To not point out story is an urban legend?

My friend (who has alarmingly become a huge conspiracy theorist) was recently telling me in outraged tones how a school near her sister has taken out some of the toilets and replaced them with litter trays to appease children who identify as cats.

@Stolengoat yes that's the one. I was reading about it the other day after someone else linked it. It's such a sad story! Love the history around it though.

the prince and his princess set out for a day’s hunting together, leaving their baby in the safe care of Gelert [the dog]

Hmm, I'm not sure the prince and princess were particularly in the best position to rule on who had made the most foolhardy and irresponsible choices!

A peadiatrician told me about La-a being a name and said she had to call it out in a waiting room. I've seen on mumsnet since apparently it's a racist urban legend.

I think this is the one you are talking about. My father told us this tale when we were young. https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/visit/wales/craflwyn-and-beddgelert/discover-the-legend-of-gelert

Close to the poo on roof. Arguably worse.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-bristol-41167296?app-referrer=deep-link

The only thing that makes me feel there's some truth is that Bristol zoo recently moved. The story originated about 10 years ago. So given the amount of planning involved and the need to buy and build the new site, it's not beyond the levels of belief that the guy thought he might get rumbled and simply vanished after being forewarned of the change.
He wasn't always alone when working so given he was charging £5 a car it's possible he just gave some cash in hand money and left someone he trusted to run it when he was away.
Or it could be completely bollocks....that's the beauty of the best urban myths.

Oh Jesus. It makes you despair for the human race really.

Oh my I feel like an idiot! 😂 36 and believing the swimming pool one 😬

@Vroomfondleswaistcoat

I completely agree when it's a false accusation of malfeasance or otherwise humiliates the subject. I do like the silly, harmless ones, though - where it's always "there was this bloke who..." rather than an actual person or company being named as being at fault. They already pretty much sound like a straightforward joke - which indeed they usually are.

That said, you're right about people's suspicious motives for starting and promulgating some of them. As you said, the dodgy restaurant ones never seem to take place in a French bistro, do they? Some of them are just racism and other hate for minorities thinly veiled with "No, but this reeeeaally happened!"

I'm just picturing them as the other lads in The Inbetweeners, saying "Well, THAT didn't happen!" the instant Jay comes out with one of his tall-tale 'anecdotes'!

I don't know about that particular case - although it seems kind of implausible that he would come every single day for three decades without any days off or sick; but they had a similar thing in a car park featured on The Real Hustle.

Paul - in his regular character as the perfectly-named Rob Marks - wore a hi-viz jacket and carried a clipboard. As soon as somebody pulled up to park, he approached them, apologised that the payment machine wasn't working, so they had to pay him direct instead.

The vast majority of people instantly paid him - I think he might have offered them a (fake) receipt if required, but nobody bothered - just assuming that he was an authorised worker for the car park owner, and not some random chancer who just turned up to fleece them!

It would have been nasty for everybody dealing with all the penalty notices, had it been done as an actual scam, rather than just as a staged TV demonstration of the scam.

The trouble with my XH was that he firmly believed his story (he'd been told by someone at work and he ALWAYS believed people in authority over him). It was hugely racist (semen being found in food in a local Indian take away). I plot-holed the story relentlessly, hoping that he would acknowledge that at least one of my points would negate the whole thing (how would they find semen in cooked food unless that's what they were looking for? Why would they even think to look? Why wouldn't they close the whole place down on health grounds BEFORE they even tested? Is it even possible to isolate semen in cooked food, would it not just be traces of DNA? etc).

He got angry instead of admitting that he'd been fooled. But, as I pointed out to him, stories like that can hit a small business' turnover very hard if they get round a neighbourhood, and would he have believed the tale so easily if it had been a fish and chip shop?

There can be implications. So it's not always good fun and entertaining conversation.

When people tell these sorts of stories they are just trying to make light, entertaining conversation. I’m not sure why it’s ’embarrassing’ or why you’d want to police it. Wouldn’t you come out much worse from the exchange by pulling them up on it than the person making amusing low key small talk?

Pleasr share the story

One single malteser is a hell of a job in itself.

Don't ask me how I know...but by all means thank me if you check 😉

Hang the fuck on! This was in the paper last week, a racehorse eaten in Turkey!

No urban legend this

My friend’s nephew was in a bad way as he had them in his leg after going to South Africa and it got infected. She showed me pictures. 🤢

I heard this too when I lived near Chester for uni early 2000. Apparently the Beckhams wanted a Saturday hotel wedding booking. So they paid off the couple's mortgage which was £167k ,cheque arrived from D and V Beckham. Young me believed it.

Chin wag. Chinny chin.

My dad once told me if you said the Lord’s Prayer backwards in a mirror the devil will appear. I think that was a popular one when he was at school in the 70’s.

Someone up thread mentioned zoo parking. That was Bristol zoo, which used to be in Clifton and faced an area of open land called the Downs. The story is that one day the guy who organised parking for the zoo didn't turn up and so, as the Downs is managed by the council and that's where he parked the cars, the zoo rang the council
"Your parking attendant hasn't turned up"
"Our attendant? We thought he worked for you. "
For 30 years the bloke had been rocking up, parking cars on the council's land and pocketing the money.

I actually think there's a grain of truth given how shite Bristol City Council are.

I think this is the right place to remind everyone that whatever the modern day internet says, EVERYONE knows McDonalds milkshakes contain no milk and are 90% potato.

I got told I was repeating an urban legend on here when I recounted a story about a family members wedding. It very much happened but I wonder if it's been retold by so many guests nobody will ever believe it was true.

If you want to let someone know it's an urban legend, sometimes I've acted like they know it's an urban legend (when actually I'm not sure if they do know) and we are all in on the joke. You can reply something like "ahhh you almost had me", "oh yeah I've heard that one too, great story, imagine it really happened". That way you aren't calling them out for lying, more like congratulating them on an amusing story.

I'm in Australia and we had all the same urban legends at school, nice to see they are worldwide.

Some Aus radio personalities (Hamish and Andy) had an episode where they tried to track down people who swore it the legends were true, in this case it was the one about the pet snake who laid down next to its owner to size them up. So they spoke to someone who said it really happened to their brothers friend, they rang the brother and got the number of the friend, then rang the friend who said it was their aunty who told them, rang the aunty who said it was her hairdressers cousin, rang the hairdresser who said it was whoever, etc etc etc. Obviously they never got to the bottom of it but all being interviewed swore it had really happened to that friend of a friend.