're kicking an invisible snowman. "If I'm going down, you're coming with me you invisible man-made snow creature!"

If it's someone that I know, then I'm really sorry, it makes it funnier still. If I know you in real life, and I often see you walking about on your feet, to see you suddenly not on your feet is really amusing. Amusing to the point of..... VERY.

In fact at school, years ago WAY before I got so old, Damien Johnson slipped and fell on the school "skiddy patch" outside the IT block. He slipped over face first and broke his glasses. He sat there, blood oozing from his nose, picked up his glasses, put them wonkily back on his face, tried to stand up, slipped again and re-smacked his face on the floor. My cheeks ached for about a week.

If it was a combination of all the above and someone that I knew was walking outside, started to flail about, swapped feet in mid-air, kicked a snowman, whooshed down and hit the floor bum-first it would be so funny, I'd probably just wee there and then.

I mentioned a few months back that our drinks machine at work had different strength sachets of coffee, ranging from 1 to 7. (click here for a recap) Although they go from 1 to 7, none of the coffees were of strength 1. It has bothered me daily since.

So I filled in the "contact us" section of the Flavia website.

Inquiry Type: Question
First name: Craig
Last name: Anderson
How did you learn about FLAVIA: We use Flavia here.

Message Text: The coffee sachets that you sell range in strength from 1 to 7, but none of the coffees are strength 1.

Why is that?

Even the decaf is strength 2.

Why doesn't the scale go from 1 to 6 instead of 1 to 7?

I soon received a reply.....

From: On Behalf Of Flavia
Sent: 11 December 2008 09:45
To: Craig Anderson
Cc: Flavia
Subject: RE: Contact Me Regarding myflavia.com
Dear Mr Anderson,

Thank you for contacting Flavia with your inquiry. We appreciate hearing from you and will be happy to help you out.

We rate them on a scale of 1-5.

Our ratings are:
Mild #2
Medium #3
Strong #4
Strongest #5
Sumatra (5+)

Our flavoured coffee (Hazelnut) is not rated by strength.

You can see these ratings on the product menu on www.myflavia.com
This page will detail out the strength ratings
and you can make your selections accordingly.

Once again, thank you for contacting Flavia. Please feel free to contact us again should you need further assistance. Have a great day!

Sincerely,
Flavia Customer Service

It's really good that they reply to people so promptly. I've contacted a few companies over the years that don't get back to you, or acknowledge that you've asked for something to happen but don't bother instigating your request. Flavia, on the other hand, did a fine job of getting back to me.

The one small thing that they didn't do is answer my original question.

This warranted a reply....

> -----Original Message-----
From: Craig Anderson
Sent: Thursday, December 11, 2008 12:19 PM
To: Flavia
Subject: RE: Contact Me Regarding myflavia.com

Hi again.

Thanks for your reply explaining the strength-of-coffee situation, but your reply raises further questions.

If the coffees are rated from 1 to 5, then why do our sachets here show 1 to 7?

Also, why are there no coffees of strength 1, 6, or 7? They all range in strength from 2 to 5.

So if none of the coffees are strength 1, 6, or 7, they why don't you move the numbers down so the strength indicators go from 1 to 4?

By the way, I'm not complaining, I'm just really curious.

Craig Anderson.

I thought that was nice and concise. Nice short email, that gets straight to the point. But would they have an answer...

> -----Original Message-----
From: Flavia
Sent: 12 December 2008 15:22
To: Craig Anderson; Flavia
Subject: RE: Contact Me Regarding myflavia.com

Dear Mr Anderson,

We apologize for the mistake as it is just a print mistake on the filterpacks and the range should go from 1 to 5 and not 1 to 7.

Have a nice day.

Sincerely,
Flavia Customer Service

They answered the "6 and 7" thing, but I was still none the wiser about the lack of "1"s in the range.

I didn't think I was getting my point across fully, and felt this needed addressing. I replied, but concentrating on just the lack of "1"s.

From: Craig Anderson
Sent: Friday, December 12, 2008 6:15 PM
To: Flavia
Subject: RE: Contact Me Regarding myflavia.com

Hi.

Thanks for your reply, clarifying the situation regarding the 6's and 7's. I now understand about those two, and will ignore them. Phew! That is one big load off my mind!

The only tiny thing I still don't understand is, the point from my original cantact, that none of the coffees are strength 1. The scale goes from 1 to 5, but no coffees seem to be strength 1.

Even in your explanation of the ratings, your description started at #2 (Mild), omitting #1 entirely.

So do the coffee strengths actually only go from 2 to 5?

It's a bit of an anomaly if they do as all other scales, as far as I can see through personal experience and extensive internet research, start at 1. They HAVE to, otherwise it's like asking someone how much they like something on a scale of 4 to 9, or asking someone to give a rating on a scale of 1 to 5, but not to use 1.

If "1" is a secret flavour that only Flavia employees are allowed to know about, don't worry - I won't tell anyone! You can let me in on the secret, secure in the knowledge that this inside information will go no further. Your secret will be safe with me!

So, just to recap....... What is strength 1? Is it a secret flavour?

Are there any coffees that are strength 1?

And if there are no coffees of strength 1, does your strength scale actually go from 2 to 5?

Thank you so much for tolerating my questions! I was worried that I might get ignored as my questions may seem petty and argumentative. I really do not mean them to be, and I do feel bad for pestering you, but you are my only hope in a world of chaos.

Craig Anderson.

They COULDN'T avoid answering my original question now, could they? That was all I'd asked them.

-----Original Message-----
From: Flavia
Sent: 15 December 2008 12:44
To: Craig Anderson; Flavia
Subject:RE: Contact Me Regarding myflavia.com

Dear Mr Anderson,

Thank you for your update.

We have no answer yet and are dealing with this matter.

Best regards,

Flavia Customer Service

DAMN! Fobbed off!

I'll wait a week, then email back asking if they have dealt with it yet.

Wesley is a very good mate that I met about 10 years ago, when I worked where I used to work.

But he doesn't appreciate stupid people.

He lives in Manchester, and we were due to meet up at the Middlebrook shopping estate in Bolton, so on this occasion he decided to drive to come to me.

All he knew was that "Middlebrook" was near "Bolton", so he followed the signs from the motorway for Bolton. When he reached Bolton, he couldn't see any signs for Middlebrook, so pulled into a car park to ask someone directions.

He wound the window down, and called across to a nearby man.

"S'cuse me mate, I'm trying to get to Middlebrook. Where am I now?"

The man looked around for a minute..... "....Netto."

Instantly, Wes became enraged, but trying to control his temper replied, "I know I'm in Netto car park, yeah? But where AM I? Am I near to Middlebrook?"

"Ooooh, Middlebrook...." the man pondered.

"Yeah, Middlebrook. It's a big shopping thing, yeah? DO YOU KNOW WHERE I MEAN?"

(At thie point, Wes briefly blacked out with anger. Don't worry, no people were harmed.)

Wes, after getting no nearer to finding answers a few questions later, waved at the man, smiled through gritted teeth, wound his window up and wheel-span off the car park. Then he rang me, just to rant about the conversation.

One hour later, he turned up. I was starving after waiting for so long, so he bought me a Burger King meal.

Acronyms are ace.

In case you have no idea what an acronym is, it's where you take the first letters of a few words that are commonly said together.

Like... FYI is the acronym of "For Your Information"

LOL is the acronym of Laugh Out Loud.

I like to explain what acronyms are to someone, just to confirm that they understand them, and then ask them what the acronym of "if not, why not" is, as in "Have you sent a letter to them yet, and if not why not?"

Written down it's easy to see that it should be I.N.W.N.

But when you ask someone verbally to do it, because the word "WHY" is in the phrase, most people substitute the W for a Y.

(I say "most people" because I have asked 6 people to date, and 5 of them got it wrong, although the 6 people I have asked may not be a true reflection of the population as a whole.)

So explain acronyms to someone, then ask them what "If not why not" would be in acronym form.

Have you seen the cover of Stevie Wonders new album?

No? Neither has he.

I say that because I was thinking of having a retro-joke-of-the-day thing on 80sNostalgia, but I'm hard pressed to come up with 10, let alone 365 of them.

Some of them aren't specific to the 80s, like the Stevie Wonder one. He's still blind, even today. Although today it's less PC to mock someones disabilities.

Speaking of PC-ness, I can't even give you the punchline to this next joke....

A guy goes into a train station and asks for a "Firsd Class Ticked to Dottingham."

The station master looks puzzledly at him. "A Firsd Class Ticked to Dottingham Please" the man repeats, apparently with a very blocked nose.

You need Tunes, the station master informs the bunged-up man, and produces a packet of cherry menthol Tunes from his pocket.

"Why?" asked the bunged up man........

....and the punchline is SOOOO un-PC that I really can't repeat it nowadays. Ironically, 20 years ago it was hysterical.

But some jokes are totally 80s.

What gobbles and won't see Christmas?
Kenny Everett.

and....

What had four legs and goes woof?
Piper Alpha.

Why is Prince Charles's bits a funny colour?
He keeps sticking it in dye.

All absolute gems, but so few of them come back to memory. I'm sure there must have been far more than this, as we told each other loads of jokes at school.

Shirley was one of those ace mysterious people who, even after talking to for months, you still knew very little about.

4 years ago, the business that I worked at moved buildings. We went from a small building with no ameneties into a massive 3 floored one. This new building had many new luxuries, like a bistro, a lift and a massive car park.

The following brief story starts after we'd been in the new building for about a year, and easily found our way around everything in there.

Sheila noticed one time that in the lift, on the floor, there was a puddle. She went to tell Shirley about it.

"Shirley, there's been a spillage in the lift," she informed her.

Shirley became puzzled and asked "Which lift?"

Sheila became puzzled too. "THE lift..." She pondered for a moment, wondering if there was a second lift that she didn't know about.

"No, the lift on which floor?" asked Shirley.

Sheila broke it to her about the lift... "It's the same lift on all floors....it's just one small room on a wire that goes up and down behind the wall."

We told our kids from a very young age that there is no such thing as Father Christmas. I think they were 2 or 3 years old when we told them. It wasn't to spoil it for them, it was so they could appreciate that the presents they recieve come from us, the people that love them, not from a stranger with an endless supply of money.

So every time we saw a "have your photo taken with Santa" opportunity anywhere, the kids knew it wasn't Santa in there. Just a man in a red suit and a fake beard. Just because a stranger looks friendly doesn't mean he isn't still one of those "strangers" that we teach our kids not to talk to.

So, our daughter got invited to a Christmas party. There were a few younger and a few older kids at this party, all being little kids and playing party games. Then, near the end of the party, Father Christmas appeared! He walked through the room, waving at children, bellowing "Ho Ho Ho" and carrying a sackful of presents.

One of the younger kids started crying, and covered his head with his arms. Our daughter went up to him and asked him what was the matter.

"Someone told me Santa doesn't exist!" he wailed.

She put her arm around the 7 year old and said "He doesn't exist. He's not existed ever. But if you smile at him you'll get a present!"

Not quite the values we intended to instill....

How woefully ill-prepared is the UK for simple things like... snow? I left the house this morning at 7:30, and arrived at work at 11:30. I live 4 miles away. I didn't get lost or anything, the traffic took that long. That's a speed of 1 mile per hour, due to snow.

In Canada, if it snows, nothing much changes. Work carries on. People still get to where they need to be.

My mate Dave once told me about a Canadian relative of his, who discovered he had a flat tyre one morning on his car. He went outside to change the tyre in blizzard-like conditions, wearing snow goggles, 5 layers of clothes and hiking boots, on the understanding that if he was outside for more than 10 minutes, someone come and get him so he would be less likely to die.

10 minutes after he had left the house, one of his kids went out to remind him that 10 minutes had elapsed. When he came in, it had been that cold outside, that behind his snow goggles his contact lenses were frozen onto his eyes.

But he thawed out for half an hour or so, then went outside to finish the job.

Here, in the UK, on the first day of ANY snow, EVERYTHING stops. Trains stop. Traffic stops. Pedestrians fall over. Accidents happen. Cars slide all over the place. It becomes mayhem. TURMOIL! ALL BECAUSE OF FROZEN WATER FALLING FROM THE SKY, WHERE WATER FALLS FROM ALL THE TIME!

WHY DON'T PEOPLE IN CHARGE REMEMBER THAT SNOW OFTEN OCCURS AT THIS TIME EVERY YEAR? IF THEY AT LEAST MADE A NOTE, THEN THEY COULD INTRODUCE STEPS TO MINIMISE THE CHAOS.

It's like McDonalds. When you turn up to buy food at DINNER TIME, they have nothing in stock! "12.00pm" happens EVERY DAY! There is a "dinner time" every day, and yet every day at "dinner time" they have nothing prepared! NO! YOU'RE KIDDING! THERE'S A 12PM TODAY TOO?!? BUT... THERE WAS ONE YESTERDAY! TODAY, THERE'S ANOTHER?!?

So, yeah, snow. It's just really cold water falling slowly from the sky, but it grinds the UK to a complete standstill.

Peter Lewis was a short man, who wore exceedingly long, high trousers. There used to be an in-joke that when he went to buy trousers, they didn't ask what size waist he was, but what size neck.

Many of the people who worked for him, (for he was in charge of a huge department where I used to work,) didn't like him. He was more often than not angry at people. He stomped around shouting abuse, and he used to sack people on the spot, years before all the HR nonsence was brought in that made it illegal.

But I thought he was great.

I realised, after working there for a year, that he only shouted and screamed at you if you worked on commission. If your earnings directly affected his, then he didn't like you working slowly. I was on a salary, so his reasoning must have been that if he did shout at me, I still wouldn't have brought any more money in. It would have been pointless.

So I like to think that we became friends.

He used to ask the sales people to work weekends on a rota basis. One Saturday he asked Matt to man the phones. While Matt was in on the Saturday, rather than do any work, when the phone rang he'd cut the caller off by picking up the receiver and putting it straight back down again. Legend has it that Peter came in one Saturday, peered through the door, rang reception himself and caught Matt cutting callers off.

The next working day, Matt came in and took his normal place on the desk and started doing normal work. When Peter came in, he called over to Matt across the office and said "Matt! You're going on a BIIIG journey!" Matt, thinking he was doing an errand somewhere in the building for Peter, shouted back "Shall I leave my coat?" to which Peter shouted "Nope!"

Matt left 50 seconds later.

Pete asked me to go to fit his new car stereo one time. While I was there, with all manner of wires hanging out of Petes car, my mobile went off. I read the text, and headed back to work to tell Pete I had to go home urgently.

"I need to go home." I said to Pete when I got back, breathless. "Bev's gone into labour!"

Pete became annoyed and shouted "NO! This is not the best time to change political parties!"

"No, I mean, she's...."

"Best you be off then!" he butted in and winked.

Another ace things that Pete did one day was to go into his office and draw the blinds. This meant that there would soon be a sacking.

He came out a few minutes later, wearing a full suit. When sacking people, he always liked to look his best. He called in one of the lads. They went in, they were there for a couple of minutes, then they came out, grabbed their coat and left. They'd been sacked.

Then Pete popped his head out again and called another person in. They were soon on their way too.

This went on for a few people, until he popped his head out, and beckoned me with his "GET IN HERE HIPPY!" call. I was slightly puzzled, as I walked to the office. I hadn't done anything wrong, hadn't cost the company money, hadn't been caught cutting people off..... why was I being sacked?

When I stepped in, he barked "CLOSE THE DOOR!", which I did.

All the preceding visitors had all been sacked, so I stood there, looking at him, expecting to be given the chop.

He looked at me..... "..... You know in Excel?" he finally said, enjoying the silence slightly too much.

"..... yeah?" I replied, puzzled.

"How can I get the numbers to add up across here?" he said, pointing at his screen.

I went over, clicked and typed a few things, and said "like that."

"Oh! Thanks, Hippy!" he smiled, and pointed towards the way out.

"Was that it?" I questioned.

"Do you WANT to be sacked?" he asked, jokingly.

"Well.... I feel a little let down really," I admitted. "Everyone else has."

"Sorry, not today."

"Well, can I at least pretend I've been sacked? Can I stomp out, shout something back at you, slam your door and stomp off for a bit?"

He grinned, "Whatever turns you on, you weird hippy man!"

So I opened his door, stepped outside muttering something in a disappointly quiet tone about "keeping his flippin' job", slammed his door and walked back to my desk. For the next 4 hours, people were not sure whether they could talk to me, or whether I had been sacked or not.

Peter Lewis rocked!