The Gentle Giant had picked up a stone on a beach in north Wales that looked just like a small potato (the size of a new potato/plum) and given it to me, as I was an avid stone collector. I’d fool people with it, just holding it out to them in my palm, and they’d think it was a new potato. This gave Colette—the inveterate party-organiser and prankster—an idea for one of her away-weekends in Dorset.
For these away-weekends, a select group of six people (the cottage was not big enough for more), including Colette, would head off to the village on Friday after work, arriving around 10pm, leaving people an hour at the local pub before returning for a late meal. There’d be an appointed/voluntary cook and an assistant, who were Colette and me on this occasion.
Colette had planned the meal so that the potato stone could play its role: a roast with three vegs and new potatoes. I’d even taken the trouble to hand-pick every single new potato at the greengrocer’s to match my potato stone in size and shade of colour.
The target of this practical joke was poor Pavel, who’d been the victim of previous pranks because his mind tended to be on loftier matters, making him an easy prey, poor man. He was also a good sport, so it was safe to pick on him.
When Pavel came back from the pub with the others, Colette made a point of asking him to keep an eye on the new potatoes that were on the boil, reminding him more than once to make sure they were properly cooked. He said, “Don’t worry. I’ve done this before.”
Finally, we began our meal, and I was sat next to Pavel, with Crispin on Pavel’s right. The food was dished out, and everyone started to tuck in. Pavel was engaged in an earnest conversation with Crispin about something, so his head was turned towards Crispin, which was perfect as this allowed me to slip the potato stone among his new potatoes. Colette then started to comment loudly about the boiled potatoes, saying, “These are a bit hard, aren’t they?!? Maybe they’re not cooked enough!” Pavel, who’d been given the task of looking after the boiling of the potatoes, immediately said, “I did keep my eye on them, and I did prick them with a fork!” Then his fork hit the potato stone. It wouldn’t go in. He tried again. No dice. By now, Colette and I were spluttering over our food, falling about in our chairs. The penny dropped. Pavel said, “You b…..ds!”
The potato stone was removed from Pavel’s plate, and the eating continued. So did the intense conversation between him and Crispin, which allowed me to smuggle my stone back onto his plate when it came to second helpings. Once again, unnoticed, until his fork told him he’d been targeted yet again. “You b…..ds!”
Poor Pavel seemed to have been dogged by stones, for Colette had played a stone trick on him on another outing a year before that. That away-weekend group had gone on a cliff walk along the Dorset coast near Weymouth, which entailed some very long, arduous uphill climbs. Pavel had a rucksack on his back, and was once again engaged in some intense conversation with someone. (In hindsight, I now suspect Colette had arranged these intense chats to distract him from her carrying out the deed, although she is a master of impromptu tricks too.) Colette, walking behind him, would sneak a stone into his rucksack at regular intervals, saying after quite a handful of stones had found their way into his rucksack, “Come on, Pavel, you are slacking! Get a move on!”
The poor man’s such good value for pranks.
(UK, late 90s)
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