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Modern Urban Legends?

Mention of drug dealers reminds me of a tale I was told about 10 years ago. The person who told me didn't even bother offering any FOAF-type provenance, just insisted that it was definitely true, cos someone in a dodgy pub had told him.

Allegedly a local builder, worried about his bright young daughter's sudden bout of poor school reports and mood swings, found some heroin in her bag. Having extracted the name of the pusher from her, he assembled a posse of his builder friends, and visited the scrote's flat in the wee small hours. Having gained entry, they gave him a moderate pasting but ensured he didn't lose conciousness. They then, erm, 'inserted' a short length of scaffold pole somewhere, placed razor wire inside it, then removed the pole. Having placed his phone on the other side of the room, they returned home, never to hear from the police.

My first thought was that someone had nicked this idea from a torture/horror film, but to the best of my (limited) knowledge, it's not from any of the better-known ones. It's more likely that someone threatened to carry it out, especially if the background was true, and was so convincing that it evolved into a legend.
 
Reminds me of the CIA/cucumber story which I first heard of back in the late '70s.

A bloke at a party somewhere in America drunkenly brags that he is in the CIA and could have anyone there killed like that.
Next morning he wakes up with a hangover and severe colic, and after a couple of days of pain he sees a doctor who sends him for an X-ray. The test reveals that he has a large cucumber occupying his lower bowel, carefully greased up and placed there by his irate fellow partygoers.
 
escargot1 said:
b. He has never been abroad in his life so has no need to smuggle drugs in body cavities.
c. Drug dealers don't generally carry their wares that way for street selling. Too messy.
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Crack dealers (oo-er!) stash their wares up their arse because the penalties for getting caught with a pocket full of wrapped deals is a long spell in jail. They don't want to get caught in a random stop-and-search with a pocket full of trouble. They also are now subject to ever-increasing attacks from rival gangs or dealers who will target them to steal their stash - the hope is that fishing out a poo-coated bag of crack is going to be just a little too icky for any attacker.

I know this from watching telly last week, where I was confronted by a full-on, uncensored piece (steady!) on Channel 5's "Gangland" (Series 1 Episode 1) documentary where a dealer crammed a rather sizeable condom-wrapped package right up his chocolate starfish for the camera - and when I say "right up", I mean RIGHT up, he wasn't leaving any rip-cord or hint of what he was concealing for anyone investigating. The only way those drugs were going to be discovered was if they, well, y'know, broke the seal and kicked his back doors in.
To complete this family viewing extravaganza, he pulled it out again (thankfully at a slightly different camera angle), the package coming out with a satisfying pop and slap of latex.

Hey, but why read my description when you can watch it yourself on My5 (up until Sept 8th 2017).
You are looking for the part where the dealer is talking about "plugging" and "G-packs" Enjoy!
 
Yup, Techy watched that too. I may catch up some time. The dealer of my distant acquaintance sells weed. There's not much demand for crack where I live.
 
In the book, Papillon by Henri Charrière (which is an autobiography that reads like a piece of fiction), prisoners heading out to the penal colony in French Giuana would prepare a small 'survival kit' consisting of things like a blade, needle and thread, drugs or currency. Just enough to fit in a metal cigar tube.

I think they left that out of the film.
 
davidplankton said:
I think they left that out of the film.
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It adds a new dimension to this scene:

"He befriends a leper hoping to acquire a small rowboat. The leper whose face is disfigured from the disease, tells McQueen to have the courtesy to look at him in his face. McQueen obliges. The leper, puffing on a juicy cigar, asks McQueen if he likes cigars. McQueen tells the leper he likes cigars when he get them [sic]. The leper hands McQueen his cigar and McQueen puts it in his mouth . . . "


URL: https://able2know.org/topic/89915-1


:eek:
 
escargot1 said:
Yup, Techy watched that too. I may catch up some time. The dealer of my distant acquaintance sells weed. There's not much demand for crack where I live.
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Methinks that crack is thus named after the place from whence it is extracted.
 
davidplankton said:
In the book, Papillon by Henri Charrière (which is an autobiography that reads like a piece of fiction), prisoners heading out to the penal colony in French Giuana would prepare a small 'survival kit' consisting of things like a blade, needle and thread, drugs or currency. Just enough to fit in a metal cigar tube.

I think they left that out of the film.
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Translated, pretty skilfully, by Patrick O'Brian. If memory serves, he chose the term "charger" for the kit container. In my memory the chargers were custom-crafted from gold, but perhaps only the better class of prisoner could afford those. I also seem to recall that it was not uncommon for inmates to have their stomachs and internal organs slashed open by attackers in search of their chargers. Devil's Island was well-named.
 
Krepostnoi said:
Translated, pretty skilfully, by Patrick O'Brian. If memory serves, he chose the term "charger" for the kit container. In my memory the chargers were custom-crafted from gold, but perhaps only the better class of prisoner could afford those. I also seem to recall that it was not uncommon for inmates to have their stomachs and internal organs slashed open by attackers in search of their chargers. Devil's Island was well-named.
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Back when I read Papillon as a teenager my father was a cigar-smoker and there were often cigar-tubes lying around. Smooth aluminium with a aturdy red plastic stopper. I used to hold one, and ponder...
 
escargot1 said:
Back when I read Papillon as a teenager my father was a cigar-smoker and there were often cigar-tubes lying around. Smooth aluminium with a aturdy red plastic stopper. I used to hold one, and ponder...
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Now, me I was working out how to make it into a rocket. I guess that's a boy thing...
 
Coal said:
Now, me I was working out how to make it into a rocket. I guess that's a boy thing...
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We used to put a bit of water in the tube and replace the stopper loosely, then poke it into the gas fire at an angle. When the water boiled it blew the stopper off.
 
I suspect this one is an urban legend so I'll put it here until proven otherwise...

https://twitter.com/pptsapper/status/1010360146344759301

Ok, so, some story time I heard today from a friend. When he was in Afghanistan with the Australian equivalent of an ODA (SOF), he discovered that the Aussies had a secret weapon for getting info out of the Taliban: hedgehogs.

So this dude would roll out with the Aussies and he notices that their cargo pockets are...moving. Doesn't know what's going on till they roll up their first Taliban dudes. The Aussies walk in and the Talib dude isn't talking. So out come the hedgehogs from their pockets

And the dudes are kinda confused. Like, why are these soldiers pulling out rodents. Then the Aussies press the front paw of the hedgehogs. And they inflate. And the Taliban lose their goddam minds and start spilling all the beans because this rat just inflated twice its size

Yeah, the Aussies use these hedgehogs through the whole deployment and they go home with them. Combat hedgehogs. I desperately want this story to be true.
 
Tribble said:
I suspect this one is an urban legend so I'll put it here until proven otherwise...

https://twitter.com/pptsapper/status/1010360146344759301

Ok, so, some story time I heard today from a friend. When he was in Afghanistan with the Australian equivalent of an ODA (SOF), he discovered that the Aussies had a secret weapon for getting info out of the Taliban: hedgehogs.

So this dude would roll out with the Aussies and he notices that their cargo pockets are...moving. Doesn't know what's going on till they roll up their first Taliban dudes. The Aussies walk in and the Talib dude isn't talking. So out come the hedgehogs from their pockets

And the dudes are kinda confused. Like, why are these soldiers pulling out rodents. Then the Aussies press the front paw of the hedgehogs. And they inflate. And the Taliban lose their goddam minds and start spilling all the beans because this rat just inflated twice its size

Yeah, the Aussies use these hedgehogs through the whole deployment and they go home with them. Combat hedgehogs. I desperately want this story to be true.
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Travellers tales are a good source of urban legends as it is difficult to either discount of verify them. Here are two that I've come across, one of which I'm sure is an Urban Legend whereas the other has more of a question mark over it.

The following shocker was related in to me by a young Russian guy about a mate of his who had been to China:

So this guy, right, was invited to a bit of a banquet one evening with a posse of chinese guys present. One of the dishes on offer was monkeys brains. The monkey from which the brains were being taken was still alive - tied down next to the table and it's brains were being casually scooped out of its head as the Chinese gentlemen enjoyed their meal...

This was related to me in all seriousness, but I have since been informed that it is an Urban Myth. The next one was also related to me as factual by a work colleague (or be it, it happened to a friend-of-a friend, sort-of-thing). I have since recounted it myself as factual, but have lately begun to wonder if it is an Urban Myth: there is something too cautionary about it:

So this English teacher, right, was working in Saudi Arabia. He had an ongoing issue with one of his teen sudents who would always dump his school satchel on the floor in the corridor, obstructing people walking to classrooms. One day, in a fit of pique, the teacher kicked the bag. Unfortunatley, however, this bag contained a copy of the Koran. To show such disrespect to the Holy book - especially with one's foot - would lead to the deqath penalty. The teacher's British owned school acted quickly in getting the young teacher a ticket out of the country and hussling him out of there - thus saving his neck....

Hmmm...what do yiu think?
 
The first story about the monkeys was also featured in the second Indiana Jones movie as I recall.
 
My most recent ex husband was a bit of a gullible idiot. He was told at work that a person who'd eaten at a local restaurant had got ill, had their stomach contents tested and semen had been found. He refused to eat at that restaurant ever again.

I asked him how he thought semen would turn up as stomach contents after being subjected to all the acid, why they would even think to test for semen anyway, and why they would automatically conclude, should semen really have been found (which I didn't believe for a second), that it had come from the meal rather than from an adventurous sex life prior to eating?

He didn't speak to me for about a week. He really hated being contradicted.
 
catseye said:
My most recent ex husband was a bit of a gullible idiot. He was told at work that a person who'd eaten at a local restaurant had got ill, had their stomach contents tested and semen had been found. He refused to eat at that restaurant ever again.

I asked him how he thought semen would turn up as stomach contents after being subjected to all the acid, why they would even think to test for semen anyway, and why they would automatically conclude, should semen really have been found (which I didn't believe for a second), that it had come from the meal rather than from an adventurous sex life prior to eating?

He didn't speak to me for about a week. He really hated being contradicted.
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This sounds like a variant on "<Insert Celebrity Name> falls ill, has stomach pumped, 2 litres of animal semen found" UL mixed with a "Food Contaminated with X" story.
 
Zeke Newbold said:
So this guy, right, was invited to a bit of a banquet one evening with a posse of chinese guys present. One of the dishes on offer was monkeys brains. The monkey from which the brains were being taken was still alive - tied down next to the table and it's brains were being casually scooped out of its head as the Chinese gentlemen enjoyed their meal...

This was related to me in all seriousness, but I have since been informed that it is an Urban Myth.
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I first heard that one decades ago. A variation is seen in the fillum Hannibal, where the brains on the menu are human.
 
Tribble said:
This sounds like a variant on "<Insert Celebrity Name> falls ill, has stomach pumped, 2 litres of animal semen found" UL mixed with a "Food Contaminated with X" story.
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There was something like that about Marc Almond. That turned out to be complete nonsense.
 
escargot said:
Nonsense! Nonce-sense!
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PMT5BpG.jpg


Mythopoeika said:
There was something like that about Marc Almond. That turned out to be complete nonsense.
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That was the first version I heard but there's apparently a lot of celebs out there partial to the love custard.

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/i-got-love-in-my-tummy/
 
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