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Those moments when you wish you had a camera because no one will believe you

mondo a-go-go

14:50 / 05.05.05

I saw a copperhead snake on a wall in Snaresbrook (a nice, quiet suburb in East London) on Saturday night.

No one believes me. I told my friends who Iive there, and who I'd been visiting, that they should inform local pest control or something, in case anyone got bitten, they told me that no one believed them, either. They told the local police and a vet, and apparently everyone wanted to know how much I'd been drinking (not whether I had, just how much). All I can think is -- don't blame me if someone does get bitten, and dammit, I wish I'd had a camera... because that's not something you see everyday!

Mourne Kransky

15:05 / 05.05.05

It may be several weeks now before I get a decent night's sleep, with that tale of cosmopolitan snake discovery now planted in my mind.

You are very brave, N. I'd be being nursed under sedation in a clinic somewhere if I'd seen it.

Jack Denfeld

15:15 / 05.05.05

When I was in highschool I went to the bathroom stall, and saw a math book in the toilet, opened, with a giant shit on it. I didn't have a camera so I ran into the halls and pulled boys and girls in to the bathroom to show them. That guy must have really hated math.

ShadowSax

15:15 / 05.05.05

camera phones are a great thing to have in that situation. i saw a copperhead snake once around here and it would have freaked me out except that a dog got to it first and then someone smushed its head. but it was still crazy to actually see one.

Jack Denfeld

15:17 / 05.05.05

I don't know anything about snakes. Are copperheads rare?

mondo a-go-go

15:20 / 05.05.05

They're not native to the UK! And they're venomous.

Seeing any snake wild in London, especially at night, is very rare, though.

grant

15:40 / 05.05.05

Are you positive it wasn't a water snake? They have a vaguely copperhead-ish look, but are slightly darker brown, and a little stripier towards the belly.

Bill Posters

16:08 / 05.05.05

Anna, are you saying you've seen a... real, live copperhead?

ShadowSax

16:21 / 05.05.05

too bad you didnt have a camera.

Sekhmet

16:26 / 05.05.05

One of these?

I suppose it's conceivable that a copperhead could get to England by stowing away on a ship, or maybe in airplane cargo... still very odd though...

ShadowSax

16:32 / 05.05.05

anything is possible. once i saw this huge black python wiggling across the onramp to a nearby highway. funnily enough, this was about a mile from where my son and i saw that copperhead in the woods. i thought it was weird but then realized that it was probably somebody's escaped pet. it had to be 10 feet long, at least. at first i thought it was a ripped tire or something, then it moved and i noticed how shiny it was, also it was moving. freaked me out. i almost ran over the thing.

nobody believed me.

grant

16:33 / 05.05.05

Copperhead!

Water snake. Non-native to England.

Aesculapian Snake (there's a colony in Wales)

Coronella austriaca, the Smooth Snake -- native to Britain, although rare. Check out the "sexing" photo at that link. Yes, it is.
(See also.)

lekvar

18:38 / 05.05.05

One day, while taking my mid-day constitutional, I saw a hot-pink hearse being driven by two little people (people affected by dwarfism)(well, the hearse wasn't being driven by both, simultaneously, of course. But there were two of them in it.). They were elderly, and obviously a couple.

Made my day, month, year, and life. Still gives me a smile.

Tryphena Absent

19:11 / 05.05.05

Well I believe you, I just hope there's only one so they don't breed in the wilds of London. Urrghh.

Jack Denfeld

19:16 / 05.05.05

You don't think little people should breed in London?

grant

19:53 / 05.05.05

Jack, you are in top form today, and I thought someone should tell you that.

grant

19:55 / 05.05.05

I suppose it's conceivable that a copperhead could get to England by stowing away on a ship, or maybe in airplane cargo...

Russian mafia.

charrellz

20:12 / 05.05.05

How does a snake stow away inside a Russian Mafia? I can't see one wearing the big fur hats.

ecitcarp :rewsna

Mourne Kransky

20:16 / 05.05.05

no no no - stop with the snake pictures

*carried away screaming in the big yellow van*

ibis the being

21:25 / 05.05.05

Last night on the American Idol Scandal Primetime Live special, I saw Randy Jackson jamming out with Steve Perry, accompanied by narration (I paraphrase), "Randy Jackson would like that Journey song because he was in Journey." My boyfriend was in the bathroom at the time and when he came back he would not believe me.

Oh yeah? Whaddaya call this, then? Huh? Huh?

diz

14:58 / 10.05.05

i would have needed a video camera for this, but:

when i was in Dublin back in March, i was sitting on a bench near one of the bridges reading comic books. as i'm reading, i hear someone saying "race ya to the bridge!" followed by the sounds of two people running.

i looked up from my comic book to see two well-dressed men in their late 50s or early 60s, one of them quite portly, running as fast as they could and giggling like schoolboys.

Ninjas make great pets

15:41 / 10.05.05

Yep Yep. The old people are crazy here. They do that stuff ALL the time. Sometimes Its clockwork orange in reverse as directed by tim burton.

Anyway..

I saw a car shaped like a caburys creme egg. It was sooo cute!

One thing I saw and no one else could know just what it was like - was Ball lightning. I wouldn't have believed it if my brother hadn't seen it too. We were looking out my window across the fileds (as we often did) and 3 balls of light came flying at each other from different directions there was a bright flash and they were gone. Amazing.

mondo a-go-go

13:46 / 11.05.05

ooOOOOoooh, thumbninja, that sounds sooo cool.

Xoc, I order you to stop looking at this thread, or at least to turn the image display off or you'll have too many heebiejeebie freakouts, (The Heebiejeebie Freakouts? Sounds like a really bad commercial beat pop psychedelic band from the 60s)

The snake I saw look most like the one in the third pic down in the link that Sekhmet posted.

grant

14:59 / 11.05.05

Russian mafia, then. (or mmmaybe a baby boa constrictor... or ball python. but very young.)

Someone had obviously angered the wrong international businessman.

It's the speckled band all over again!

mondo a-go-go

15:01 / 11.05.05

I like the Russian Mafia theory, but it scares me.

mondo a-go-go

11:49 / 02.07.05

There's a man building a wonderfully elaborate House of Cards (more accurately, a House of Flyers) at the next table to me in the Big Chill Bar right now... It's about three feet wide!

mondo a-go-go

12:04 / 02.07.05

It's now four feet wide and two and a half feet high...

He's going to run out of flyers soon...

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