Playing tricks on people

[Agrophobic]

I generally wouldn't encourage anyone to play tricks in caves although the skull/plastic duck/ fake lifeline type would make me laugh if they were played on me, the holding back water/ bang on the head type wouldnt and the perpertrator would get a smack in the mouth for it. I'm not a health and safety freak but caves Are dangerous places to be playing tricks in. (and smacking people in).

 

[gus horsley]

Gus, did your club used to have a Matienzo Inquisition, then?

I wouldn't call it inquisitorial. We're talking about dosing someone with a major psychotropic drug that can make the most awe-inspiring (or terrifying) caving trip seem as exciting as a cheese sandwich in comparison.

At the time of this incident it seemed like most people you knew were into one drug or another.  I did a few trips under the influence of cannabis but stopped at LSD which is a completely different scene.  It's a wonder there weren't more casualties (of a physical kind).  There was also the additional problem of trying to maneouver copious amounts of hair under one's helmet.

 

[Downer]

Gus, did your club used to have a Matienzo Inquisition, then?

I wouldn't call it inquisitorial. We're talking about dosing someone with a major psychotropic drug that can make the most awe-inspiring (or terrifying) caving trip seem as exciting as a cheese sandwich in comparison.

At the time of this incident it seemed like most people you knew were into one drug or another.  I did a few trips under the influence of cannabis but stopped at LSD which is a completely different scene.  It's a wonder there weren't more casualties (of a physical kind).  There was also the additional problem of trying to maneouver copious amounts of hair under one's helmet.

I've just cut my hair for that very reason - it was down my back, old rocker style, but now it's a #4 all over

As for dope, it's probably like it is for driving where (politically incorrect fact coming up) users do seem to overcompensate and hence drive safely albeit slower, unlike alcohol which is the opposite. I don't think non-existent footholds appearing in climbs would be so helpful, so you're right about acid. Not to mention the Shimmering Cave Fairy who keeps getting in the way. (She's there all the time you know. LSD just makes you see her.) But the point of this discussion is that even if you were or are mad enough to go caving while high, that's your decision. Someone imposing it on you is a completely different matter and is likely to produce a very bad trip in more ways than one. Obvious really.

 

[toni]

Personally I think tricks and pranks have a place. You need to know the person targeted and the people you are with are all up for it, and at no time is any one put in danger, left feeling s**t about themselves or confidence knocked.
For the record if anyone ever did to me what was done to Viv, they'd need cave rescue to get back out!
Maybe that's boring, but hey, I want to enjoy what I'm doing and not be obsessing about who's going to be doing what...

 

[volica]

Sometimes when I go to easy, heavily visited  cave I take piece of old mountain bike tire and imprint that in mud while crawling. Never saw the results thought...

 

[paul]

Not as good as the nude cyclist spotted once on a trip in Poulelva/PoullnaGollum (County Clare)!

It was done for a bet using a hired bike!

 

[barrabus]

One I like to play in complex caves with novices is to lead them round and round a loop and see who notices first that they have been to the same place more than once.

This was done to me on my first trip underground.

Arriving at a chamber we had already been in from a different direction a number of our party (including me) were unaware, so our leader insisted the way on had to be through a rather damp crawl. I did hear someone asking "is this really nessecary?" but was rather slow on the uptake that we were being led on a merry dance... or rather crawl.

I do admit that once or twice I have dammed a stream with my boot and the excess water might have gotten a fellow caver slightly wetter than they would have done otherwise. Does this make me a bad person?

 

[barrabus]

Sometimes when I go to easy, heavily visited  cave I take piece of old mountain bike tire and imprint that in mud while crawling. Never saw the results thought...

I am going to do this one too!

 

[Downer]

One I like to play in complex caves with novices is to lead them round and round a loop and see who notices first that they have been to the same place more than once.

I do admit that once or twice I have dammed a stream with my boot and the excess water might have gotten a fellow caver slightly wetter than they would have done otherwise. Does this make me a bad person?

Utterly evil  :halo:

You should sit in the stream and dam it properly.

 

[Les W]

We must all have put our foot in the stream at the top of the "20" in Swildons to divert the water over a fellow caver's head at least once. 

 

[menacer]

For example, someone (never did find out who) put a fake skull in the bottom of our dig just after it started flooding on a regular basis. Most of us picked it up at one time or another thinking 'what's this floating rock?' It made us all jump a little bit, but it was obvious it was a fake one. Anyone who had a dodgy heart would never have made the long climb up the ladder to get back out anyway, skull or no skull!

Ooh ooh I Know who that was....It was a distinguished wessex member of generous proportions and a sly sense of humour who more than likely had a heart attack climbing up the ladders anyway....
It was mentioned that allegedly some people may have been gutted it rained and got washed out....spoiled the joke really...

 

[Agrophobic]

Personally I think tricks and pranks have a place. You need to know the person targeted and the people you are with are all up for it, and at no time is any one put in danger, left feeling s**t about themselves or confidence knocked.
For the record if anyone ever did to me what was done to Viv, they'd need cave rescue to get back out!
Maybe that's boring, but hey, I want to enjoy what I'm doing and not be obsessing about who's going to be doing what...

I agree totally. spot on dude.

 

[Downer]

Personally I think tricks and pranks have a place. You need to know the person targeted and the people you are with are all up for it, and at no time is any one put in danger, left feeling s**t about themselves or confidence knocked.
For the record if anyone ever did to me what was done to Viv, they'd need cave rescue to get back out!
Maybe that's boring, but hey, I want to enjoy what I'm doing and not be obsessing about who's going to be doing what...

I agree totally. spot on dude.

After reading all this discussion I'd go further and suggest extreme restraint even when it seems harmless. The thing is, you want people to know they can trust YOU implicitly all the time. Or I do anyway.

It's going to be an uphill struggle though. I still couldn't resist turning our lights off on Monday when the chap went off down a bypass so that he'd wonder where the rest of us had gone when he got out. And yes, it was conceivable that he'd panic and run around wildly crashing into the walls, but he didn't, he just grunted and offered to haul his wife up. Not me, mark you, just his wife.

 

[ian.p]

i don't think we should eliminate all jokery from our sport itd make it a lot duller and less fun there Shorley isn't any harm in jumping out from behind the occasional rock or painting someones face with mud whilst they're still in a squeeze (problem comes when they get out of the squeeze i saw the results of one mud fight somewhere in mistral you couldn't see much face on any of them) this has happened to me lots of times and i don't think its ever put my life in danger.
i also really like all the fun things people make and put in caves like the mud animals in sidcot and the swildons singe. Caving needs a sense of humor just not the making someone think they're about to drown sort.

 

[dunc]

i don't think we should eliminate all jokery from our sport itd make it a lot duller and less fun there Shorley isn't any harm in jumping out from behind the occasional rock or painting someones face with mud whilst they're still in a squeeze (problem comes when they get out of the squeeze i saw the results of one mud fight somewhere in mistral you couldn't see much face on any of them) this has happened to me lots of times and i don't think its ever put my life in danger.
i also really like all the fun things people make and put in caves like the mud animals in sidcot and the swildons singe. Caving needs a sense of humor just not the making someone think they're about to drown sort.

 

[cap n chris]

The soon-to-be-updated version of the 1997 NCA Ethical Caving Code stated "Mud-throwing or modelling is unacceptable". Mud modelling in mines such as at Clearwell is probably OK. Mud fighting underground = fucking around.

 

[dunc]

The soon-to-be-updated version of the 1997 NCA Ethical Caving Code stated "Mud-throwing or modelling is unacceptable". Mud modelling in mines such as at Clearwell is probably OK. Mud fighting underground = fucking around.

Obviously a reasonable number of people choose to ignore that going on the number of mud-models around...

 

[cap n chris]

... either that or there's a very prolific and unreasonable individual who hasn't got a lot else to do with their time or their artistic flair other than trying to compete with Tony Hart.

 

[Downer]

The soon-to-be-updated version of the 1997 NCA Ethical Caving Code stated "Mud-throwing or modelling is unacceptable". Mud modelling in mines such as at Clearwell is probably OK. Mud fighting underground = fucking around.

And there was I looking forward to the video of "Mud Wrestling in Flower Pot"

 

[ian.p]

you dont throw it you plaster it much more efective :ras: and we wouldnt be so small mided as to do it in a decerated section of cave  theres no shortage of featurles mud covered spaces (that didnt get that way as a result of mud fights before you say it) to have fun in and yes mud fighting does=fucking around so does singing and jumping in puddles its still fun and whats wrong with mud models slong as no mud features were destroyed in the making of especialy if theyre in un naturaly decorated passige i cant see the harm??