That The Ramones were all brothers. That was a tough pill to swallow....
Add yours :)
Quote from: richerthanyou on 09 January, 2016, 10:54:02 AM
That The Ramones were all brothers.
You mean they wasn't???
Santa, Jesus, and a just and fair political system.
Cheers
That the devil lived in our toilet. Our bathroom was located right at the top of our stairs and I was convinced if I looked up the stairs I would see him sitting there on the bog, all in black wearing a black top hat. Having a poo.
That the world was black and white until about 1970, when someone invented colour, and Monty Python and Pink Floyd were both famous explorers
I believed that the Americans dropped the H-bomb on Berlin; and that 'grexnix' was a proper word (the first 'x' being silent, for some reason). Thanks, Tharg
I believed an echo from the forest opposite a glen on our farm was the voice of a creature called Hammie in the wood. My cousin had me convinced. Zonked
That Gabrielle only had one eye and really did need that eye patch. The betrayal!
Quote from: 8-Ball on 10 January, 2016, 07:06:29 PM
That Gabrielle only had one eye and really did need that eye patch.
Lisa Lopez must have confused the bejayzus out of you!
That naughty boys could be sucked down the plug hole (thanks to Auntie Anne for a made up story one bed time).
For years my brother and I fought over who had to pull the plug, and we had a kind of tug of war set up to stay safe. The lucky one would stand in the doorway, with a hand braced against the frame and the other outstretched. The unlucky one would have a hand behind, grasping his brother's, and then lean slloooowly into the bath to yank out the chain.
EDIT: Quite why we thought we were naughty is lost in the mists of time.
Quote from: The Enigmatic Dr X on 10 January, 2016, 10:54:09 PM
That naughty boys could be sucked down the plug hole (thanks to Auntie Anne for a made up story one bed time).
Even now I won't pull the plug in the bath until
after I've gotten out.
Quote from: 8-Ball on 10 January, 2016, 07:06:29 PMThat Gabrielle only had one eye and really did need that eye patch. The betrayal!
Pretty sure that she did need that eye patch at one point, but just before she became famous. Not that I care enough to actual have a quick look on the internet to establish one way or the other...
Quote from: sheridan on 11 January, 2016, 01:48:01 AM
Pretty sure that she did need that eye patch at one point, but just before she became famous. Not that I care enough to actual have a quick look on the internet to establish one way or the other...
According to the internet she has ptosis of the eyelid. Apparently Paris Hilton has it too.
Quote from: richerthanyou on 11 January, 2016, 04:28:09 AM
Apparently Paris Hilton has it too.
There's a name you don't hear anymore, thank Grud.
As do I along with my worsening strabismus.
Means my eyes like to wobble away from each other and my damned right eye often won't stay open now so I often wear a patch. I pretty much can't see now without it due to the double vision.
I should become a celeb :D. But sadly I need more talent than just dodgy eyes :-[
That Captain Scarlet was a real person (wood and strings were no barrier to my childhood imagination) and that my neighbour Danny Tumulty was going to take me to meet him.
That I was mates with Gary Numan.
That THE HITCHHIKER'S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY TV series really did contain the Answer to life, the universe, and all owt else.
That you could pause live TV.
I thought Delia Smith was Margaret Thatcher.
That Saturday afternoon wrestling on ITV's World of Sport was real. Well, it was real but I didn't realise it was pantomime wrestling. I thought the canvas was made of some sort of special material and if a wrestler was downed and the opponent stamped on the canvas next to him, it would transfer some sort of shockwaves that would cause much pain. Years later I realised: no, that was wrestlers pretending to stamp on their opponent. Needless to say, I felt mugged off.
Having said that, someone told me years ago he had to point out to an acqaintance that WWF is scripted. That WWF fan was training to be a lawyer. I always wondered what he made of Mr Socko.
Some wag pointed out that there are three key points in your childhood:
- Learning that Santa is not real
- Realising that the mime on Top Of The Pops
- Discovering that not all foreign films are dirty.
Tharg is real.though. oh yes.
Quote from: JamesC on 11 January, 2016, 12:29:26 PM
I thought Delia Smith was Margaret Thatcher.
I thought her name was Margaret Statue, till my dad put me right.
Having an older brother who enjoyed filling my head with gubbins, I also believed that people 'in the olden days' did two things: (a) Crumple paper by passing it from hand to hand in large, dramatic swoops; and (b) tear the pictures out of their pop-up books along the perforations, send them off in the post, and be sent back a stuffed toy of whatever the picture was.
I was also led to believe that 'Fawlts' (who had donated their 'Fawlts' nails' and 'Fawlts' teeth' to my mother and granny respectively) were people with no heads.
I went to a catholic primary school so I swallowed a whole load of gubbins - the realisation in my teenage years that Purgatory, Limbo, guardian angels etc weren't actually in the bible played a large part in me rejecting all religions.
Guardian angels in particular worried me. we had a big painting in school of a kid running by a cliff edge with this HUGE angle shielding him from the edge with its wing - that terrified me, as did the thought of this personal angel spying on me 24/7, including when having a poo.
I was also told by a friend (early 70s) that there were only two computers in Britain, and one of them was ERNIE (the premium bonds computer). Can't remember what the other one was.
I believed that I'd seen a ghost/monster - on the way home from a neighbour's after dark (we'd been swapping ghost stories), I looked down the street and saw two glowing red eyes receding into the distance - scared the shit out of me but it wasn't until I thought about it years later and realised it was probably just a car's tail lights.
That Bowie was immortal.
That the Two Ronnies were brothers.
That if you unscrew your belly button your bum will fall off. My dad always took great delight in telling me that.
That the people who presented the children's programmes were good role models.
That the Russian army was composed entirely of mercenaries, because the were constantly switching sides.
That if I shouted in the speaker of our TV, the person onscreen could hear me. I spent about two years convinced that's how you got on the phone to Swap Shop. Never got that Action Man.
That the green algae sitting on top of the water in drainage ditches was a supernatural being called Jinny Greenteeth who would leap out and pull you in if you got too close.
.
That there was a complex network of tunnels underneath every road in the country where an army of people worked at night. Their job was to turn on the cats' eyes as cars approached and turn them off again after the cars passed.
.
That my Auntie Valerie really meant it when she said, "you're so sweet I'm just going to put you in my oven, cook you and eat you!"
.
That Captain Kirk was the first man on the Moon.
Quote from: The Legendary Shark on 12 January, 2016, 01:31:33 PM
That the green algae sitting on top of the water in drainage ditches was a supernatural being called Jinny Greenteeth who would leap out and pull you in if you got too close.
That's proper folklore that is: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jenny_Greenteeth (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jenny_Greenteeth)
Good Lord - that's amazing. I thought it was just a local village story to keep kids away from water. Now I feel all spooky, like part of an ancient global mystery religion. Thanks for that, DDD.
.
I like the way that it is a story to frighten children but with a purpose - like a medieval Public Information Film; similarly all the crazy lists of rules and laws in Leviticus often make sense when you think about managing a small population migrating across the desert
Quote from: Dandontdare on 12 January, 2016, 01:59:12 PM
I like the way that it is a story to frighten children but with a purpose - like a medieval Public Information Film; similarly all the crazy lists of rules and laws in Leviticus often make sense when you think about managing a small population migrating across the desert
If only that were so. Alas it's mostly just nasty bullshit about menstruation, shellfish, homosexuality and textiles, almost none of it approved by Ray Mears' Desert Survival Guide. Probably because the Israelites were never actually enslaved in Egypt, and thus never spent 40 years escaping it. Something else I believed as a child.
Indeed. I sometimes wonder how many mythical monsters started out that way. As we got further away from real predators to threaten our children (with), we needed something else to keep them away from real dangers. Nothing is scarier, especially to a child, than our own imagination.
.
I know this in no way an original train of thought but it is fascinating.
I'll admit it's more of an assumption than a piece of scholarship - when I realised that so many of the rules relate to what you can and can't eat, what crops should be planted in what fields etc, I thought that there was probably some practical rational behind some of them (mixed in with a large dose of superstition, ignorance and misogyny of course!)
I kind of believed that all plants might be from Invasion of the Body Snatchers. I knew it couldn't be true but I was terrified whenever mum put plants on my window sill because it was the best place for sun. I didn't sleep but I never said anything because I knew it was just a plant (
or was it).
Quote from: Tordelback on 12 January, 2016, 02:12:11 PM
Probably because the Israelites were never actually enslaved in Egypt, and thus never spent 40 years escaping it. Something else I believed as a child.
:o The More You Know!
It's an assumption we share I think, DDD. People told stories long before we learned to write them down - and all the best stories still contain lessons.
.
Of course, stories can also be used to control and subjugate people (a quick glance at the media is enough to confirm this) - but then, I guess you knew I'd say that with me being a suspicious curmudgeon!
Because I never once saw one that actually had flowers in it, I used to believe that those flower holders in front of most gravestones - those metal domes with the holes in - were air holes for the occupants below.
If the people in the graves were dead, why did they need to breathe? And if they weren't dead, what were they doing in the grave?! Either option seemed equally terrifying, to the extent I never dared ask an adult about it - I was happier not knowing.
Quote from: The Legendary Shark on 12 January, 2016, 01:47:26 PM
Good Lord - that's amazing. I thought it was just a local village story to keep kids away from water. Now I feel all spooky, like part of an ancient global mystery religion. Thanks for that, DDD.
Beat me to it! The thing having a name (and a fairytale-style one at that), made me suspect it was more than just a personal superstition. I'd hazard a guess that you (or a close family member) were brought up in Lancashire or Merseyside.
Yep. Lancashire lad, born and bred - strong in the arm...
That the Twin Towers collapse was caused by the US government.... Kidding Sharky, kidding. Z
Heh. I don't believe that either. I used to believe that "governments" were real, though.
Quote from: The Legendary Shark on 12 January, 2016, 08:41:46 PM
Yep. Lancashire lad, born and bred - strong in the arm...
Had to google that - I guessed two of the four results I got back.
- thick in the head
- weak in the head
- woolly in the head
- good in bed
The last one. Dephinittly the last one...
I remember overhearing a conversation and rushing home to inform my dad that "someone at the doctors had been turned into a bar of soap".
Turned out the actual conversation was that "The old doctors surgery has been turned into a corner shop"
If you went on a roller coaster that went upside down you would be sick
I used to think that if I swam in the style of Bobby-from-Dallas as seen in The Man from Atlantis, I'd be able to breathe underwater, pretty much. Not sure if I expected gill development but I was quite certain that the swimming style was the key.
That if I found the right stick and bashed it into the ground in the right way, I too could become the Mighty Thor.
Quote from: The Legendary Shark on 22 January, 2016, 10:08:18 AM
That if I found the right stick and bashed it into the ground in the right way, I too could become the Mighty Thor.
To be fair - I'm in my forties, and I'm still trying to work out the right way to clench my fists so that Adamantium claws pop out...
Quote from: Pyroxian on 22 January, 2016, 10:15:12 AM
Quote from: The Legendary Shark on 22 January, 2016, 10:08:18 AM
That if I found the right stick and bashed it into the ground in the right way, I too could become the Mighty Thor.
To be fair - I'm in my forties, and I'm still trying to work out the right way to clench my fists so that Adamantium claws pop out...
I find it possible to clench my fist so a single finger pops out. Does that count?
Quote from: ming on 22 January, 2016, 09:29:34 AM
I used to think that if I swam in the style of Bobby-from-Dallas as seen in The Man from Atlantis, I'd be able to breathe underwater, pretty much.
I believed this exact same thing.
parents said that
when the ice cream van
rings its chimes
that means its out of ice cream
Downer alert: That god was real and was disappointed in everything i did or said. I know this might seem melodramatic but i had that beaten into me by nuns who called me the devil because i was naughty and was going to burn in hell forever...well, an eight year old tends to take that kind of shit at face value.
Quote from: Big_Dave on 22 January, 2016, 05:13:51 PM
parents said that
when the ice cream van
rings its chimes
that means its out of ice cream
Are we doing them as haiku now?
Little brother thought
You spin the steering wheel round
To make the car go
That my mum was putting my birthday money into a bank account for me each year - figured that one out when I got to 16.
Al Pacino was a mobster from America who was also an actor.
And he used to be called Al Capone but he changed his name to avoid the police.
Turns out Capone and Pacino were 2 completely different people! Took me a while to discover that one.
Rachael (who many of you have met at Southern Contingent meetings) used to believe that Daley Thompson was her step-dad. Whenever he appeared on TV (Daley Thompson, not her dad) she'd cry out "Dad's on TV!"
I should point out that Rachael's step-dad was Indian and had a moustache (though I still don't imagine he looked much like Mr. Thompson).
Quote from: NapalmKev on 09 January, 2016, 11:46:39 AM
Santa, Jesus, and a just and fair political system.
Cheers
What about the
Easter Bunny and
Tooth Fairy which almost complete the animate cast.....
Quote from: The Legendary Shark on 12 January, 2016, 01:31:33 PM
That the green algae sitting on top of the water in drainage ditches was a supernatural being called Jinny Greenteeth who would leap out and pull you in if you got too close.
And
Jack Frost who my late grandmother on my late mother's side would talk to me about.....Almost all
Rise of the Guardians and I was never pleased with that film.
Seriously, I do remember being very superstitious in starting at around about the age of 10 onwards and still am a bit, but not so much.
There were certain days of the week that I would dread including that auspicious date of
Friday the 13th and
Saturday the 14th because of the horror films of the same name.
From the same age, I was also very shy around girls and this has stunted my social life.
If you eat your crusts your hair will go curly. Why did people think that this was going to make me eat my crusts?
I thought the Prime Minister of Britain was called Mrs Statue, till my dad put me straight.
I used to lay awake at nights as a child being afraid that I could be a victim of spontaneous human combustion at any moment after reading something in a book.
Turns out not everything you read in books is true after all.
I concocted a story to one of my little cousins than if a hamster died you put it in the attic where it cocooned itself and re emerged as a smaller (sometimes different) hamster. The missus backed it up and for years he kept this belief.
V
My sister told me that Timotei shampoo was made from bird shit which is why it's white.
The convincer was that people say it's lucky if a bird shits on your head - my sister explained that this is because bird shit is really good for your hair.