Bad Motherf___ers

[Fox in the North]

http://www.bbc.co.uk...sussex-19944833

Absolute ****ing monster. You do NOT mess with a Gurkha!!

Serious monster indeed!

[Jordan]

In the ambulance corps during WWI, Hemingway dragged an Italian soldier to safety despite being hit by mortar shrapnel and having his kneecap shot off. In France during WWII, this badass literary figure encountered a basement full of S.S. troops, who he told to "share these among yourselves" before throwing grenades inside.

You might think all this Nazi-exploding kept Hemingway pretty busy, but it turns out that in his free time he ran his own intelligence network to spy on Nazi sympathizers in Cuba.

The world tried repeatedly to kill Hemingway. He survived gunshots to practically every part of his body, countless concussions, three car crashes, two plane crashes, two fires, and an anthrax infection. He once wrote that life breaks everyone, but afterward some are stronger at the broken places. It's not hard to imagine what inspired that sentiment.

The craziest part of the two plane crashes? They came on consecutive days.

Not to mention that his descendants include Mariel and Margaux Hemingway, and he had a brother named Leicester.

[21st Century Fox]

The craziest part of the two plane crashes? They came on consecutive days.

Not to mention that his descendants include Mariel and Margaux Hemingway, and he had a brother named Leicester.

Yeah I've always wondered why his brother's name was spelt that way instead of Lester.

[Vacamion]

I saw this thread yesterday and thought immediately of Alex Dolgun, who survived two lengthy periods of interrogation by the worst the Soviet Union had to offer, being kept awake for a whole week at a time, being beaten and being made to stand in torture boxes, as well as a period in the Gulag. He was eventually allowed to return to the USA where he was a success in medicine.

I heartily recommend this book:

In December 1948, Dolgun- a US citizen- was working as a file clerk at the Embassy. During his lunch break, he was suddenly taken into custody by the Soviet State Security, the MGB. He was interned in the infamous Lubyanka and Lefortovo prisons in Moscow. He was falsely accused of espionage against the Soviet Union and endured a year of sleep and food deprivation, as well as brutal psychological and physical torture designed to prod him into "confessing" to his interrogator, Colonel Sidorov. After successfully enduring this trial, Dolgun was transferred to Sukhanovka, a former monastery converted into a prison. He survived several months of intense torture and was one of a very few who survived the prison with their sanity intact, using tactics such as measuring various distances in his cell as well as distances he covered walking; he estimated that in his time there, the distance he covered walking was enough to take him from Moscow across Europe and halfway across the Atlantic Ocean. His time in Sukhanovka brought him to the brink of death, and he was transferred to the hospital at Butyrki prison to recuperate. His whereabouts were known by Truman, Eisenhower and the US government, but they did nothing. The excuse was that US Soviet relations were so fragile, Dolgun would be harmed, a statement that would be laughable, if not so serious.

Dolgun was finally given a twenty-five year sentence in the Gulag, the network of prisoner work camps scattered throughout the Soviet Union. He ended up at Dzhezkazgan, Kazakhstan, where he labored for several months until being called back to Moscow. His recall was initiated by the infamous General Mikhail Ryumin, No. 2 to Viktor Abakumov in the Soviet Union's State Security Department and engineer of the Doctors' Plot. Ryumin intended to use Dolgun as a puppet in a show trial. Dolgun was once again sent to Sukhanovka, where Ryumin personally tortured and beat him in an effort to get him to confess to a number of plots and conspiracies against the Soviet Union. For several months, Dolgun endured this torture without succumbing until political shifts resulted in a loss of interest in the show trial and Dolgun was shipped back to Dzhezkazgan, where he was interned until 1956. Dolgun did not serve at Kengir, but at a camp nearby. He did, however, write about the Kengir Uprising in his autobiography.

[Alexikokopops]

JOHN MALCOLM THORPE FLEMING "JACK" CHURCHILL

Yes, the man highlighted storming a beachhead in France. Notice how all of the other soldiers are carrying guns. But no, not Mad Jack Churchill--he's leading the charge, brandishing a claymore.

Churchill led some of the fiercest commando campaigns in World War II, all the while always charging into battle with a sword, and often defiantly playing the bagpipes as the enemies attacked. Churchill, too, was captured and escaped a concentration camp.

Churchill was known to say that "any officer who goes into action without his sword is improperly armed," and remains the only known British soldier to have killed an enemy with a longbow. Churchill--born for war--was perhaps the only person upset by the conflict's end, and reportedly said, "If it wasn't for those damn Yanks, we could have kept the war going for another 10 years."

After the war, Churchill became an expert parachutist, and coordinated an evactuation of 700 Jewish students and doctors amidst an attack during the strife in the Israel-Palestine region in 1948. Churchill also landed film roles, and also learned how to become a gnarly surfer. What a boss.

John Fairfax

At 9, he settled a dispute with a pistol. At 13, he lit out for the Amazon jungle. At 20, he attempted suicide-by-jaguar.

John Fairfax, Who Rowed Across Oceans, Dies At 74 - The New York Times

Do you get QI in the USA? I've just got back from holiday and watched the new episode of QI XL from 9 days ago and both these guys were mentioned!

[Guest BlueBrett]

Yeah and the Waterloo anecdote on the first page was on Ian Hislop's programme about stiff upper lip the other day

[21st Century Fox]

Yeah and the Waterloo anecdote on the first page was on Ian Hislop's programme about stiff upper lip the other day

That's pretty strange as I hadn't seen it, I can't stand Ian Hislop. The story always stuck in my mind because his severed leg became a tourist attraction afterwards

[marty78]

Not on the same level as some mentioned but Steve Irwin was a nutter.

http://youtu.be/UETfZLsWWAM

[Jordan]

Do you get QI in the USA? I've just got back from holiday and watched the new episode of QI XL from 9 days ago and both these guys were mentioned!

I've never seen the show aside from one clip of the show's panel talking about moon landing conspiracy theories, but I wonder I'd do well to try to watch more of it. I doubt it's on TV here.

[Trav Le Bleu]

Can't believe no one's mentioned this guy.

Paul Wood Explains his injury

During the 2012 Stobart Super League Grand Final, Paul Wood ruptured his right testicle after getting kneed in the groin, one minute into the second half.^[3] He continued to play, made a number of tackles and even conducted media interviews in the dressing room after the match without mentioning it. It became public knowledge only when he tweeted a couple of hours later that he was heading for hospital for surgery and he confirmed early on Sunday morning that his right testicle had been removed

[Daggers]

Clarisse?

[Jordan]

Can't believe no one's mentioned this guy.

Paul Wood Explains his injury

The surgery brought the number of testicles in his scrotum down to five. That's a serious pain threshold.

[Tielemans63]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2012/oct/20/leonardo-bonucci-punches-armed-robber

"The Juventus defender Leonardo Bonucci faced down an armed robber who pointed a gun at his head before chasing the assailant as he tried to get away, according to reports in the Italian media.

The Italy international was with his wife and baby son at a car dealership in Turin on Thursday, looking to buy a Ferrari, when a man with his face hidden pointed a gun at his head and demanded that he give him his watch.

Bonucci refused and instead punched the thief, knocking him to the ground before chasing him as he tried to get away on a scooter with his accomplice.

Gazzetta dello Sport reported the man shouted: "What are you doing? Are you mad? I'll shoot you" as Bonucci pursued them in vain.

Bonucci later reported the incident to the police."

Respect Mr Bonnucci

[rico]

Duncan Ferguson

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/article-375912/Is-Thumpin-Duncan-biggest-thug-Premiership-history.html

[Daggers]

[Jordan]

Duncan Ferguson

http://www.dailymail...ip-history.html

When Carl Bishop smashed his way into a grand house on a leafy avenue in Formby, Merseyside, successfully evading the security system, he was delighted to find a bounty of champagne and whisky. But there was one 6ft 4in item of anti-burglary technology that he had reckoned without: the Everton striker Duncan Ferguson. Bishop tried to smash a bottle of vodka over the footballer's head, before feeling the full force of "Big Dunc's" fist in his face – the thief was confined to hospital for two days. It was the second attempted robbery that Ferguson had foiled in his home; two years earlier, in 2001, he had sat on a thief until the police arrived.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/oct/05/away-day-robberies-premiership-footballers

[Alf Bentley]

I'll see your Duncan Disorderly and raise you....Robin Friday.

Wasn't really aware of this bloke at the time he was playing (or alive), but I struggle to imagine that there's ever been a wilder maniac in football (excerpts taken from Wikipedia - and yes, it is generally reliable these days):

"Robin Friday (27 July 1952 – 22 December 1990) was an English footballer who played professionally as a forward for Reading and Cardiff during a career that lasted four years in the mid-1970s. Friday's on-field performances were regarded as excellent, and he won Reading's player of the year award in both of his full seasons there, as well as being the leading goal scorer. However, his habit of unsettling opponents through physical intimidation contributed to a heavily tarnished disciplinary record. Friday was also known off the field for his heavy smoking, drinking, womanising and drug-taking. In a BBC poll held in 2004, he was voted the top "all-time cult hero" for both clubs. He has been voted Reading's best ever player three times, in 1999 and twice in 2007. Cardiff-based band Super Furry Animals dedicated their 1996 single The Man Don't Give a **** to his memory.

During his time at Feltham Borstal, Friday starred for the Borstal football team. He was selected for the prison league's all-star men's team, still aged 16, and allowed out of borstal to train and play with Reading's youth team. A near-fatal accident at work in July 1972 caused Friday to undergo extensive surgery; while working on a roof, a rope became stuck on the scaffold he was working on. The Hayes forward attempted to free it but fell and landed on a large spike – the spike went up through one of his buttocks, through his stomach and narrowly avoided a lung. Not only was Friday strong enough to pull himself off the spike, he recovered from his injuries within three months and returned to the Hayes team in October 1972. Friday was known at Hayes for his excessive drinking, and on one occasion the team started a match a player short because Friday had not turned up. When he finally arrived, eighty minutes after kick-off, his intoxication was obvious. Nevertheless, he was sent onto the pitch with the match still goalless. The opposition paid him little attention and Friday scored a late winning goal. Despite an approach from Watford, the forward signed for Reading in January 1974 for £750. He had scored 46 goals in 67 appearances for Hayes over his two spells there, but during his three Isthmian League seasons had been sent off seven times.

Friday was conspicuous in the professional ranks for never wearing shin pads, and for his resistance to physical harm; no matter how badly he was hurt he would always get up and continue. Friday's off-the-field activities unsettled some of his team-mates. He drank extremely heavily, favouring American malt liquor, and his antics during his drinking sessions caused many landlords to lose patience with him. For example, Friday was barred from one public house after he ended a night there leaping between the tables and dancing on the bar. Another banned him on ten separate occasions. One night, after the pubs closed, Friday and a friend went to an all-night club called Churchill's where they could continue drinking. When they entered, Friday, wearing a long overcoat and hobnail boots, walked onto the dancefloor and removed the coat to reveal that he was wearing nothing underneath. He then began to dance, completely naked apart from the boots. A nightclub barred Friday for his bizarre activities, including a dance he invented called "the elephant" which consisted of turning the pockets of his jeans inside out and undoing his flies to expose himself. He would play his prized heavy metal records very loudly at any time of the day or night and take LSD with casual indifference. 'Even if it was three in the morning, the first thing would be to get the music playing' his friend said. 'We had an old boy living below us ... the ex-groundsman at Reading. He was coming up to 80 and he had a dog's life in the flat. Pounding music, people knocking on the door, girls throwing stones at the windows. Poor old sod'.

Friday's behaviour on Reading away trips was unpredictable and erratic. On the way back from one away match, the team bus pulled over for Friday to go to the toilet and on getting off the coach the forward noticed that they were beside a cemetery. Friday jumped over the wall and stole some stone angels from a grave, intending to place them beside club chairman, who was sleeping on the coach. When he returned, however, the manager sternly told him that 'you must never ever desecrate a graveyard', causing the forward to obediently return the statues. On another occasion he reacted to the news that a team-mate had smuggled a girl into his hotel room by kicking the door in. Later on the same night he walked into the bar carrying a swan that he had found in the hotel grounds. Friday was arrested after the evening match away at Newport County, accused of using obscene language outside a nightclub. At his appearance before magistrates, he pleaded not guilty, representing himself, and was acquitted.

His second wedding was filmed by ITV, before whose cameras Friday, wearing an open-necked tiger-skin-pattern shirt, brown velvet suit and snakeskin boots, sat on the steps of the church and rolled a joint. Friday had invited about two hundred people, mostly friends and relatives from London, who joined in the drinking and drug-taking and ending up fighting each other and stealing the couple's wedding presents, one of which was a large quantity of cannabis. Friday was so angry at his team's performance at Mansfield that he broke into their dressing room and defecated in the team bath. Having been transferred, on arrival at Cardiff railway station, Friday was arrested for having travelled from Reading with only a platform ticket. His new manager bailed him out of police custody and took him to Ninian Park to sign his contract. According to a team-mate, the forward would simply leave after each match and not be heard of until he returned for the next game. 'He wouldn't even bother to have a shower,' Went later said, in an interview. 'He'd just get dressed, take his carrier-bag with his dry martini and he'd go – no explanation'.

Unhappy living so far from home, Friday began to travel back to London at weekends; he avoided paying rail fares by knocking on locked toilet doors and shouting, 'Tickets, please!', pretending to be the ticket inspector. When the occupant passed his ticket under the door to be checked, Friday would pick it up, walk off and use it for himself. Paul Went also recalled an incident during training when he had thrown a ball out from goal and accidentally hit Friday on the back of the head. A player standing near the forward started laughing, leading Friday to conclude that he had thrown the ball. Friday viciously punched the laughing player in the jaw, striking him with such force that he wore a neck brace for two weeks afterwards. Friday's actions became even stranger during his time at Cardiff; after they lost to Shrewsbury, the players and staff were awoken in the middle of the night by loud bangs coming from below their rooms. The cause was found to be Friday, standing on the hotel's snooker table in his underpants and throwing the balls around the room in fury. Against Brighton, Friday was marked by Mark Lawrenson, who so frustrated him that Friday waited for Lawrenson to attempt a slide tackle and then kicked him in the face. After receiving a red card, Friday left the ground with the game still going on; according to [disputed] legend, before leaving he broke into the Brighton dressing room and defecated in Lawrenson's kit bag. Soon, Friday claimed that he had had enough of people telling him what to do and walked into his manager's office to announce that he was retiring from professional football. The club promptly released him and cancelled his contract.

He married for a third time in 1980, but was divorced again within three years. After a short time living back with his parents, Friday's family secured him a flat in the area. He served prison time during the 1980s for impersonating a police officer and confiscating people's drugs, and was found dead in his Acton flat on 22 December 1990 at the age of 38, having suffered a fatal heart attack. Biographer Paolo Hewitt claimed the incident to be the result of "a suspected heroin overdose".

[Houdini Logic]

Later on the same night he walked into the bar carrying a swan that he had found in the hotel grounds.

[Jordan]

Golfer Charlie Beljan complains of chest pains and difficulty breathing before teeing off at a tournament, tells his caddie he thinks he is going to die, calls for paramedics at the turn... Yet finishes the round shooting an 8-under 64 to go atop the leaderboard before getting put on a stretcher and being taken to the hospital via ambulance immediately after playing the 18th.

http://m.espn.go.com/golf/story?storyId=8612126

He wants to get out of the hospital to continue playing on Saturday... This guy must really want to keep his tour card!

[Guest Bilo]

One night, after the pubs closed, Friday and a friend went to an all-night club called Churchill's where they could continue drinking. When they entered, Friday, wearing a long overcoat and hobnail boots, walked onto the dancefloor and removed the coat to reveal that he was wearing nothing underneath. He then began to dance, completely naked apart from the boots. A nightclub barred Friday for his bizarre activities, including a dance he invented called "the elephant" which consisted of turning the pockets of his jeans inside out and undoing his flies to expose himself.

Friday was so angry at his team's performance at Mansfield that he broke into their dressing room and defecated in the team bath.

Now THAT ladies and gentlemen, is what we call a character.

Imagine a night out with him!

[Mack]

Leonid Rogozov

This guy is a physician who performed surgery on himself! Rogozov was a very promising surgeon, and about to complete his dissertation, then one day he decided to jack it in and join sixth Soviet Antarctic expedition doing triple-duty as the expedition's doctor, assistant meteorologist and heavy-vehicle operator. Rogozov spent thirty-six days at sea, withstanding wind chills of -140 degrees Fahrenheit. While he was out there, he developed peritonitis and made the decision to make a 5-inch incision across his abdomen and remove his own appendix! He could see what he was doing, so he operated by feeling alone…. Unbelievably, Rogozov was back to work within a fortnight and remained out there for another full year!

[Jordan]

Leonid Rogozov

This guy is a physician who performed surgery on himself! Rogozov was a very promising surgeon, and about to complete his dissertation, then one day he decided to jack it in and join sixth Soviet Antarctic expedition doing triple-duty as the expedition's doctor, assistant meteorologist and heavy-vehicle operator. Rogozov spent thirty-six days at sea, withstanding wind chills of -140 degrees Fahrenheit. While he was out there, he developed peritonitis and made the decision to make a 5-inch incision across his abdomen and remove his own appendix! He could see what he was doing, so he operated by feeling alone…. Unbelievably, Rogozov was back to work within a fortnight and remained out there for another full year!

Outstanding.