As Is an old man's wont, while searching for some vaguely remembered info that I currently need, I've been looking back over some ancient posts dating as far back as the creation of this forum and the Great Forum Wars of 2013. While saddened by all the once familiar but now 'deleted' names such as Crow, Agger, Pop540, hob, Hampshireman et al, I nevertheless found myself laughing out loud at some of the contributions.

We all seemed to be much more irreverent and inclined to have a bit of fun in the good old days. We seldom see humour and good-natured ribbing between contributors now. Perhaps we are all too wary of being accused of being somethingist or wotsitphobic?

What made me laugh? Well, here are a couple of contributions from the great Pepé le Pew to illustrate the point I'm making.

In response to Rod/Crow(deleted) who was fancying a trip to York out of season to avoid the crowds, here's Pete's reply:

York is always rammed. Always.

It's a pretty place sure enough, but once you've seen one Shambles you've seen them all and the middle of town has got exactly the same selection of boring shops as every other city in the country. In other words, don't trail all the way up north to buy your pants in the York branch of Marks and Sparks because the pants in the Bristol branch are identical.

The big church cathedrally thing is quite nice, and the view from the top of the tower is good, but then you'd expect anywhere that high up to have a good view.

Don't bother with Betty's. You'll queue for yonks for a brew and a teacake you could get at the side of any A road for a tenth of the price, if that. People go to Betty's because they think they ought to go to Betty's.

The Jorvik thing is okay, but you'll have to wait in an interminable line of tiny little Japanese people chattering thirteen to the dozen and taking countless photographs of anything and everything.

And as for the authentic Viking smells inside, well, I can do better than that all by myself after a skinful of Scruttocks' Old Dirigible.

I would seriously recommend sitting at home in front of the computer with a cup of tea instead. There's next to nothing you can see in York itself that you can't see on Streetview, and smelly foreigners don't keep getting in the way.

Tha kno's.

.
It was the 'Tha kno's' that cracked me up.

And what about this for a piece of inspired lunacy from the same contributor?

It was about a quarter past ten.

The bathroom window was pushed wide, the velvet night outside still warm, the sky still alight with the tattered remnants of cloud burnt and glowing from the August sunset; ethereal embers edging the darkening firmament, a firmament shaded from an intense ochre at the horizon to a midnight blue *****ed with the ghostly sparkle of early stars directly overhead.

The last blackbird chinked in the holly; not the urgent alarm triggered by a silent cat stealing almost unnoticed through the long grass, head down, shoulders hunched, tail-tip twitching and hunting noiselessly, but the relaxing chink of ice in scotch.

It had been a fine day. A day of rewarding work outside which had left me pleasantly weary, a weariness made more pleasant still by a bellyful of food and several cool beers, the first two of which were now describing a satisfyingly glittering arc into the water closet as I leant indolently against the wall.

Weariness began to be replaced by the kind of tiredness that only a cool bed could satisfy as I ran the toothbrush under the tap and squeezed a little toothpaste onto the wet bristles.

I have seen The Lost World, and The Land That Time Forgot. I have watched all three of the Jurassic Park films, and marvelled at the recreation of long extinct giants which once ruled our world. I think I would be able to recognise a pterodactyl if one flew in through the open window.

So I stood ptransfixed, with ptoothpaste and spittle dribbling down my chin as something which was by any sane measure only marginally smaller than a pterodactyl crashed into the room.

I'm ashamed to say that I squeaked a toothpastey squeak, retreated as far as I could - which was about a foot, it being an economically-sized en-suite - and began to flap my arms about like a hapless girl in a cheap horror film when she is attacked by an infeasibly rubbery bat on a piece of string.

This thing - this goliath of mothdom - clattered towards my head like a Fokker Triplane piloted by the begoggled Beelzebub himself. I saw a look of such wicked malevolence that I cannot describe in every one of the hundreds of facets of its ghastly, mothy eyes.

What could I do?

I was trapped, panic-stricken and silently screaming. I was pinned against the wall, thrashing wildly, blindly, madly; striking out as it flapped around me, colliding with the side of my head, getting its feet tangled in my hair on purpose, and trying to fly into my ears.

My God! It had a plan!

It was trying to penetrate my head; to crawl into one of my cavities and lay eggs against my eardrum which would hatch into foul flesh-eating caterpillars that would burrow into my brain and regurgitate their putrefying bile into the back of my eyeballs.

I couldn't turn the light off so that the glow of the streetlight would draw it out of the open window because of the arcane law which insists that a bathroom light switch which isn't a pull must be on the outside of the room. I couldn't open the door to reach for the switch for fear of letting it into the house lest it ate our clothes, killed my son as he slept, or carried my whimpering dogs away to its mountaintop lair.

And all the while it whirred and rattled and barged around me.

If I moved, it went for my ears. If I didn't move, it went for my ears. If I breathed through my nose, I would inhale it up one of my nostrils.

If I opened my mouth it would surely fly in, seeking an alternative route to my ears...

I closed my eyes, wondering as I did if it were the last time I would ever see the bathroom ceiling.

Then the noise stopped.

I didn't dare open my eyes in case it was perched on the wall right in front of my face, sharpening its feelers and staring at me, waiting for me to open my eyes.

Minutes passed. They felt like hours. I had to do something. I opened one eye, and then the other. I looked carefully around, and listened.

There was silence.

An absolute silence broken only by the flat thrum of an Impreza WRX accelerating out of the bends away to the west.

I peeled my sweating skin from the bathroom wall, and summoning all the courage I could muster, reached slowly out to the shower curtain to see if it was lurking there. I stopped. What if it was? What would I do? I had no weapons within reach other than the toothbrush I was holding, a brass radiator key, and an empty toilet roll middle.

Could I fashion something lethal from these? A shield with which to protect my vulnerable ears; a mighty mace with which I could strike my foe, and a razor-sharp blade with which I could cut out its black heart as it lay stunned on the floor?

I couldn't. If it was there, I would have to wrestle it to the floor, and pummel it until its head was a bloody pulp before it could launch itself at me again.

Perhaps surprise was the key.

I needed to think fast, and act even quicker. Seize the initiative. Wrest the advantage. Do something unexpected. Turn defence into attack. Go on the offensive when the enemy least expected it.

I took three deep breaths to steady my nerves, and a Zen-like calm descended on me. Suddenly my plan crystallised itself with remarkable clarity, and summoning all the strength I could muster in one explosive movement, I leapt at the shower curtain.

There was a swish, followed by a crash as first the curtain and then the pole fell into the shower tray. For a few short seconds it was bedlam as I flailed around under the curtain, dislodging a large rectangular block of Wright's Coal Tar soap, the corner of which caught me a painful blow on the top of the head. A shower curtain ring rolled slowly across the floor, hit the base of the toilet, and toppled over.

It was quiet.

There was no moth.

I could only assume it had flown out of the open window in search of easier prey.

I went to bed.

The next morning, as I sat attending to my toilet with the sunlight warming the wall opposite the window, I reflected on what an extraordinary night it had been. I smiled to myself, and picked up the newspaper from my knees.

There was a sudden fluttering noise, and something brushed against my testicles..

In the words of the Edwin Hawkins' Singers, 'O happy days'

Thanks, Pete, you really cheered me up! 'Ptransfixed with ptoothpaste'

Yeah, we want more Pete; we want more Pete. Etc.etc.etc.)

I like the one about Pete's first car. A moggy. Can't find it though. Was it posted pre-Eribafolk?

R and A

Thanks mate. That's the one
R

Surprisingly, I'd forgotten that little gem, Roger, and I see that I even made three contributions to the thread.

I wonder what other delights we would find were we to troll through 11 years of posts?

Lots more I guess Brian.
Silly of me to think Pete's pearlers would have been allowed pre Eribafolk although he had plenty of time to think them up while on the naughty step
R