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Taking Liberties

 
 
Olulabelle
09:50 / 24.10.03
Jub's thread on the BBC and Anna's comments in it about hating the BBC made me think of this, a thread for examples of people taking liberties.

Here's mine:

My sister's friend works on a new BBC magazine about parenting which is aimed at yummy mummy types. They were looking for pictures of mother and child to use, so my sister sent her one of me and my son. (Which they did use, and didn't pay me for. Well fine, it's a new magazine, they're skint.)

But the liberty taking bit is that they used it for an article where Linda Barker or whoever from 'Changing Rooms' advises parents on interior decor for their childs room. So I open the magazine and there is the picture of me with a caption that reads "...isn't very creative and doesn't know where to start with her childs bedroom. At the moment it has flowery wallpaper which he hates, but she doesn't have time to change it, and doesn't know what to change it to. Here's our advice..."

So now anyone that reads it will think I'm a talentless, uncreative, lazy bitch who couldn't give a flying fuck about her child's bedroom.

And they didn't even ask me if it was alright if they made it up, or warn me beforehand. And most annoyingly, in real life his room is actually really cool!
 
 
Spaniel
12:45 / 24.10.03
Yes. YES!

I feel your pain. My god-parents run a well known vitamin company. Over the years they have repeatedly used pictures of my family, particularly my mother, in their publications.

You would turn to the back page only to find Mum endorsing some dodgy product or other. Did they ask her? No. Did they care? No.

Naughty, naughty god-parents.
 
 
Linus Dunce
13:09 / 24.10.03
In both cases, the person donating the photo was the one taking the liberty. You could probably sue ... if you wanted.

BTW, "BBC magazine" and "skint." Hmm.

Never been a victim myself, though I did once have to try for 18 months to get the promised cash prize for a short story competition I won.
 
 
Tryphena Absent
13:19 / 24.10.03
See you're assuming that the BBC actually has people who are capable of allocating money to their writers/magazines/production departments and that's a mistake. Probably someone went 'hey, let's have a new magazine' and then they left them to get on with it and lo and behold a fundless magazine with a BBC label appeared.
 
 
spidermonkey
14:36 / 24.10.03
When I was working as a runner for a high-flying production company in Golden Square I often had liberties taken with me, the biggest being asked to get one of the producers some popcorn, but she wanted it freshly made so I had to source and buy a popcorn machine and the corn and then make it and serve it to her.
 
 
pomegranate
15:06 / 24.10.03
olula, you should sue, for real though. that's so crappy of them.
 
 
Persephone
15:55 / 24.10.03
Oh my god, that's awful!! They should certainly apologize.

You know what you should do, lula... you could do a two-page spread in the collaborative notebook about you & your lovely son & his lovely room and how much he loves it. And it would get passed all around, so everyone could see it & then it would be up on the web for more people to see it. And we could twit the BBC, too.
 
 
grant
16:22 / 24.10.03
In the US, they're not allowed to do that without a model release form. It's one of the main things our photo desk handles.

I take liberties for a living. I also live with a nine-year-old, so having serious conversations brought to a halt by a small hand suddenly grabbing my nose is not unheard of.
 
 
sTe
18:11 / 24.10.03
This appeared just at the right time for me to vent my furious anguish at recent events (ok it's along completely different lines to the above, but what the hey)

Please note all participants in the following tale are very very drunk - which does not in any way excuse any behaviour:

Picture the scene, My Flat early hours of Sunday morning possibly around 3 or 4. Following a fateful 'lets go back to mine to continue the party!' there now remain three drunken revellers, myself, my good friend let's call him Furmy, and a mutual friend, for arguments sake lets call her Jen.

Now I was feeling a bit tired by this point, and Furmy & Jen seemed to be getting a bit amorous on my sofa, (although I had been quite keen on her), so being the gentleman I am, I left them to it and went to bed. After lying there for a matter of seconds I hear a female voice "whispering" let's go jump on sTe, I braced myself for impact and promptly fell asleep. Suddenly I was awoken by a weight on my back followed quickly an additional particularly heavy weight (he is about 6ft 6 and not skinny with it). I awoke and set about removing these mysterious assailants from my back, after firstly working out how to breath without using my lungs.

Suddenly the larger downforce is removed and the remaining burden is flung to the ground rather too violently as far as I could make out, the momentum took me straight after her (for, yes it was the aforementioned Jen, up to mischief again), and landed in a heap on the floor. My first thought, with no regard to myself, was concern for the potentially horrific injury I had just inflicted. Fortunately she brook out into hysterical laughter and I climbed gingerly to my feet to see the beast that is called Furmy prostrate on my bed where only seconds earlier I had been blissfully dreaming of peace & love (or something like that).

I attempted to remove this intruder from my bed, and a mass 3 way brawl ensued. Now I am sure that I was well on top as I was defending my own land so obviously fought all the harder despite overwhelming odds and the fact that there didn't seem to be any particular allies, just a frenzied drive to de-bed anyone who looked to have made it. Just as I was attempting a new approach using my knees as some kind of lever (don't ask) when my bedroom door opened and one of my work colleagues peers round the door! She skips off to the living room explaining to person(s) unknown that I am having some sort of 3 way orgy with my mate and some girl she didn't know.

OK, now I Panic. What is she doing in my flat? Who is she talking to? Can I face work on Monday with rumours and slurs about my weekend orgies abound? A lot of my colleagues are very respectable, well old, people. The shock could kill them. So, I forfeited an almost certain victory, and dashed in to see who was there.

It turns out that my flatmate has come home and has been out with some people from my work that she had been introduced to recently, and had brought them all back to get a taxi. I was then subject to a barrage of questions, to which I could only reply "Furmy!? is in my bed?!!!" As if I could deny his and Jen's presence and so they would no longer be there. Eventually I succumbed to alcohol and the pressure and sneaked off to sleep in my flatmate's bed instead.

I awoke particularly hanging indeed and by about 1pm managed to get up and see what was what in my bedroom. Well nature had apparently taken it's cause and I finally managed to remove the miscreants from my bedroom so I could start some proper sleeping. But imagine my shock when I discovered that my room, and bed in particular was splattered with blood. Obviously I feared the worse, but was somewhat relieved to discover that it was my blood, and I had just sustained a few minor injuries during the previous night's action.

So, in summary, I was not only kicked out of my own bed with extreme violence by my ex-friends who proceeded to get it on, but am now receiving unwanted attention at work from all manner of unsavoury characters who believe I am in to that kind of thing (which would be my business either way).

I don't want any sympathy, just let this be a warning to anyone thinking of bringing everyone back to their's!

Thanks for listening
 
 
Spaniel
22:58 / 24.10.03
Spid, being a runner=slavery. I know, I've done it.
 
 
w1rebaby
23:41 / 24.10.03
Being the de facto landlord of a shared house (i.e. the only person who the estate agent would talk to) there was a fair amount of taking the piss that happened.

Perhaps the worst was the amiable guy who always seemed to have trouble paying his bills and rent. Considering we knew he had kids, he had them round quite often, and he was a bouncer and seemed to have intermittent work, we assumed he was paying child support and so on and gave him a break. Until he disappeared leaving many outstanding bills, and we opened one of his bank statements, to find out where his Switch card had been active - travel agents, clothes shops, bars. The fucker spent more than I did. Getting in touch with his ex afterwards was pretty revealing too.
 
 
sTe
01:11 / 25.10.03
Yeah but I bet you were never physically removed from your own bed whilst landlording and being gypped by unscrupelous letees?

sorry, I thought sharing would help me to get over this, but I just can't shake the bitterness...

The only retribution I have was that the same Jen had shaved one of the same Furmy's eyebrows off while he was sleeping on my sofa a month or so previously. Which obviously was highly amusing at the time, but it's all grown back now so I can't even taunt him with that in pub. But I suppose that's a bit of liberty when I think about it, so maybe it's Jen who's the issue?
 
 
Spaniel
09:08 / 25.10.03
I used to know a guy know would shit in the cupboards and draws of his enemies.

As for ex-flatmates. I'd like to go into it, but I fear repercussions.
 
 
Whisky Priestess
19:28 / 25.10.03
A "friend" who turned up at my 25th bithday party, came back to mine with some others, and stole not only a bottle of champagne meant for me, but a bottle of JD intended for my housemate's brother's birthday present the next week.

Jonny Clemmey, I name and shame you.
 
  
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