» Your Weirdest Teacher

wales v england
it's not wierd, but it deserves an honourable mention...

Two English teachers, one specialising in Language, the other Literature. One Welsh, one English.

They would send first years across to each others lessons and have them read a note out loud to their opposite. Thus:

Miniscule 1st-year walks in, trembling. Big Welsh teacher shouts "YES?" in Brian Blessed voice.

1st-year uncurls note and reads:
"Mr Literature (*) would like the fat Welsh sheep-shagging git to know that there is a department meeting before the next period."

Mr Language (*) smiles, writes another note, and tells him to read this one out loud and sends him on his way, back to Mr Literature for the next round.

In one or Mr Literature's classes, we had a 1st year come in who read out:
"Mr Language would like to inform the stuffy colonial English wanker there are no more copies of Macbeth left in the cupboard, so he can go shove his cocking literature notes up his tight stiff upper rectum"

oh, the fun. The Welshman always came up with the better insults, we found.

(* I cannot, for the life of me, remember their names. But they retired before my 3rd year, which is a damn shame)
(Wed 9th Nov 2005, 17:38, More)

» Mugged

Last one
A street in Havana, Cuba. Me and three friends, walking along quite leisurely on the pavement. One friend is holding her shoulder bag by the straps in her hand instead of, er, over her shoulder. I'm walking at the back of the group, my bag friend at the front. La la, walking along, all's fine.

A quite elderly man is walking very slowly towards us on the same pavement. La dee da, lovely day.

The elderly man veeeerrryyy slowly begins to bend over as he shuffles forwards. Maybe he has cramp. Laa, shiny sun, lovely.

Elderly man is starting to bend his knees as he walks. Crikey, maybe he's having some kind of seizure. I don't know the spanish for 'defribullator', so on with the laalaa doodaa, sunshine good.

Elderly man is now shuffling along, bent over, bent knees, and is slowly putting his arm out. Now that's plain odd, I think, we should just move round him. The other's will see, la dee da, never mind, ooh look, nice retro sign over there.

Elderly man shuffles forwards a little further and reaches for my friend's bag straps.

Huh?

My friend, busy until now herself with sunshine, retro signs and the lovely day, looks down and sees and elderly man shuffling and holding her bag straps. Confused, she pulls her bag away. He tugs back, still shuffling along. She pulls a bit harder. He tugs again.

He's still shuffling along, holding the bag straps, only in the opposite direction from us now. My friend, still very confused about the speed, or lack of, that this is happening, pulls once more and frees her bag from his grip.

The elderly man scowls, shuffles along at the same excruciatingly slow speed, and begins to unfold himself once more.

My friend later described the 'attack' as having a vague nightmarish quality, a creepy slowness of time etc..

The rest of us though, back at the bar, later toasted the "World's Slowest Mugging".
(Thu 15th Jun 2006, 18:24, More)

» Performance

Evil dwarf, neutral
I've got a few stories. But not because I'm an actor, but due to the fact my job involves stages and speakers, though I've done a fair bit of proper theatre too.

But my favourite stage appearance was:

I'd got a colleague to call a speaker prior to the event to check their name spelling. But as they had a gender-neutral name, it was also to find out Bird or Bloke. My colleague got off the phone and went 'um, I still don't know'.

So I rang the client, who was a colleague of said speaker, and they, quite revealingly with hindsight, said 'um, we don't know'. To be safe, we left off the Mr/Miss/Mrs etc on their welcome pack.

So the speaker arrives on the day, led in by my colleague who, wide eyed and suppressing hysterics, steps aside to reveal It.

It is small - about 5'1" - grey-haired, feminine face, grey goatee, kind of shrivelled but not in a 'oh, it must be genetic' way but just sort of cramped, wearing a suit three sizes too big, doesn't understand personal space and speaks in what can only be described as a Terry Jones old lady squeal. I still do not know if it is male of female. I shake the hand, show them the podium, and remind, er, it, as I do all speakers, to relax and speak upright - do not lean into the microphone, we can just turn you up etc... I'm getting a bit worried because not only is this creature a bit weird, when practicing it seems to be doing the exact opposite of what I'm saying. I demonstrate it, describe again, and hope for the best.

The show starts. The gender-neutral goes up, and immediately starts speaking into the podium mic like it's a sports mic. Despite having playback speakers, and the entire audience gasping and holding their ears, the penny does not drop that the loud bangs and crunches and whistles being created are its own fault. The thing carries on.

I rush to sound, who shrug. I need to get him/her to lean back. I sneak up with a note that says 'PLEASE STAND BACK FROM MICROPHONE, AUDIENCE CANNOT MAKE OUT SPEECH' and place it by the mic. And the little f***er just waves it away and carries on.

The client is giving me pleading faces with their fingers in their ears, so I break a cardinal rule and get onto the stage. I try to look confident but respectful as I tap the entity on the shoulder, who responds with an evil glance and carries on breaking the sound system. I have to be firmer, and this time I gently but firmly turn the speaker around and lean them back, and politely, with bowed head, ask them to please stand a pace back and upright, as their speaking into the mic has prevented the audience from hearing any of their speech. I say it firmly but kindly. I also, because I'm not getting in trouble for this crap, say it loudly enough for the mic to pick it up so the audience can nod in approval and my break of etiquette can be forgiven.

You know what the little arse does? Pushes me AWAY. HARD. I actually stumble backwards - I'm only a tiny thing myself but it's the sort of push that would make bouncers smash your face in if you tried it with them.

THEN. Leans INTO the mic. Speaks EXTRA LOUDLY. And leaves me, dumbfounded, standing on the stage giving the audience a look of WTF before theatrically shrugging at the client and walking off.

We turned the mic down to near silence and let the audience talk amongst themselves.

W*nker/a

And that is the one time I ever got onto stage during one of my own shows.
(Fri 19th Aug 2011, 11:35, More)

» Putting the Fun in Funeral

Malfunctioning service
At the crematorium, the words had been spoken and a sombre organ tune played in the background, as my godfather's dad's remains began moving towards the curtains to their fiery end.

However, the moving surface beneath the coffin got slightly stuck, and it began randomly shuddering towards the curtains. The music then started wawing as the tape it was being played from started to chew itself up. Then the curtains suddenly flew open, and the coffin jerked - nay, threw- itself inside, when before the curtains could shut a metal door clanged closed behind it.

The curtains slid elegantly closed again.

My godfather's mum could hardly stand by the end of it from a crippling giggle fit.

On a more sombre note, I'd also like to add that my school wouldn't permit me to attend the funeral of a family friend who had commited suicide. I was a bit miffed by that, as I was very upset by it. However, the widow told me this: after the funeral and the wake, she'd gone home to start sorting through cupboards, and found under some towels a random joint. Knowing it was probably one of the kids', the idea suddenly struck her to smoke it. So she did, and not having had any in her system for a good 20 years, was completely smashed by the end of it. This was fine, but then the doorbell rang, and she was faced with the officer who had been investigating the death. He stayed with her for half an hour, clearly aware she was off her tits, made her a cup of tea then left. After a munchies attack and a giggling fit, she realised just how kind the copper had been, and on ringing to make some kind of believable excuse, he said "don't worry love, it's not the first time - just have yourself some more tea and watch some telly". A lovely act of understanding at a very hard time. Sweet, really.
(Sun 14th May 2006, 14:18, More)

» Other people's diaries

too wise to write one...
as having an evil little brother meant it was only a matter of time before he'd have a go at it.

but at uni, i started keeping a dream diary, as a friend had told me that when you do it, your dreams slowly get more and more vivid and random. he wasn't wrong.

my roomie sadly suffered from clinical depression, and with her being a great friend, i would regularly allow her to read it, as it always made her piss herself laughing, which was a welcome respite for her.

her favourite ones were 1) everything was normal, except the floor was made out of meat, and 2) there was a small tadpole-like creature called a mender, that when you tickled it would raise a fin and hum the first few bars of 'smells like teen spirit'.

was glad for my subconcious to be of assistance.
(Fri 2nd Feb 2007, 9:26, More)