What does it say about you if you have heard the prawns-in-the-curtain-rail-pole story twenty too many times?

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I must have heard this "ingenious, they never guessed where the smell is coming from" revenge story about fifty times over the last 10 years. I think it's reached the point where if I smelt a bad smell in my flat the curtain rail pole would be the first place I'd look. Revenge stories are in the news again as the result of some survey about men being more vengeful than women, and the prawn story has been excitedly told by Radio 5Live callers/guests at least twice in the last 24 hours, without anyone saying "USE OTHER STORIES PLEASE".

Do I just listen to crap talk radio too much? Does being such a know-all-about-stupid-contemporary-mores/urban-myths inhibit happiness?

O prawn.

― Alba (Alba), Thursday, 19 January 2006 14:14 (twenty years ago)

I would have said "it's time to move"...

― filled the fjords of my brain (kate), Thursday, 19 January 2006 14:16 (twenty years ago)

Actually, I've just remembered that last night's telling involved an actual name. Supposedly, when Rosie Boycott took over at the Express, and presided over job cuts, she was trying to sell her house. A disgruntled journalist got a friend to view the property and stuff the prawns in when she wasn't looking (?? this sounds rather implausable). Result: poor Rosie couldn't sell her house.

― Alba (Alba), Thursday, 19 January 2006 14:29 (twenty years ago)

Are you hearing the same story from the same person, or from different sources?

― filled the fjords of my brain (kate), Thursday, 19 January 2006 14:30 (twenty years ago)

never ever heard of prawn-in-the-curtain-rail-pole

heard of fish-in-the-cistern and, even, -suspended-ceiling, though

― RJG (RJG), Thursday, 19 January 2006 14:32 (twenty years ago)

in the us, this story is usually told with a dead rat in a heating vent being the source of stink.

― lauren (laurenp), Thursday, 19 January 2006 14:32 (twenty years ago)

my curtain-rail-pole is wooden

― RJG (RJG), Thursday, 19 January 2006 14:33 (twenty years ago)

I had a friend in college who was going to order insect eggs from a science catalogue (he worked in the lab) and leave them sewn into the curtains of a slumlord's flat.

― filled the fjords of my brain (kate), Thursday, 19 January 2006 14:33 (twenty years ago)

i thought it was grass seeds in the carpet. water liberally. revenge is fun.

― sunny successor (katharine), Thursday, 19 January 2006 14:33 (twenty years ago)

Someone stuck a fresh haddock wrapped in newspaper behind the radiator of a science class at Dawlish Community College on the last day of summer term a few years ago. Allegedly.

None of our curtain poles are hollow.

Also why waste prawns?!

― Sick Mouthy (Nick Southall), Thursday, 19 January 2006 14:34 (twenty years ago)

Were the other variants - grass-seeds in the carpet, frogspawn in the actual curtains (the hems), that sort of thing - also dragged out? What about the "calling up pizzas and getting them delivered to someone else's house" wheeze? Has anyone ever actually DONE any of these things?

(xpost, haha, you've all heard of them)

― ailsa (ailsa), Thursday, 19 January 2006 14:34 (twenty years ago)

How many curtain rail poles are even hollow these days?

― „©ROXYMUZAK„© (roxymuzak), Thursday, 19 January 2006 14:34 (twenty years ago)

This guy used to carry a foetal pig around in a bag, so I would believe almost anything of him.

― filled the fjords of my brain (kate), Thursday, 19 January 2006 14:35 (twenty years ago)

Yeah, not that many homes have hollow curtain rail poles, making the story dubious anyway.

I'm surprised that RJG has not heard the story. Maybe it's just coincidence I've heard it so many times.

― Alba (Alba), Thursday, 19 January 2006 14:35 (twenty years ago)

Maybe it is a repressed memory evanescing?

― „©ROXYMUZAK„© (roxymuzak), Thursday, 19 January 2006 14:36 (twenty years ago)

i thought lots of curtain rails were hollow. the adjustable ones have to be, right?

― sunny successor (katharine), Thursday, 19 January 2006 14:55 (twenty years ago)

We really actually did leave milk cartons (1/3 pint) behind radiators on the last day of school before the summer holidays one year, probably not as stinky as prawns though.

― Colonel Poo (Colonel Poo), Thursday, 19 January 2006 14:57 (twenty years ago)

prwned

― d90 (d90), Thursday, 19 January 2006 17:23 (twenty years ago)

Prawns cost thousands of dollars and this story makes no sense to me. I do personally know someone who broke holes into the drywall in his own apartment and piled in cheap ground beef in the space, and then patched the wall back up, to get "revenge" on their landlord for evicting the group.

― Allyzay Rofflesberger (allyzay), Thursday, 19 January 2006 17:26 (twenty years ago)

Prawns are cheap, no more expensive than shrimp or something. You can probably even get them frozen.

― Erick Dampier is better than Shaq (miloaukerman), Thursday, 19 January 2006 17:34 (twenty years ago)

Prawns in the UK = very cheap and what Americans call shrimp. Bigger things we call king prawns, tiger prawns etc. and are only to be used to be used when on very grand curtain rail poles.

― Alba (Alba), Thursday, 19 January 2006 17:40 (twenty years ago)

grass-seeds in the carpet

Cress works better than grass seed, a friend of a friend played this trick blah blah...

Dead fish were always placed behind wall mounted school blackboards in my day.

― Onimo (GerryNemo), Thursday, 19 January 2006 18:01 (twenty years ago)

Then they phoned the speaking clock IN AUSTRALIA HAHAHA etc.

― Onimo (GerryNemo), Thursday, 19 January 2006 18:02 (twenty years ago)

Prawns in the UK = very cheap and what Americans call shrimp. Bigger things we call king prawns, tiger prawns etc. and are only to be used to be used when on very grand curtain rail poles.

eg Robespierre leaving them in the Palace of Versailles

― Markelby (Mark C), Thursday, 19 January 2006 18:23 (twenty years ago)

How does this relate to the popcorn trick?

― Dan (Curious) Perry (Dan Perry), Thursday, 19 January 2006 18:29 (twenty years ago)

Many minds have tried to combine the two, but met with disappointing results.

― Alba (Alba), Thursday, 19 January 2006 18:33 (twenty years ago)

I think prawns have an enchanting musk.

― Ronan (Ronan), Thursday, 19 January 2006 18:36 (twenty years ago)

also I would enjoy an explanation of the "O Prawn" at the beginning of the thread? Am I thick for not getting this pun. Maybe I prefer it if it's not actually a pun at all.

― Ronan (Ronan), Thursday, 19 January 2006 18:36 (twenty years ago)

How does this relate to the popcorn trick?

-- Dan (Curious) Perry ([email protected]), January 19th, 2006.

like in real genius?

― andrew m. (andrewmorgan), Thursday, 19 January 2006 18:41 (twenty years ago)

I can offer no literalist explanation of "O Prawn".

― Alba (Alba), Thursday, 19 January 2006 18:49 (twenty years ago)

like in real genius?

No.

― Dan (Extra Butter) Perry (Dan Perry), Thursday, 19 January 2006 18:52 (twenty years ago)

o lord

― RoxyMuzak© (roxymuzak), Thursday, 19 January 2006 19:07 (twenty years ago)

O prawn.

I had not heard this story either, though I knew about prawns in fake floorboards etc...

― Gravel Puzzleworth (Gregory Henry), Thursday, 19 January 2006 19:35 (twenty years ago)

I am shocked, yes shocked, at the lack of prawn curtain knowledge on this thread.

― Alba (Alba), Thursday, 19 January 2006 19:36 (twenty years ago)

Heh "prawn curtains".

― Dan (Filthy) Perry (Dan Perry), Thursday, 19 January 2006 19:42 (twenty years ago)

Put a steak in the soil of someone's "pot plant"... and soon many little black flies will start to appear, almost covering the walls.

― JTS (JTS), Thursday, 19 January 2006 19:48 (twenty years ago)

ah, ye olde popcorn trick. it is a bit simpler to pull off (!) than the real genius version, which involves a sophisticated laser, a satellite, etc. like allyzay's prawns, this would cost thousands of dollars.

― andrew m. (andrewmorgan), Thursday, 19 January 2006 19:52 (twenty years ago)

The kind of man who might have the resources and wherewithal to attempt it:

http://www.tnelson.demon.co.uk/mastermind/images/royalemastermind1.jpg

― Alba (Alba), Thursday, 19 January 2006 19:59 (twenty years ago)

this is the kind of man who knows to wait several minutes before putting his penis into a hole in a sack of piping hot microwave popcorn.

― andrew m. (andrewmorgan), Thursday, 19 January 2006 20:24 (twenty years ago)

yeeeouch! see that's the kind of thing I would forget. Fortunately I don't have a penis.

― RoxyMuzak© (roxymuzak), Thursday, 19 January 2006 20:25 (twenty years ago)

No one has answered the question.

― Aimless (Aimless), Friday, 20 January 2006 00:52 (twenty years ago)

No.

― Alba (Alba), Friday, 20 January 2006 14:11 (twenty years ago)

I've never heard this story before. Maybe everyone tells Alba this story because he smells of rotten prawns and that reminds people of the story.

― JimD (JimD), Friday, 20 January 2006 14:18 (twenty years ago)

I do remember making anonymous drunken 1am phonecalls as sixth formers to our former English Lit teacher to ask him if he'd ever "licked a dolphin". That's kind of tangentially related, only not.

― Sick Mouthy (Nick Southall), Friday, 20 January 2006 14:24 (twenty years ago)

Additionally, the increasing popularity of microwave popcorn has made the ruse available to even the laziest homebody, although with a somewhat less desirable faux butter content.

― i am not a nugget (stevie), Friday, 20 January 2006 14:46 (twenty years ago)

OK, perhaps I am revealing my naivete here, but what on EARTH is the "old popcorn trick"?

― filled the fjords of my brain (kate), Friday, 20 January 2006 14:49 (twenty years ago)

Oldpopcorn trick

― Alba (Alba), Friday, 20 January 2006 14:50 (twenty years ago)

Oh, that's worse than I could possibly have imagined.

But what does it have to do with prawns?

― filled the fjords of my brain (kate), Friday, 20 January 2006 14:53 (twenty years ago)

WHY WOULD YOU WASTE PRAWNS? THEY ARE TASTY AND THEY ARE NOT AS CHEAP AS YOU ALL LIKE TO SAY. OR PERHAPS YOU ARE ALL V. WEALTHY IN WHICH CASE I APOLOGIZE.

God this thread.

― Allyzay Rofflesberger (allyzay), Friday, 20 January 2006 15:02 (twenty years ago)

But what does it have to do with prawns?

That's what I wanted to know!

― Dan (But No One Would Tell Me) Perry (Dan Perry), Friday, 20 January 2006 15:06 (twenty years ago)

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― Allyzay Rofflesberger (allyzay), Friday, 20 January 2006 15:07 (twenty years ago)

That's from that popcorn page.

― Allyzay Rofflesberger (allyzay), Friday, 20 January 2006 15:07 (twenty years ago)

Hahahahahhaha

― Dan (Wookie. Test. FORMAT.) Perry (Dan Perry), Friday, 20 January 2006 15:08 (twenty years ago)

You can get a bag of prawns for £1.99, that's hardly too much to pay for getting your smelly revenge!

xpost

― Colonel Poo (Colonel Poo), Friday, 20 January 2006 15:09 (twenty years ago)

Bag of prawns: £1.99
Hollow curtain rail: £7
Revenge on slumlord: PRICELESS

― filled the fjords of my brain (kate), Friday, 20 January 2006 15:12 (twenty years ago)

Is this a US v UK thing again? How big is this so called "bag"? I'm flabbergasted.

― Allyzay Rofflesberger (allyzay), Friday, 20 January 2006 15:13 (twenty years ago)

why not just go for the upper-deck?

― ken c (ken c), Friday, 20 January 2006 15:13 (twenty years ago)

How are you going to get the curtain rod in there???

― Dan (Logistical Nightmare) Perry (Dan Perry), Friday, 20 January 2006 15:15 (twenty years ago)

1 lb of shrimp (which I was assured upthread is what you all mean by prawns) is between $9 and $17 on my grocery's website! That is too much, for revenge, when eggs are virtually free.

― Allyzay Rofflesberger (allyzay), Friday, 20 January 2006 15:16 (twenty years ago)

Is this a US v UK thing again?

Well, we're an island. It wouldn't be the shockingest thing in the world if seafood turned out to be cheaper here, would it?

― JimD (JimD), Friday, 20 January 2006 15:17 (twenty years ago)

So's Manhattan!

― filled the fjords of my brain (kate), Friday, 20 January 2006 15:17 (twenty years ago)

Marinate some shell-off king prawns for 12 hours in a 50/50 mix of chilli oil and fresh lime juice. Serve with warm ciabatta.

YUMMY MUMMY.

― Sick Mouthy (Nick Southall), Friday, 20 January 2006 15:17 (twenty years ago)

Hahaha I am imagining Sick Mouthy spending half a day making this prawn dish and Alba stealing the finished dish and pouring the whole thing into curtain rods.

― Dan (Who Says Sitcoms Are Dead?) Perry (Dan Perry), Friday, 20 January 2006 15:19 (twenty years ago)

The £1.99 bags are quite small, but big enough for stupid stinky revenge, I think.

― Alba (Alba), Friday, 20 January 2006 15:20 (twenty years ago)

Sorry, I forgot Ally lives in DC now. Swamps generally not good for prawn, no. How about crawfish instead?

― filled the fjords of my brain (kate), Friday, 20 January 2006 15:20 (twenty years ago)

"curtain rods"

― Sick Mouthy (Nick Southall), Friday, 20 January 2006 15:20 (twenty years ago)

1 lb of shrimp (which I was assured upthread is what you all mean by prawns) is between $9 and $17

Tesco has 200g of prawns for £1.99. A quick calculation makes that $7.98 per lb.

― Onimo (GerryNemo), Friday, 20 January 2006 15:22 (twenty years ago)

hahahahahaha Manhattan isn't exactly good fishin' water to begin with. REGARDLESS it's an entire coast, people. A ginormous coastal region >>>>>>>>>>> a small island in terms of sheer amount of seafood to be gotten! Tho I think most of our shrimp come from the gulf region. Maybe they are out of season, like pineapples.

There are cheaper ways to make people smell bad, at any rate.

― Allyzay Rofflesberger (allyzay), Friday, 20 January 2006 15:23 (twenty years ago)

This thread is the first time I have EVER heard this story.

― DV (dirtyvicar), Friday, 20 January 2006 15:24 (twenty years ago)

What does it say about you if you have heard the prawns-in-the-curtain-rail-pole story twenty too many times?

Apparently it means you're friends with my brother. He was involved in fish-gutting someone's apartment a couple of months ago, as punishment for the guttee's having shaved part of a friend's head in his sleep. (My internal copy ed. hates that sentence but I'm not going back.) More amusingly, they also removed every lick of living room furniture and hid it elsewhere in the house, for instance: vcr balanced precariously in kitchen cabinets, sofa in dining room, etc. Personally I think the guts were just armament escalation.

― Laurel (Laurel), Friday, 20 January 2006 15:24 (twenty years ago)

I think animals with shells just cost more here, because the rest of our seafood is certainly less expensive than (in my experience) UK seafood. Maybe, in the US, we value shells highly??? But why are they prawns in the UK and shrimp here, prawns are a different animal in the US.

Anyway you take them SHELL ON, toss them in a boiling mix of white vinegar, water (50/50) and a couple tablespoons of Old Bay and that is the best way to eat them. Do not involve curtain rods at any point.

― Allyzay Rofflesberger (allyzay), Friday, 20 January 2006 15:26 (twenty years ago)

For Guys: throw the Old Bay prawns/shrimp all over your lap and hope for a handjob, oldest trick in the book.

― Allyzay Rofflesberger (allyzay), Friday, 20 January 2006 15:27 (twenty years ago)

heard of fish-in-the-cistern

how about the fairly vile variant of this known as an "upper decker"?

― controversial buffalo stance (haitch), Friday, 20 January 2006 15:27 (twenty years ago)

I think the UK has something like 8,000 miles of coastline, Ally.

― Markelby (Mark C), Friday, 20 January 2006 15:28 (twenty years ago)

xpost
why not just go for the upper-deck?
-- ken c (pykachu10...), January 20th, 2006 3:13 PM. (ken c) (later) (link)

― ken c (ken c), Friday, 20 January 2006 15:29 (twenty years ago)

Oh no, don't get into the "how long is the UK coastline" debate, because that's how fractals were discovered...

― filled the fjords of my brain (kate), Friday, 20 January 2006 15:30 (twenty years ago)

they caught some fractals in the net whilst looking for mussels.

― ken c (ken c), Friday, 20 January 2006 15:30 (twenty years ago)

We've got 13,000. So, my point still stands. We've got more coastline than you do + much more climate variation due to sheer size = more aquatic activities. I mean we don't have whales swimming in our rivers but you know what I mean. It's hardly an insult to say "The US is a larger country than the UK."

― Allyzay Rofflesberger (allyzay), Friday, 20 January 2006 15:32 (twenty years ago)

I think the point still stands that we just value shells more highly than you all do. Which, really, people shouldn't be taking personally because clearly only insane people would charge a higher price on an item because it comes with an inedible, difficult to remove outer coating.

― Allyzay Rofflesberger (allyzay), Friday, 20 January 2006 15:33 (twenty years ago)

Inaccessibility, Ally. Emotional or otherwise.

― Laurel (Laurel), Friday, 20 January 2006 15:35 (twenty years ago)

Do any of your points not still stand?

― Markelby (Mark C), Friday, 20 January 2006 15:35 (twenty years ago)

it comes with an inedible, difficult to remove outer coating

Tesco removes the shells before giving them away at £2 a bag :-)

― Onimo (GerryNemo), Friday, 20 January 2006 15:36 (twenty years ago)

i think the whole amount of coastline is a red herring (lol!) anyway since i'd imagine price of seafood in somewhere US totally land-locked would be different to that of somewhere by the coast, and the prices will vary from coast to coast, etc. rather than being an average spread across the whole of US since the last time i checked the USA isn't communist!!

i don't really know how people price their food though really.

― ken c (ken c), Friday, 20 January 2006 15:37 (twenty years ago)

one of those handy guns

― Sororah T Massacre (blueski), Friday, 20 January 2006 15:39 (twenty years ago)

Nobody's taking offence! :)

But, you know. Seafood needs to be fresh. So the point isn't that we've do or don't have more coastline, it's that any point in britain is going to be much closer to the sea than almost all of the US. So it's cheaper to get the prawns from the coast to the table.

(xposts)

― JimD (JimD), Friday, 20 January 2006 15:39 (twenty years ago)

and back to the revenge thing - the best ways of revenge is a horse's head in their bed, innit.

― ken c (ken c), Friday, 20 January 2006 15:40 (twenty years ago)

I think Alba just made this whole thing up to get people talking about the price of fish.

― Sororah T Massacre (blueski), Friday, 20 January 2006 15:42 (twenty years ago)

I did not.

― Alba (Alba), Friday, 20 January 2006 16:15 (twenty years ago)

I sometimes eat the shells on prawns.

― Sick Mouthy (Nick Southall), Friday, 20 January 2006 16:16 (twenty years ago)

that explains a lot.

― Sororah T Massacre (blueski), Friday, 20 January 2006 16:18 (twenty years ago)

i've heard the toothbrush-up-arse + pics story alot but never this prawn one.

― jed_ (jed), Friday, 20 January 2006 16:47 (twenty years ago)

why is my brain struggling with 'twenty too many times'?

― Ste (Fuzzy), Friday, 20 January 2006 16:48 (twenty years ago)

'van morrison's harmonica' is a nice variation on the old toothbrush-up-arse yarn

― Ward Fowler (Ward Fowler), Friday, 20 January 2006 16:54 (twenty years ago)

haha.

― jed_ (jed), Friday, 20 January 2006 16:55 (twenty years ago)

should it have been "twenty times too many"?

― ken c (ken c), Friday, 20 January 2006 17:08 (twenty years ago)

That would be mathematically ambiguous, though. I've heard the story 50 times, and wish I'd heard it 30 times*, but that way around might sound like 2½ was my ideal, which it isn't. And anyway you can't hear something half a time.

― Alba (Alba), Friday, 20 January 2006 17:23 (twenty years ago)

Hmmm... I suppose the 2½ thing would actually be "twenty times too many times". Well, anyway. I think "twenty too many times" is fine.

― Alba (Alba), Friday, 20 January 2006 17:24 (twenty years ago)

Chicken & Milk Bomb: Put one chicken leg in a mason jar with an inch of milk in the bottom. As the milk and chicken ferment over time, the gas inside is too strong for the jar and it explodes.

The Shandy: Crap on a piece of tin foil, and roll it up. Poke tiny holes with a pin. Place under enemy's sofa.

Special Delivery: Puke in a large ziplock bag. Place flat in freezer 'til frozen. On hot days, when your enemy has cracked his car window for to vent, remove frozen flat puke-cake and slide in through window. Puke-cake will thaw in 1 hour, depending on heat.

― andy ---, Friday, 20 January 2006 17:44 (twenty years ago)

i like the upper decking of the prawns idea. in the curtain rod, the prawns would eventually dry completely and the rank odor would diminish. toss a quarter pound in the upper deck and the water would gurantee long-lasting rancid odor. 1000 flushes!

― andrew m. (andrewmorgan), Friday, 20 January 2006 23:38 (twenty years ago)

the enemy of my enemy is my simultaneously prawn-concealing and prawn-suffering friend

― estela (estela), Friday, 20 January 2006 23:45 (twenty years ago)

My dad himself claimed to have done the haddock-in-a-newspaper-outside-the-second-floor-science-lab thing. The story is an archetype which derives its power from our latent, instinctual fears and fascinations concerning all seafood.

― ratty, Saturday, 21 January 2006 02:19 (twenty years ago)

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