A couple of months ago a girl at work asked me if I'd got an e-mail about the supposed threat of people leaving syringes that contain HIV in taxis in Birmingham so that when you sit down you get injected with it.

What I found amazing was that I'd heard this same rumour ten years ago but then it was that if you go to a certain nightclub people are going round injecting strangers with HIV. Another story was that the syringes were left in cinema seats.

The nightclub one I just assumed to be probably a rival nightclub putting out stupid rumours to fuck up their business. But what I'm wondering now is if this is a common urban legend or is it just some weird Birmingham thing that comes round every few years.

Have you ever heard this shite?

I heard that aids infested dudes are going around and coughing in peoples faces.....now thats some fucked up shite!

i heard that Toomanyhelicopters is fuckin PISSED and he's suing that cab company, the nightclubs, and the movie theaters to make them return all of those old needles that were stolen from him.

R.Tanx!

We got the very same email at work about six weeks ago, sent around by the security officer at the science park ('just in case') - the same dope who months before had sent around the urban myth about gang members flashing their lights at drivers.

He got quite a bit of flak about being so naive - from those of us old enough to remember similar scares from years ago who promptly directed him towards Snopes and from a colleague who had forwarded the email on to a friend who's a virologist. She provided a sharply-worded account of just how implausible this is (even in a syringe of chilled, freshly drawn blood the virus particles wouldn't survive beyond a couple of minutes at best).

You can tell your buddy to rest easy - it is as you say, complete shite.

Rotten Tanx wrote:A couple of months ago a girl at work asked me if I'd got an e-mail about the supposed threat of people leaving syringes that contain HIV in taxis in Birmingham so that when you sit down you get injected with it.

What I found amazing was that I'd heard this same rumour ten years ago but then it was that if you go to a certain nightclub people are going round injecting strangers with HIV. Another story was that the syringes were left in cinema seats.

The nightclub one I just assumed to be probably a rival nightclub putting out stupid rumours to fuck up their business. But what I'm wondering now is if this is a common urban legend or is it just some weird Birmingham thing that comes round every few years.

Have you ever heard this shite?

cinemas, about a month ago round this way.

it´s an urban legend.
other variations include a madman with a syringe running on the streets and suddenly infecting random people. or people putting infected needles in those slots in public phones where you grab the coins...

never knew a case where it was real. probably some fucked up guy in some rave did that and they started spreading the panic then...

Rotten Tanx wrote:
Have you ever heard this shite?

Similar thing happened a few years back where I live in Hereford, at some club that is now closed. A load of people found stickers on them saying ‘welcome to the aids club’ with pin pricks underneath. Caused a bit of a scare.
This actually happened but I don’t think any of the cases checked out. Was just a sick joke I think.

yo tanx. was the club the dome? i remember that rumour. there was something similar in a story line of the bill where some dude was sleeping with prostitutes and he knew he had hiv and then while they were asleep writing "welcome to the club" on their backs. NICE!


mind you in my opinion when the dome was open anyone who went there deserved everything they got...

knives wrote:some dude was sleeping with prostitutes and he knew he had hiv and then while they were asleep writing "welcome to the club" on their backs. NICE!

ahh, that might be a reference to the guy from Stirchley. Forget the Dome....the top place to "pick up chicks" in Brum around that time was Stirchley Superbowl with its American-style diner. The guy in question was doing a nice line in picking up girls there in between frames and buggering them, despite knowing he had the aids. He made the tabloids as Britain's Most Evil Man, a title he was to hold until usurped by CJH's mate Ian, according to the Sunday Times.

Fiery Jack with your scandalous reminiscence! You'll be pleased to know that Britain's most notorious beacon of unruly protest Ian L**** has now shaved off his Brian Blessed-like beard after his (was it all of two weeks?!) period undercover and lives quietly as a landscape gardener.

The Dome though, I remember that. Among many other incidents it was where Patricia Cahill was duped into carrying a suitcase full of "biscuits" into Thailand.