James Acaster's Classic Scrapes

by James Acaster

When I was a baby, I urinated into my own mouth. I don’t remember doing it but my mother told me it happened and she has no reason to lie. As far as I can gather, I was lying on my back naked and somehow managed it. To be honest, I’d rather not go into details.

I didn’t realise this was unusual at the time, but I went to a primary school that didn’t have any hand driers or paper towels so the students had to bring in their own towels every day from home.

I have never laughed as hard as I did when that old lady farted. The fart wasn’t the funniest part, it was what she said before the fart: ‘Here’s your Banbury cake.’ She looked at him, said, ‘Here’s your Banbury cake’ and then farted.

Peach schnapps is a pretty sickly drink to start the night with, let alone to get fully drunk on, and to this day I can’t hear someone say ‘Beckham’ without wanting to chuck my guts up. Darren went to the pub next door to carry on drinking. I instead chose to have a nap (or a schnap as I would’ve called it had I possessed the ability to form thoughts and ideas).

My only contribution to the room-trashing was to open all the little milks. I didn’t even tip them out or splat them against the wall; I just opened them all one by one and arranged them on the table in a line.

In all the excitement of trashing the room I had completely forgotten to brush my teeth so instantly started brushing my teeth in the car while we were driving home on the motorway because if I don’t brush my teeth I imagine them coated in fur in my mouth and feel a compulsive need to clean them.

I would wholeheartedly recommend stealing a road sign that no one really needs because then you too will know how it feels to be alive.

As I mentioned in the previous story, I had now learnt to drive. The only reason I had ‘chosen’ to walk to George’s house that day was because eight days after I passed my driving test, I had written off my parents’ Ford Fiesta and didn’t drive for a while after that.

I had ice skated once before for only five minutes when I was ten and had to stop because I had managed to stab myself in the back with my own ice skate while I was still wearing it.3

The caretaker at the youth centre stepped forward and suggested he phone his friend who had a van. So he rang the van man and the van man stopped having dinner with his wife in order to help me. I felt awful about this but it was too late now, the van man was on his way to help someone he’d never met before transport two things that he didn’t need back to his house.

The didgeridoo-ion stood up, his body rigid. He lifted the didgeridoo above his head with both hands and threw it down on the ground (if you’ve ever been present when a didgeridoo bounces on the ground you’ll know it makes quite the satisfying ‘doink’ sound).

Once you’ve scoured the county for W’s and attended Kettering Board Games Club you accept that you will never be able to fully comprehend the universe.

And as it turned out, I was not capable of making a short film. It never got completed and to this day I have no idea where the footage is. We filmed it at the William Knibb Centre (where The Wow! Scenario used to have band practice). We filmed it overnight and while we were there some thieves broke in and stole one of the centre’s computers without any of us noticing. Actually, one of the actors did see a robber but wrote them off as a ghost. I wish I was making that up.

(I had consumed a whole wheel of custard brioche because I felt so scared of the Basingstoke hoodlums and when I feel scared I eat sweet things to make me feel safe).

a comedian friend of mine was going through a phase where he made everyone do Jägerbombs whenever we went out, and after one particular night on the town with this stupid idiot I found myself sitting on a London night bus, homeward bound and fully blasted. I was in high spirits, though. I tried talking to the lady next to me about how cool the bus was, but she asked me why I was talking to her and so I turned away to look out the window because I didn’t have an answer to her question.

That’s how little I believed in myself at this point: I was convinced that I would break a sponge. No one has ever broken a sponge before but I was certain I had what it took to become the first.

I don’t know if you’ve ever played two player Twister but it drags on. We were nowhere near each other for the entire game, because all the spinner ever landed on was feet so we were essentially just walking around a Twister mat, occasionally having a swig of tea because we could, and she was getting increasingly frustrated that the game was not as sexy as she’d thought it would be.

As I ate the curry on the edge of the forecourt watching Stuart bring the nozzle towards his car, I thought to myself, How amazing would it be if after being ridiculously lucky in a car crash that involved a log lorry, I end up going like this. Blown up by my own curry reacting with some volatile petrol while my friend attempts to refuel a running vehicle.

So what do you do in order to keep everyone calm if you’ve got an awful lot of hot oil spewing on to a hot axle? Answer – send a lady down the aisle of every single carriage with a packet of Tangfastics.

One of the saddest sights I have ever witnessed is a man getting himself a free can of Stella from the rescue train buffet; then turning round and holding it up to his wife, who was sat at the far end of the carriage, and silently celebrating with the can as if everything had now been worth it. The five-hour delay and being involved in a derailing had all paid off because he had managed to get a single can of free lager out of the whole ordeal. This attitude only exists in Great Britain.

Christmas is about thinking of others, OK?’ I nodded and set off to buy everyone some top-notch presents: a bar of soap for my mum, a chocolate bar for my brother, a chocolate bar for my sister and a chocolate bar for my dad.

I walked out of the post office and immediately opened the box in the street because I was way too curious to wait until I got home. Inside there was loads of shredded paper, and buried inside the shredded paper was half a cabbage wrapped in clingfilm. There was a note on top of the cabbage that read ‘HA HA CABEDGED (AGAIN) MICK’ and underneath the message he had drawn a picture of a bicycle with an arrow pointing to it that said ‘random bike’.

I guess the only lesson of the book is this: do not be open to new experiences, avoid anything that could potentially not work out for you, and enter into everything with the utmost suspicion.