Public speaking. Everyone’s got their own way of getting through it.
If you’re anything like me, you’ll bark very loudly at your audience until they walk out in disgust, unprepared to listen to any more ill-mannered gibberish delivered by a human foghorn with hideous teeth, a bald head and an appalling attitude to the opposite sex.
If, on the other hand, you’re anything like WWM’s very own virtual reality punchbag Dave, a heavily-photoshopped image of Princess Leia will no doubt pop into your head halfway through your speech, making you pull down your trousers and start jizzing at your horrified guests, thus causing them to run away screaming.
Like I say, we all have our own ways of dealing with these things.
But what about those times when shouting loudly or soaking your audience in Star Wars-induced jism just don’t cut the public-speaking mustard? What about those times when you’ve found y’self stumbling and fumbling and, ultimately, failing to deliver that vital speech?
Did you fuck it up at a bought-and-paid-for after dinner event? Or fall flat on your arse in front of your work colleagues? Or did you stand before the whole school and deliver a speech of such magnificent ineptitude that it earned you the derision of every man, woman and child from that day until you skulked, a broken and bitter creature, out of the school gates for the very last time?
You didn’t end up doing a shit on the stage, did you?
To celebrate BBC2’s new series The Speaker, we at WWM want to hear YOUR public speaking horror stories.
We want to know what you did, where you did it, and what happened as a result of your dribbling inability to talk out loud for a few minutes.
Are you prepared to put yourself to shame and prove you can’t deliver the goods as well as an egg-headed child on a TV speech-delivering show?
We bet you are.
Our first speaker of the day is …
Tags: BBC, Culture, Entertainment, Media, Public Speaking, Stalin, Television, The Friday Question, The Speaker, TV
Watch With Mothers 
April 17, 2009 at 8:13 am
is it me?
is it?
in my first job out of university i was a community corrections officer and therefore responsible for many things including high risk offenders prior and post their release. spent a fair amount of time in prisons and county courts, wrote a lot of pre-sentence and parole reports type stuff.
one of the things i had to do was ‘court duty’. this meant i had to hang around court all day and if the judge so requested i had to provide a verbal pre-sentence report. this meant going down into the cells and interviewing the prisoner about the offence, their family history, current situation and then present my findings to the court, verbally, whilst stood before the judge, and also give a recommendation to the court about appropriate sentence.
anyway, after interviewing a dude in the cells about his offence and then going up before the busy court and delivering a good 15 mins of verbal reportage in a fairly articulate and lucid manner, i then managed to tell the court that, ‘mr s*** is very sorry about his offence and although he has a history of dealing and smoking MARRY-JEW-ANA he will comply with any ordered de-tox programme…’.
marry-jew-ana.
marijuana.
dickhead. judge laughed so hard some spit flew over the bench. mr michealides, it was.
anyway.
April 17, 2009 at 8:22 am
Was that just brain paralysis or had you not seen it written before?
You should’ve said ‘history of re-upping ‘n’ toking the motherlovin’ mary jane’.
I used to be a half decent public speaker, but lost the skill due to certain brain-inhibiting substances.
I wasn’t allowed on the school public speaking content one year because my tryout speech was about how the studio audience at Noel’s House Party were as bad as the audience at the Nuremburg Rally.
April 17, 2009 at 8:24 am
Btw – Napoleon anecdote for you…
When I was 11 and in my first year at Big Boys Grammar School For Boys, I went along to the debate club one lunch hour to watch what I thought would be fifth years and six formers talking intelligently about fox hunting.
All I got was Napoleon shouting for an hour at some ‘weak-boned vegetarians’ about how ‘they’ve no right to go meddling with tradition’.
I went the next week for the capital punishment debate. Exactly the same thing happened.
April 17, 2009 at 8:25 am
ooh Breeks, a Community Corrections Officer sounds a a bit Dom. And actually like quite an interesting job.
I have no tales of woe about public speaking, but i do have a couple of tales of where my quick thinking has got me out of a hole. Look confident and brazen out any mistakes, that is the way forward.
April 17, 2009 at 8:25 am
it was because whenever i was talking about said substance in general life it was ‘weed’ or ‘gunja’ or ‘marry-jew-ana’. not marijuana. so i forgot how to say it right.
good work on noel’s house party wotsit. i’ve only seen a few snatches of it on youtube but it looks appalling.
i did some debating once or twice. my technique was generally ‘you’re wrong, i’m right, you arse’. worked ok.
April 17, 2009 at 8:29 am
SH – can you clarify – did Nappers take the opportunity presented to him to debate capital punishment and use it instead to harangue vegetarians?
Bloody hell, i know this is stating the obvious, but there would not be much between NC and BenfromoffoftheApprentice in a competition for the weightiest shoulder chip. But you can bet that if Nappers were declared the winner, the rat faced cockflute would bite his bloody teeth out.
Might be a blessing in disguise.
April 17, 2009 at 8:31 am
No, no, no. He used the tradition argument again. Bellowing ‘it’s tradition!’ whenever anyone countered him. It was hilarious.
The comparison with Ben off the Apprentice is way off…
April 17, 2009 at 8:32 am
Sorry, you are telling me that Napoleon Cockaparte from off of the internets does *not* have a massive chip on ghis shoulder?
I think he would beg to differ.
April 17, 2009 at 8:33 am
after being a community corrections officer in australia i came to england to become a public protection officer, oh yes. spent my days with rapists and murderers. quite liked it…
April 17, 2009 at 8:34 am
So when did you become a care worker then breeks?
*runs away very quickly*
April 17, 2009 at 8:37 am
oh, once i became a world famous masterchef.
*juliennes carrots well fast*
April 17, 2009 at 8:38 am
No – I said the comparison with Ben off the Apprentice is way off. Because the comparison with Ben off the Apprentice is way off.
April 17, 2009 at 8:39 am
Anyway – public speaking…
April 17, 2009 at 8:42 am
i’ve had to do quite a bit of public speaking in my various jobs. hadn’t really figured out that’s what i was up to. talking shit to politicians and council members, conferences, that type of thing.
difficult bit is co ordinating the crap you’re talking with clicking the powerpoint thingy.
April 17, 2009 at 8:45 am
SH I wasn’t comparing NC with Ben. I siad they both have chips on their shoulder. I *think* that the comparison ends there.
I also have chips on my shoulder, it is not an exclusive club.
Like breeks, i have done a lot of public speaking, and started at the age of 8 at my mother’s church. I had to do the reading because they wouldn’t let me be an alter boy. The backwards, westcountry, indoctrinating, sexist buggers.
April 17, 2009 at 8:47 am
when at a backwards, queensland, indoctrinating, sexist private school i wasn’t allowed to do motor mechanics, i was forced to sew skirts and cushion covers. i also had to wear cullottes when playing sport. and a singlet under my tshirt, despite the fact that back in those days i was pancake-chested (flat, not honeyed, or lemoned, or maple syruped with bacon).
April 17, 2009 at 8:50 am
When I was eight I wanted to be anywhere but a church…
April 17, 2009 at 8:50 am
I like Cullottes.
April 17, 2009 at 8:51 am
I wasn’t allowed to go to school in a skirt and pigtails – the world is an unfair place but I adjusted, yeah?
April 17, 2009 at 8:52 am
I wasn’t allowed to do cookery or needlework because they wanted my academic results to count for their league table place at my school.
The backwards, westcountry, indoctrinating, only-worried-about-what-people-think-and-not-the-welfare-of-their-pupils buggers.
I have just been listening to the oddest thing on radio 4 Clive James discussing arthritic cane toads.
April 17, 2009 at 8:52 am
i really like clive james.
i probably would.
April 17, 2009 at 8:54 am
I enjoyed his book Unreliable Memoirs.
April 17, 2009 at 8:54 am
SH – i didn’t *want* to be there, but in the catholic church your parent is allowed to decide for you until you are confirmed. It is some kind of ritualistic pact they make on your behalf at your baptism. I sacked it off as soon as I had been confirmed.
Also, my mother on a sunday morning is not someone that should be disobeyed when she says ‘hurry up we are going to church’
April 17, 2009 at 8:56 am
I think that there is a similarity between clive james and a cane toad, so for that reason, I’m out.
BTW – is Dragon’s Den coming back soon?
April 17, 2009 at 9:10 am
cane toads make clive james look like a great big spunkrat.
i can say this with great authority, having lived amongst the queensland toads for much of my youth. they are truly hideous in every possible way.
April 17, 2009 at 9:13 am
They are quite grumpy too. And make the most peculiar noise when they are confronted. As i found out at Christmas.
April 17, 2009 at 9:15 am
I’m absolutely terrified of public speaking, a hangover form my horrific school, where to survive the idea was not to draw attention to ones self.
So it was probably inevitable that for the final act of my degree, i had to give a lecture to the whole department on the differences between Homo Sapien and Neanderthal behaviour implied by the material record.
I was bricking it to the extent i had to knock back a few tins for courage. When i finally arrived, i found out the guest judge (modeled on some kind of talent format clearly) was the professor who’s book i had mercilously pilfered for just about every factoid i was using.
Fortunatly, it was so boring and incoherent, i think he switched of after 2 minutes.
Saved my incomapetnc
April 17, 2009 at 9:16 am
not saved by spell check, though, it would seem.
April 17, 2009 at 9:20 am
mel – they do, and they spew yellow poision from their arseholes.
like i said, hideous. and insidious, making their way steadily across northwest australia, killing things. and being really ugly. bit like some of the german tourists up there.
April 17, 2009 at 9:26 am
The bloody internet! No friggin’ connection for an hour and a half! Bastards!
Anyway, I’ve not got a chip on my shoulder and I remember those debates. Everybody else in my year refused to take up the opposite side of the argument when it came to fox-hunting and stringing folks up. Me, I couldn’t give a shit. I’d already worked out my strategy, which, as Swineshead says, was roaring about tradition at anyone who tried to come up with a rational argument to the contrary. I’ve subsequently successfully employed this technique for the rest of my life.
April 17, 2009 at 9:29 am
Well done NC.
I thought that at debating societies it was COMPULSORY to argue the view that you did not hold, as it was more about the adversarial skill than it was about the subject?
April 17, 2009 at 9:35 am
I spent a lot of time as a chitlin in a theatre group (my parents took me out of football for some reason) so I’ve never had a problem with public speaking. Sorry!
April 17, 2009 at 9:37 am
My tits-up moment came at a Lincolnshire school’s history public speaking event held in Lincoln when I was 13. I’d prepared a blinder of a speech abut Richard III, turned up and was horrified to discover all the other kids had written their speeches in the first person. My school hadn’t bothered to find out this little fact.
So up I get, start saying my speech in the third person, get annoyed at all the other kids there who have started smirking at me, throw my notes at one of the little shits in the front row, accuse everyone in the room of being ‘a pack of bastards’ and run out of there like a big chicken.
I was then dragged in front of my headmaster who told me I’d brought shame on the entire school. This was a load of arse, as nobody knew I was even doing it.
April 17, 2009 at 9:40 am
Mel – Not at ours. Ours went like this:
“So, this week we’re doing fox-hunting. Who wants to argue the case against?”
*sea of hands*
“And who wants to argue the case for?”
*Napoleon’s hand*
I was an ornery sumbitch, even back then.
April 17, 2009 at 9:40 am
jesus, i used to hate when teachers said that I was letting down the school or whatever. And it usually wasn’t true, which i quickly saw through, resulting in the complete and utter disillussionment in the value of school and whatnot.
I have not been scarred in any way by my school experience.
April 17, 2009 at 9:41 am
Second stand up gig, the first had gone okay, this one was pure horror.
The audience were eyelevel to my front cock, the first row inches from it, and the mic was quieter than my speaking voice. I was doomed from the off when, not being an experiences ‘comic’ decided to speak over the crowd most of whom worked in parliament literally across the road from the venue.
My first gag about my mum/wanking shocked them to silence and it went down hill after that. The lowlight being an audble ‘Jesus’ from some girl at the back following a ‘gag’ about bollock cancer…
As the gig went on I recall thinking, ‘I could just run off’ but the exit point would mean I’d have to circumnavigate the enemy. I considered fainting, collapsing, crying and clicking my heels and repeating ‘there’s no place like home’ to make it stop. To make matters worse my girlfriend of about a fortnight was at the back watching her beau making a fucking arse of himself.
Christ.
April 17, 2009 at 9:41 am
We never had a debating society at my school. As i mentioned, they were far more interested in league tables that they were about giving us a pathway to a career.
April 17, 2009 at 9:45 am
I am impressed that one amongst our number has had a go at stand up. I imagine an audience of pissheads is not the most welcoming.
Is she still your girlfriend piqued?
April 17, 2009 at 9:46 am
NC has too…
That’s the thing Mel, they weren’t pissheads.
Yes
April 17, 2009 at 9:49 am
My stand-up career ended in me accusing my audience of just about every crime under the sun. Swore blind I’d never do that shit again. Gives you the collywobbles, it does.
April 17, 2009 at 9:50 am
Not the first time we were up against the head being tld we’d bought shame upon them, eh Nappers?
*Thinks of church*
April 17, 2009 at 9:52 am
Well, i am very impressed by both of you, and if she is still your girlfriend, why worry what a bunch of sober stiffs in suits think?
April 17, 2009 at 9:52 am
I’m going to give it another shot btw
April 17, 2009 at 9:54 am
Maybe leave the bollock cancer gag out this time then.
April 17, 2009 at 9:54 am
Ergh – just remembered when I tried to pitch a film in front of an audience of other pitchers… mine was about two City boys taking a day off work and killing a sparrow.
Died on my arse. No applause. Everyone else got applause.
April 17, 2009 at 9:54 am
Yes, I may just do that.
April 17, 2009 at 9:54 am
piqued – really? If You Tell Me I Will Attend.
April 17, 2009 at 9:55 am
SH, you have my profound sympathies
April 17, 2009 at 9:57 am
Will keep you posted Breeks
April 17, 2009 at 10:03 am
we had a rhetoric day at my school when i was about 17 years old. i got the subject “why we should ban marriage” (a subject later picked up by an american church-gay-folk band) a subject i didn’t want to have in the first place. to show my dislike i didn’t bother to find any arguments but the short and catchy “better a nice wank than a boring marriage”. my teacher wasn’t very impressed even though i got applause for saying “wank” in front of my class.
April 17, 2009 at 10:06 am
Swineshead – I seem to recall I defended us all to the hilt in the head’s office, knowing, of course, that we were guilty as sin. Well, obviously not as guilty as the one who actually shit in that church.
April 17, 2009 at 10:11 am
Ha, at least you boys actually did stuff that brought shame on the school. I only did things like not attend the school service in the cathedral. Or on one very memorable occaision, I didn’t do my chemistry homework, at A-level. I was also not the only one to have not done her homework on that occasion, but i was the only one that could not be bothered to make up an excuse as to why i hadn’t done it. Bah.
Did you adopt the same methodology as you did in debating society Nappers: ‘It’s a tradtion’
April 17, 2009 at 10:12 am
Well, to be honest, your exasperation at the charge only buried the culprit further in the shit. Though it helped us lot get off with a lesser punishment…
What was the punishment? I don’t remember it being that bad.
April 17, 2009 at 10:14 am
He who knows only his own side of the case knows little of that. -John Stuart Mill, philosopher and economist (1806-1873)
April 17, 2009 at 10:16 am
We had to go to the vicar and apologise, and that was it. The boy wot done the shit was suspended. Taff Davis, the angry Latin teacher, tried to argue that I should be expelled and he should be let off with a warning. Freeman was warming to this idea until I pointed out that I hadn’t actually reached into his bowels, pulled out the gubbins and dumped it into the sink. Taff never forgave me, as the shitter was his star Latin pupil.
You should be grateful for my barrack-room lawyer skills, Swineshead. I saved you a week off school.
Erm …
April 17, 2009 at 10:21 am
so, someone shat in the church, and it was none of you, but you were still implicated. Were you shovelling laxatives down his neck while the other held him down, and held onto his nose so he had to open his mouth? We are missing details here
April 17, 2009 at 10:22 am
DINLT – what was his take on shouting ‘it’s tradition’ as a tactic?
Nice quote BTW
April 17, 2009 at 10:23 am
Mel -Swineshead, Swineshead’s brother and I were with him, and I may, or may not, have suggested he shit in the church. In my defence, I use the old ‘if I told you to jump off a cliff …’ argument.
April 17, 2009 at 10:24 am
i once badly faked my stepdad’s signature on a detention form. no idea how they didn’t figure it out cause it’d been done with pencil, erased about fifty times before going over in pen.
i reckon they totally knew but i’d already suffered my statutory beatings for the week so they couldn’t add on.
April 17, 2009 at 10:26 am
BUT breeks, the question is, did your stepdad ever find out?
April 17, 2009 at 10:27 am
i hope not. he’d have a bash at punishing me for it even now, retrospectively. unless he was in cahoots with the school of course. he and the school were in cahoots with jesus and the rest of the holy trinity so who knows.
April 17, 2009 at 10:27 am
The vicar apology was hilarious, i remember I couldn’t stop laughing and we were at the point of rolling on the floor guffawing.
I’m sure I had an additional week’s detention to be spent drawing cocks on library books in the library.
While the deed was done I was outside trying to trap a cat.
You did deface the visitor’s book, NC. I may have drawn a cock on it.
April 17, 2009 at 10:29 am
Breeks – Forging signatures is a fine art I also never mastered, so I struck a deal with my old ma to write me a sick note that lasted an entire school year in exchange for chores (which I soon worked out how to avoid)
April 17, 2009 at 10:30 am
i wish we could freehand on this thing – my stepdad’s signature was an artistic beast consisting of a large loop and a small squiggle. brilliant stuff.
April 17, 2009 at 10:31 am
I used to forge my mates mum’s signatures when he got detention on a regular basis, works a treat…
*falls over Richard Ateenboroughs foot*
April 17, 2009 at 10:33 am
‘Attenborough’ of course
I can’t see a bloody thing
*plants pin in corner of the office*
April 17, 2009 at 10:34 am
You got a detention? I don’t recall getting fuck all.
I nearly bust a nut laughing at the vicar apology.
April 17, 2009 at 10:36 am
Ey up, i see Pirate Bay has been found guilty.
No more bitorrent from them then. For now
April 17, 2009 at 10:40 am
Tip for forging signatures.
Do it upside down.
April 17, 2009 at 10:41 am
Spot on DINLT, rule one that
April 17, 2009 at 10:41 am
mel: tpb to be shot at dawn…
April 17, 2009 at 10:41 am
My normal signature’s shit. My art-signing one’s better.
April 17, 2009 at 10:42 am
I know, terribly unswedish isn’t it?
None of the papers here have managed to spell Fredrik in the Swedish way though.
April 17, 2009 at 10:48 am
NC – why have you gone to the time and trouble of having two signatures?
Why not just use the better one if you like it more?
April 17, 2009 at 10:48 am
mel: very unswedish. we’ve gone american now. big lawsuits and all that.
nice spot on the misspelling of fredrik.
seems like no paper is pointing out that carl lundstrom is financing the swedish neo-nazi movement either.
April 17, 2009 at 10:49 am
Swineshead – Did that sick note pass muster with the evil Chalky White? I came to school with one explaining I couldn’t play football because I’d just undergone a medical procedure, and the bastard called me a liar and demanded I fish out a kit from the dreaded leftover sports clothes barrel. I refused, of course, and was sent to the head for the third time that week.
April 17, 2009 at 10:50 am
sh-np: vicars and latin teachers? where did you grow up? 19th century?
April 17, 2009 at 10:50 am
Chalky White?
Jesus
April 17, 2009 at 10:51 am
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/8002579.stm
Lemmy?
April 17, 2009 at 10:52 am
Did you have a sick note? My parents were quite vocal against Chalky come open day and he’d seen the way my brothers were, so he probably just resigned to it.
But one day when I was off with that note (for a bad back) he made all the off-sick kids shovel sand. The boggle eyed pederast.
April 17, 2009 at 10:53 am
Nappers – we’ve just had internet outage in Bath too. Are you at the Future place today, hmmmm?
Mel: would your chip be about the West Country perchance?
The only public speaking I’ve ever had to do was:
> LAMDA at nursary school (blocked out most of that period due to alcoholic father issues)
> Debate team at college (can’t remember much of that due to self-inflicted alcohol and drug issues)
Does acting count? Because I used to act loads. And was rather good. Won awards an’ everythin’…
April 17, 2009 at 10:53 am
Our school was erected in the 1400s and had never lost it’s archaic principles.
Before you ask, it was non-fee paying grammar school stuff. We at least got to go home at night.
April 17, 2009 at 10:53 am
my mother refused to write sick notes, end of. only way i got to stay home was proof of actual death or near death on word of actual doctor.
that happened twice, i think. glandular fever x 1 and horse’s hoof to the head x 1.
my mum made me ride home from school in a cyclone.
she’s hard.
April 17, 2009 at 10:54 am
‘Before you ask, it was non-fee paying grammar school stuff. We at least got to go home at night.’
Well spotted!
April 17, 2009 at 10:55 am
BM – You raise an interesting angle. LSD overuse has rendered me incapable of public speaking. Frank should stick that on his adverts.
Anyway – Chalky White is one in a long line of schoolteacher nicknames including:
Taff Davies
Gripper Haines
Peter ‘Percy’ Freeman
Wambo Pearson
Daggo Hoare
April 17, 2009 at 10:56 am
‘my mother refused to write sick notes, end of. only way i got to stay home was proof of actual death or near death on word of actual doctor.’
Mine too, took no notice of my moaning aboout the pain in my foot, sent me to school regardless, even wehnI was literally hobbling. A broken ankle has that effect
April 17, 2009 at 10:57 am
Is he? I was not aware of that Indy.
April 17, 2009 at 10:57 am
My ma and pa, as Napoleon will attest, are left-leaning liberals when it comes to child-rearing. They didn’t bat an eyelid as my classmates, 5 years old, ran from my house, weeping at the video I’d asked them to rent for my birthday video party – good ol’ Clive Barker’s Hellraiser, with its hammer-killings, S&M demons and reanimated corpses.
April 17, 2009 at 10:58 am
we had Mrs White, aka The Radar, who was constantly decorated with bandaids on her face from regular mole removal. her head rotated smoothly from left to right all day, her large ears picking up talking in class, gossip and the sound of teenage kissing behind the dunnies. it was she who found iris de kok and simon boonstra involuntarily pashing after their braces locked together after an illicit snog.
April 17, 2009 at 10:58 am
SH – I don’t know if it affected the ability to public speak, more memories I have. the 90s are all pretty hazy.
I’d walk 9 miles to school and 9 miles back. And no telly. And only bread and water for dinner…
Ahem.
April 17, 2009 at 10:59 am
piqued – my mum made sister #1 go to school with broken wrist, telling her to ‘stop whining’ after a fall from a bunk bed, and sister #2 to ballet with a chipped knee bone after falling from a tree, with the message to ‘practice hard’.
April 17, 2009 at 11:01 am
Breeks and Piqued, mine too. Funnily enough, most of the reason that i needed sick notes was horse related.
My mum refused to take me to hospital on several occaisions when i had broken bones. Well, OK twice.
April 17, 2009 at 11:02 am
Badger – I’m not at Future, I’m at home with Virgin fucking Media.
Swineshead – It was anything goes round your house. I used to love going round there as a boy to watch unpleasant horror movies. Every other house you went to, it was stuff like ‘Big’, ‘Vice-Versa’ and ‘Turner & Hooch’. Round at Swineshead’s, it was ‘Hell-Bound Zombie Vagina Driller IV – Zombie Vagina Driller’s Third Vengeance’. When we were twelve.
April 17, 2009 at 11:02 am
mel: yes, he is. he inherited the wasa empire (bakeries and national treasure) and uses quite a lot of the fortunes to sponsor skinheads and “alternative music” = “viking rock” = “swedish” “music” = “aryan” “culture” = shouty punk with racist messages
April 17, 2009 at 11:03 am
my mum is way nicer to my nephews than she was to me.
*bitter fass*
actually, she’s quite cool. i was never, ever in danger of being molly coddled and so now work in social care where i care a bit cause i get paid, but wouldn’t if i didn’t. *
* not entirely true, dammit.
April 17, 2009 at 11:04 am
http://heroofswitzerland.blogspot.com/search/label/Top%20Tips
April 17, 2009 at 11:04 am
np: ‘Turner & Hooch’ used to be my favourite film. god knows that i cried when hooch took that bullet…
April 17, 2009 at 11:05 am
18-rated films don’t do you any harm.
*drills a zombie’s vagina*
If Chalky White found any of his pupils pashing behind the dunnies, all homophobic hell would have broken loose.
Funny how homophobia is incredibly prevalent at all boys schools.
April 17, 2009 at 11:05 am
Oh yes, BM, my chips are in no way Westcountry related – I have lived all over the Westcountry, and it is a beautiful part of the world, that allowed me to run wild and ride and do all country type things.
My chip (that i am going on about today) is just related to the shit school i went to (academically ‘good’, but still fucking useless. I got an education in spite of them to be honest), and their useless attitude to their pupils’ development*
It is largely this that has given me a complete disrespect for authority, unless that authority has earned in in my eyes.
*ie their attitude was not to have an interest in it at all beyond exam results.
April 17, 2009 at 11:06 am
My mum was the reverse when it came to horror movies SH. I remember when I was 8 Star Wars came out and I asked her to take me.
‘I’m not having you see anything with ‘wars’ in it’ was her reply.
This was of course during endless Nam footage on the news, a plethora of documentaries on the holocaust I used to watch with my granddad as he regaled tales of The Somme and shooting men in half with his Lewis Gun
April 17, 2009 at 11:07 am
we weren’t allowed to watch ET – the extra terrestrial, or ghostbusters, because they were unchristian.
most films, actually. bedknobs and broomsticks was my life till about 21.
April 17, 2009 at 11:08 am
Thanks Indy, I knew about the bakery stuff, but not about the shit punk.
April 17, 2009 at 11:10 am
My father was the opposite of that. I remember I was round his house when I was six, and watching Life Of Brian followed by The Thing on Betamax. The experience left my young mind thinking Brian’s story was the actual story of Christ, and shitted right up when that dog’s face opens up like a flower.
April 17, 2009 at 11:11 am
*gasp* but Breeks, Bedknobs and Broomsticks is about witches, and therefore must be considerd heresey of the first water!
April 17, 2009 at 11:11 am
Can I just point out that the leftover sports-kit collection in the changing room was called The Steg Bin.
That’s all I wanted to contribute.
The Steg Bin.
April 17, 2009 at 11:11 am
please click that link i posted so i can ‘omg’ with some of you.
thanks.
yours,
b
April 17, 2009 at 11:12 am
my parents didn’t approve to buy “war toys” (toy rifles etc) but were very enthusiastic about lego. therefore me and my friends with likeminded parents used to construct our own hellish arsenals out of lego. i did a sort of crossbow-thingy that shot rubber bands at very high speed and also had a doublebarreled duplo “grenade-launcher”.
then i gave it up for a rolled-up newspaper.
April 17, 2009 at 11:12 am
mel – christianity can never be accused of applying logic.
April 17, 2009 at 11:13 am
Christ… that censorship sounds horrific.
My parents didn’t encourage this stuff, I ought to add – they just allowed it and laughed at the fact we liked violence and swearing. Belittling a puerile fascination is probably the best way to stop it going out of hand.
There was a lad at my school who was only allowed to watch Blue Peter.
Nothing else.
April 17, 2009 at 11:15 am
Breeks – OMG the tip about the ghost tampon woooOOOOoooh
April 17, 2009 at 11:16 am
we had a “invite someone old” day at my school because of some history project. my grandfather embarrased me in front of my class by telling a story about dressing up as hitler (!) in a kind of trick or treat thing in 1938.
he was apparently not told that my school was an irony-free-zone and very pc.
April 17, 2009 at 11:17 am
i know. and i can’t actually decide which is the worst – recommending people eat toxic frozen toothpaste instead of mints or ghosty tampons (there is some recycling tip to be furthered, there, i’m sure, about used ones) or or or.
anyway. scary.
April 17, 2009 at 11:19 am
Indy – most young boys will make guns out of any old thing. Fact.
SH – I think that your parents had a good plan. Pointing and laughing at the terminally terrifieds is a terrific tactic. Pointing and laughing is a tactic that shouldbe empolyed more in every day life in general.
April 17, 2009 at 11:21 am
Breeks, and that one with the CD kitchen should get their own makeover show. It should be called Credit Crunch Redecorating for the Terminally Tasteless.
April 17, 2009 at 11:21 am
My mother didn’t seem to mind what I watched or played with. She was much more bothered by the heinous crimes of putting my elbows on tables, eating food in the street or drinking whilst eating. To this day I don’t tend to drink anything when I’m eating, thanks to her weird ways.
April 17, 2009 at 11:22 am
whereas i, naps, cannot conceive of a meal without litres of water. we got through a 3-litre jug at every dinner, the five of us.
now i can get through a 3-litre jug of wine, obv.
April 17, 2009 at 11:23 am
What is the matter with drinking and eating? Does this mean that you cannot have a nice glass of red with your dinner?
April 17, 2009 at 11:24 am
I love those top tips – the pear-mouse is my favourite so far.
April 17, 2009 at 11:26 am
I have to have at least a pint of fluid when I eat. Something wrong with my mush.
April 17, 2009 at 11:27 am
Angela Rippon looks dog rough in that photo. My top tip would be NOT to carry a camera around with you, so you don’t have memories of your favourite celebs looking rubbish.
April 17, 2009 at 11:38 am
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/tyne/8003982.stm
a ghost?
April 17, 2009 at 11:39 am
Mel – She’s got this idea that you’ll fill y’self up with water or whatever, and thus won’t be able to eat all your dinner. Hence wolfing down my food and panting like a dog, trying to get through it as quickly as possible so I can wet me whistle. Mothers are weirdos.
April 17, 2009 at 11:42 am
piqued: “suffered a panic attack while visiting a local library”
what? no “atlas shrugged”, by objectivist bitch ayn rand, left?!? arrggghhh!
April 17, 2009 at 11:43 am
a distinct lack of melatonin. It is a wonder the woman doesn’t have ricketts!
April 17, 2009 at 11:43 am
piqued: …or do you suspect that she was attacked by the library ghost woman from “ghost busters”?
April 17, 2009 at 11:44 am
I think i like the ghost tampons better.
April 17, 2009 at 11:45 am
That new Ghostbusters game looks snazzy. Bet it’s shit, mind. Like all dead shit.
April 17, 2009 at 11:45 am
Agoraphobia’s an ‘orrible condition.
April 17, 2009 at 11:45 am
Maybe she does, Mel, may be she does
*saunters off to theme tune of A Few Dollars More*
April 17, 2009 at 11:46 am
BBC NEWS: “british agoraphobic looks kind of like italian pornstar ciccolina”
April 17, 2009 at 11:47 am
Indy, maybe, maybe IT’S HER
arrrghhhhherzzzzz
April 17, 2009 at 11:47 am
i suffer from work agoraphobia.
April 17, 2009 at 11:48 am
this is not “real” news – right?
April 17, 2009 at 11:49 am
the fritzl story outdoes this story by miles. locking one self in does definetely not count as a news story.
April 17, 2009 at 11:49 am
I get the claustra variety. Let’s be frank, none of the phobia range are really worth subscribing to are they.
April 17, 2009 at 11:49 am
agoraphobia – fear of farmers?
April 17, 2009 at 11:50 am
ah piqued, too clever and doesn’t quite work, does it?
no.
April 17, 2009 at 11:52 am
I’ve got that fucking spheksophobia malarky. One hint of a wasp and I’m flooded with adrenaline, drowning in irrational terror, careening up the street with my hands flailing around and usually barrelling headlong into a wall. The coming of Summer fills me with nothing but dread.
April 17, 2009 at 11:53 am
“I slowly sidled to the edge of bed, crawled on my hands and knees to the window ”
add puking to it and it sounds like “sunday morning”
April 17, 2009 at 11:54 am
Maybe that was what all that bath malarkey in LOTSW was all about – wasp avoidance
April 17, 2009 at 11:57 am
Could be, Mel. I’ve never tried the tin-bath method of escape. I’ve tried upsetting pub tables, trampling over picnics, pulling adults and children in the way of the wasp, shouting and running straight into a lake (I’m never going to Burghley Horse Trials ever again), and emptying an entire can of hairspray over one whilst trapped at the wrong end of a caravan.
Those bastards.
April 17, 2009 at 12:00 pm
NC – I should think that Burleigh wouldn’t have you back – did you make it on the telly?
Try just standing still. They won’t hurt you if you don’t atack them.
April 17, 2009 at 12:04 pm
Mel – Well done for completely missing the point of irrational phobias. If I could do that whole standing still / they won’t hurt you thing, I wouldn’t actually have the phobia, see? It’s an involuntary fight or flight mechanism – you have absolutely no control over it whatsoever.
April 17, 2009 at 12:07 pm
Wasps, Napoleon? Wasps?
April 17, 2009 at 12:08 pm
i’m sure bbc do a show about phobias, naps. go on it, yeah.
April 17, 2009 at 12:10 pm
Ugeine – Yes, wasps. They’ve given me the collywobbles since I was a boy. Can’t help it.
Breeks – No thanks.
April 17, 2009 at 12:12 pm
Are you allergic or something?
April 17, 2009 at 12:12 pm
Where is Clarry? She hasn’t been in here all week has she? Hope she is OK
April 17, 2009 at 12:13 pm
Ugeine – Couldn’t tell you. I’ve never been stang off of one. Too busy running away. It’s a phobia, see? Look the word up, for fuck’s sack.
April 17, 2009 at 12:14 pm
Sake, not sack. Fuck’s sack is a totally different beast.
April 17, 2009 at 12:16 pm
I’ll get Swineshead to explain it to me later NP.
I was only asking, no need to get all uppity.
April 17, 2009 at 12:16 pm
Not heard a peep from Clarry. I hope the wasps and crabs didn’t get her.
April 17, 2009 at 12:18 pm
I get uppity at the drop of a hat. YOU KNOW THIS.
April 17, 2009 at 12:19 pm
Expecially if that hat was full of wasps.
April 17, 2009 at 12:20 pm
i think clarry’s been around on another internet portal….
my best mate stuck her ass in in a wasp’s nest when we were catching jilgies at west lake. she ran well fast.
April 17, 2009 at 12:20 pm
Where’s my world famous lookalike section? Or has it fallen out of favour already?
And it had better be Leia from Return of the Jedi, or that was a fucking insult, Napoleon.
April 17, 2009 at 12:21 pm
What are jilgies breeks?
April 17, 2009 at 12:21 pm
Dave – No. Star Wars. The one where she looks like she’s got two loaves of bread stuck to the side of her head.
THAT’S WHAT YOU’RE JIZZING OVER.
April 17, 2009 at 12:23 pm
Star Wars Episode 4, 5 or 6? I won’t get out of bed for anything but 6.
April 17, 2009 at 12:24 pm
like mini-prawns, mel. it was generally hot when we caught them and as we travelled back home they’d jump out of our tupperware container onto the road and turn, surprisingly quickly, nice and pink.
much nicer than cane toads.
April 17, 2009 at 12:24 pm
Dave – I’m old enough to call Star Wars ‘Star Wars’ and know what I mean. It wasn’t called ‘Episode IV’ when I was a boy.
You speech fucking upping, jizz-firing, Princess Leia fantasy-having SUPERBOOB.
April 17, 2009 at 12:25 pm
episode 6 isn’t the best on ds lite lego star wars (the complete saga), dave. not by far.
April 17, 2009 at 12:26 pm
Could they be the same thing we call shrimp? very tiny, see through ones that hang around the coast, ans tasye lovely potted – in butter mixed with mace and cayenne and other things?
April 17, 2009 at 12:26 pm
Lego Star Wars is a bunch of arse, Breeks. You should give Gears of War a spin.
April 17, 2009 at 12:26 pm
I thought shrimp was American for prawn?
April 17, 2009 at 12:28 pm
Dve – where the fuck IS your lookalike section?
I’ve not received one, have I?
send it to the swineshead at epicwinmedia address.
April 17, 2009 at 12:29 pm
no, like small safety pins.
April 17, 2009 at 12:29 pm
Why specify the fact you’ve played it on the DS ‘lite’, Breeks, when the original DS and new DSi run the game as well? Why not tell me what colour your DS is as well?
I’m off for the day. I have far better things to do.
April 17, 2009 at 12:29 pm
When I get stung I swell up like a fucking balloon, god help me if one of the buggers gets me in the neck. I had a few ping off when biking like but they’ve always been face-on.
NC, wasps/bees etc only sting as a result of movement or breath.
April 17, 2009 at 12:29 pm
lego “howards end” anyone?
April 17, 2009 at 12:29 pm
oh. would they be good potted as well?
April 17, 2009 at 12:30 pm
SH – Go to my blog and copy and paste it. I did send you the link yesterday.
This week’s lookalike is ‘racey’.
April 17, 2009 at 12:32 pm
‘I’m off for the day. I have far better things to do.’
Off from what, wanking?
April 17, 2009 at 12:32 pm
cause i call it my ds lite, dave, you pillock.
it’s red.
April 17, 2009 at 12:34 pm
Piqued – Yes, I know. Thanks for that. LOOK UP FUCKIING ‘PHOBIA’! BASTARDS! YOU FAT BASTARDS!
April 17, 2009 at 12:35 pm
Piqued, you bastard. My willy’s farting dust so I’m off to plonk it in the fridge for a bit.
Don’t worry, I’ll be back. In time.
April 17, 2009 at 12:35 pm
I appreciate your position NC, I was just saying…
*tails off*
*lips wobbles*
April 17, 2009 at 12:36 pm
HARRUMPH!
April 17, 2009 at 12:36 pm
Put it in the toaster , Dave
April 17, 2009 at 12:38 pm
I like the way Dave says he’s got ‘far better things to do’. Is trying on your mother’s clothes whilst she’s out shopping a far better thing to do than comment on a blog full of your enemies?
April 17, 2009 at 12:39 pm
Why? Are you one of those weird German cannonballs that likes eating toasted penis? I’d let you do it if you were, Piqued, I just couldn’t bear the poncey food review you’d write about it afterwards.
April 17, 2009 at 12:42 pm
having a bad day, dave? you seem way more, i dunno, lemony than usual.
chin up, old goat.
April 17, 2009 at 12:42 pm
‘far better things to do’.
lights out!
April 17, 2009 at 12:45 pm
Breeks – I’m not sure Dave has good days.
April 17, 2009 at 12:45 pm
When I say I like to wank with the lights out, Indy, I don;t mean with the lights out, I mean with classic 80s electronic puzzle game. I find the experience cathartic, like my own little ‘my God, it’s full of stars’ moment in 2001: A Space Odyssey.
Do not judge me.
April 17, 2009 at 12:47 pm
That’s the old girl above.
April 17, 2009 at 12:49 pm
Is trying on your mother’s clothes whilst she’s out shopping a far better thing to do than comment on a blog full of your enemies?
A question philosophers have wrestled with over the centuries there.