"Had he known earlier that he might be called up on stage to make a speech, young George would never have accepted that crazy bet to keep a live goldfish in his mouth all day"
Duncan
JoinedPosts by Duncan
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Trinnie, Susannah - and Geoffrey
by Duncan intrinnie and susannah were on v graham norton tonight.
i was watching it while i was at the gym, on the treadmill.
i was laughing out loud while running.. .
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Duncan
Trinnie and Susannah were on V Graham Norton tonight. I was watching it while I was at the Gym, on the treadmill. I was laughing out loud while running.
If you're not in the UK Graham Norton is a chat show host , he's on every single night, always brilliant and funny. The guests tonight, Trinnie and Susannah, are a couple of women who are fashion-police. They host their own weekly show "What Not to Wear" - and regularly humiliate their (perfectly willing) victims, pointing out their ghastly fashion gaffes. Which was pretty much the format of tonights show.
After it was over, I was kind of musing on fashion and clothing, and I suddenly remembered all about Geoffrey.
This story goes back over 30 years. Geoffrey was in our congregation, a fine upstanding young witness-brother. But he was the most appalling weirdo-misfit-geeky nerd. Geoffrey had BIG teeth, in all shades of yellow; big black horn-rim glasses, utterly world-class acne, greasy never-washed hair, jumble-sale style clothing and gale-force BO.
Geoffrey was willing and enthusiastic in field service, but had an unbelieving dad who wouldn't let him pioneer, which was just fine with the corps of regular pioneers that I was part of. We all did what we could to keep Geoffrey at arms length.
Geoffrey was reasonably clever - he worked as a junior in a Surveyors Office - but had absolutely no idea when it came to clothes. At the time (1970) all the regular guys were just about on the cusp between the narrow-style tailored trousers of the sixties and the new-incoming 70s look with flares. Geoffrey had never got beyond the fifties baggy trousers look. In purple. Corduroy.
While never ever sporting any shade that might be called "bright" or "vivid" Geoffrey could muster a veritable riot of colour from bottle green, mud brown and navy. And while he was, in some ways, a sweet-natured enough chap, being seen with or near him would seriously damage your chances with any of the available talent at assemblies or even in the congregation. He was, it must be said, a babe-magnet with reversed polarity.
Which is not to say that he didn't care about his appearance. He would turn up at a meeting sporting his new orange-and-purple tie/ brown stripey shirt combination with that certain "like the new threads?" smirk that ALL young men are prey to.
This story concerns Geoffreys New Grey Shirt.
I remember his New Grey Shirt very well. It was - of course! - made of drip-dry Bri-nylon, none of that natural cotton fabric for our Geoff, and it had a certain daring, dashing couple of centimetres length on the button-down collars. But the fabric itself was very thin. Very, very thin. Too thin. It was, no two ways about it, a see-through shirt.
Geoffrey was, I detected, immensely proud of this shirt you could tell by the way he hung his elbow-patched tweed jacket over the kingdom hall chair and swanned around the place in just his shirt-and-tie.
But it did look ridiculous. His pimply back was just an open invitation for any bored-out-of-his-skull young child to play join-the-dots. It was truly one of the most hideous things I have seen in my long life.
Geoffrey wore his New Grey Shirt to every meeting, right up until the day he Got Counselled.
Im quite sure Geoffrey had never given the Elders any cause for counselling before, but the New Grey Shirt was too much. He was crestfallen.
The very best part of the whole thing was exactly WHAT he had been counselled for. He told me all about it. Brother Les P (Weno if any of you remember that story) had taken him to one side and explained that the problem was his nipples. Yes, apparently he used those words.
His Nipples. They were visible. And this was not Theocratic.
In fact, Geoffrey was being unfair to the sisters because he was, by this showy display of his fine masculine form, arousing their sexual desires. Desires that could only inflame and trouble these poor unmarried, frustrated sisters. Surely he could understand that?
I cant tell you the hilarity that ensued on the retelling of this story to all the other pioneers in field service the next day. This was just fantastic! This was Top! Geoffrey's nipples! A spiritual endangerment to our sisters! The girls themselves relished this particular surreal piece of elder-logic every bit as much as us. One of them made a point of asking him why he didnt wear "that great shirt" anymore.
Well, he never did wear the New Grey Shirt ever again, sad to say. Geoffrey always took care to keep his lust-inducing mojo better hidden from the weak-headed sisters from that day on.
And, if you ask me, the world was a poorer place because of that.
Anyway, thank you Trinnie and Susannah for reminding me all over again about Geoffrey.
Duncan.
Edited by - Duncan on 4 February 2003 20:35:31
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Putting Something Back Into Society Now You're Out
by Englishman ini saw the film "pay it forward" some weeks ago.
now, whilst most of us stoical brits will snort somewhat at the emotional hokum, nonetheless the movie featured many salient points, not least the theory that humankind needs to put something back into society if it is to retain it's own sense of worth.. as it happens, i agree with that theory.
also, since leaving the jw's, i find that i have much more concern for the welfare of my fellow man than i used to have.
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Duncan
Hi Mike
(Glad to hear your family's all back together, by the way.)
Excellent point you raise, about putting something back. For me, I'm afraid that I can't really point to any particular charitable work or praiseworthy effort. I give a bit when the poppy people come around the office, or I give the kids a pound to get a sticker off the lady collecting for Guide Dogs outside our local papershop, but that's about it, really.
In a couple of areas of life, I really overcompensate for my previous JW lifestyle, though.
Christmas: I think I've said before, we really go to town in our house. I encourage the festivities in a big way at the office too. One of the office traditions we have here ( I kind of started and sponsored it) is the annual Christmas Bran Tub. In a Bran Tub, everyone draws someone else's name out of a hat, and has to buy that person a Chistmas present, anonymously. That way, everyone in the company gets a present, "from your friends" . They all get put under the Company Christmas Tree. On Christmas Eve (or last working day) our Financial Director - exhibitionist fat head that he is - dresses up as Santa and gives out the presents. It's a hoot.
Of course, you already know that the Finance Director is me.
Secondly, I'm red-hot in encouraging people to give blood. The Blood Transfusion people come around work every now and again on Donation Drives, and I do all I can to set an example and get as many along to it as I can.
Both these things, are, I sure, my way of trying to make amends for being the fully paid-up, card-carrying arsehole I was when I was a Dub.
Duncan. ("If I'm STILL an arsehole, at least I'm not a DUB arsehole!")
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Youth of today!
by RR inwhen i was a kid, adults used to bore me to tears with their tedious diatribes about how hard things were when they were growing up; what with walking twenty-five miles to school every morning uphill both ways through year 'round blizzards carrying their younger siblings on their backs to their one-room schoolhouse where they maintained a straight-a average despite their full-time after-school job at the local textile mill where they worked for 35 cents an hour just to help keep their family from starving to death!
and i remember promising myself that when i grew up there was no way in hell i was going to lay that garbage on kids about how hard i had it and how easy they've got it!
now that i've reached the ripe old age of forty, i can't help but look around and notice.
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Duncan
When I was young, if you were watching TV and wanted to see what was on another channel, you used to have to get up, WALK ACROSS THE ROOM - SOMETIMES AS MUCH AS SEVEN FEET - and change the TV channel yourself. No remotes, oh No!
I'm not making this up.
Duncan.
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A game you would have enjoyed.
by LDH inthought you guys would enjoy hearing this one.
do you remember all of the 'counsel' about 'word whiskers' that was given during the theocrapttic misery drool?
my sister and i (about 13-14 at the time) had always laughed at the more consistent word whiskers in our hall.
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Duncan
We even had an Elder (TMS servant) who would counsel people on how important it was to get " the correct pro - NOUN - ciation" of their words.
Shouldn't be unkind, I suppose. He was a gas-pipe fitter. He had no education to speak of, and truthfully was barely literate. He was just put in a situation where he came off as a laughingstock.
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The Paps and Weno Show
by Duncan indear all,.
to those who used to read h2o last year, and have seen this, apologies.
dear all.
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Duncan
Lisa
Thanks for resurrecting this.
Only someone who had spent a good number of their teen years listening to Cheese Cracker Men ...
Absolutely! When I think about the vast amounts of wasted time - my best years - spent listening to this idiotic drivel, it makes me shake my head. At the time, of course, we were told it was all "Vital Life-Saving Unchanging Truth"
We would all have been better-off making up and handing out your Match-up cards.
regards
Duncan.
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A game you would have enjoyed.
by LDH inthought you guys would enjoy hearing this one.
do you remember all of the 'counsel' about 'word whiskers' that was given during the theocrapttic misery drool?
my sister and i (about 13-14 at the time) had always laughed at the more consistent word whiskers in our hall.
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Duncan
Hi Lisa
This was a similar kind of thing, not quite as good as passing out Match-up cards, I must admit.
http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/forum/thread.aspx?id=18875&site=3
Duncan
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Duncan
Englishman,
was that a "dip" ?
Did they call it dipping in your part of the world?
"Eenie-meenie, Macker-acker
Aire-eye, Dominacka
Shicka-lacka, Lollipoppa
Rom Pom Push - Ay!"
You're it.
Duncan ( it can't be me - I've got fainites)
Edited by - Duncan on 28 November 2002 12:40:53
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I hereby declare....
by Duncan in....the christmas season officially open!.
to explain: my wife's folks live in the neighbouring town to us, a distance of 10 miles or so.
the road which connects us is listed as an "a" class road, although, in truth, it's more like a country lane in places.. halfway along this road is a farm, and the farm has a sign hanging on its gate:.
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Duncan
....the Christmas Season Officially Open!
To explain: My wife's folks live in the neighbouring town to us, a distance of 10 miles or so. The road which connects us is listed as an "A" class road, although, in truth, it's more like a country lane in places.
Halfway along this road is a farm, and the farm has a sign hanging on its gate:
CHRISTMAS TREES FOR SALE. ALL SIZES.
The thing is this: that sign is ALWAYS there. All year, all through the summer, always. And for eleven months a year it's a complete lie.
But, for one glorious season it's true. And driving past it this morning, I noticed that they DID, in fact, have trees for sale.
So, I take that as the starting gun - it's nearly on us.
I better start panicking about presents NOW! Yikes!
Duncan,
HO! HO! HO! Mary Crease-Morse Everybody!
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Embarrassing moments on stage
by freedom96 inas a kid growing up with an elder father, from time to time we would have parts on stage at the meeting or assembly.
my dad had a certain talk he must have delivered to a couple dozen different congregations, about families.
during the talk, he would have my sister and i cause a scene during the talk, in which we would ultimately run on stage argueing.
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Duncan
Hello Freedom 96,
a year or two back, I posted a couple of memorable stage moments, in a thread started by Anglise.
One of these was me, the other one I posted about further down was a friend of mine.
I think/hope this link will work:
http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/forum/thread.aspx?id=4818&site=3
Duncan
Edited by - Duncan on 25 November 2002 12:21:1