Tramps and Bronchitus

[gibberish]

If so, then I think I can safely say, you almost certainly saw me.

Absolutely priceless Zarse.    How on earth do you recall so many details from having been in such a state?

[Andy Zarse]

I vaguely remember doing it, but the scene was described in graphic detail the next day by my pals, once they had discharged me from the burns unit.  

It was my mate's stag night (the gambling god from the Grimbergen thread BTW), I was the best man, we'd been up all night taking "refreshment" on the friday overnight pompey ferry and no one was allowed to sleep till we got back on Monday am. I'm afraid to say, rather like our snotty tramp friend, I had become massively "over-refreshed".  

I think I cheated as I caught a few hours kip on the grass bank at Tertre Rouge. Then for brekky we were re-invigourated when we found for sale ice cold pints of normandy cidre, our choice of breakfast drink ever since. It cheers you up.

It was also the first year they did bungee jumping and we nicked some certificates off the man.

[BigH]

For those of you unaware of the seminal work of Douglas

Oh yes, if I remember correctly, in character I think he was known as Fred Hippytittymus. With a career spanning a decade or two, the shadda-adda-ffffwayyy! bit was his only trick, a talented man and no mistaking.
You've got to hand it to those 60/70's comics, they were real pros. How many years did Norman Collier earn a living doing the 'broken down microphone' sketch which then morphed into the (jacket off shoulders) chicken impersonation.
I'm ashamed to admit, they still crack me up.
H

[Matt Harper]

Jack Douglas would be in a world of hurt over here - taking the piss out of Tourettes sufferers in such a cruel way. I think Tourettes Syndrome is absolutely fantastic, by the way. I'm not so keen on the nervous ticks and grunts and groans and weird posturing, but the explosive outbursts of disgusting profanity are f**k*ng brilliant!
I have to say that Norman Collier is a singularly unfunny twat however. It's ironic that Big H, who's wit and sense of humour I so  admire, could find this moron to be in the slightest bit amusing, but I digress. Chubby Brown, Peter Kay and Johnny Vegas - now they're funny f**k*rs.
Picking up the thread that Andy has cultivated, if you witnessed (or participated in) the 1992 Garage Vert Superbowl, saw a guy do a bugee jump (1st year it was there, inside of Tetre Rouge) dressed in collar and tie and cable knit cricket jumper, saw the rather nasty punch-up on the car-deck of the Portsmouth/Le Harve overnighter in 1994 (French truck drivers V us), seen successive years of Indy 500 T shirts and initially a hefty drinks carrier called "Coolio", a later wheeled incarnation of same ("Coolio avec pneus) and finally R2D2, the quintesential all-terrain Grimbergen hauler and Sunday pm baptism vessel, cheered on the 1998 female dust wrestling on the sat night at Champagne Bar, then you have probably been in close proximity to our happy little band. I'm the one who looks like Brad Pitt.  
 

[BigH]

I think it's the sheer hopelessness of the whole chicken/phone scenario that gets me.

A good reference for any aspiring Tourettes victim can be found at:

http://www.viz.co.uk/profanisaurus/profanis.htm

Have you dried out yet Matt?

H

[BigH]

Oh, and Peter Kay fans should check this one out:

http://www.aviz.co.uk/stuff/johnsmiths/babies.wmv

H

[Andy Zarse]

I think it's the sheer hopelessness of the whole chicken/phone scenario that gets me.

Matt, oh ye of little humour! I had taken you to be a man of at least average taste in comedy but this cannot be so. Surely you can see that the comic genius of Collier is at least on a parr with a classic play like Waiting For Godot. Samuel Beckett was a great fan of Collier by the way and of Duncan Norvell, the camp one who used to tap people, shout "Chase me!" and skip off.

BTW a pal once ruined a performance of Godot when he was at college. He dressed up as a tramp and twenty minutes into the play, he burst into the auditorium and ran on stage shouting "Oh God, I'm so sorry I'm late".

[gibberish]

BTW a pal once ruined a performance of Godot when he was at college. He dressed up as a tramp and twenty minutes into the play, he burst into the auditorium and ran on stage shouting "Oh God, I'm so sorry I'm late".

Where on earth do you get all these freinds Andy.  you must have led a spectacular life so far

[Matt Harper]

I think it's the sheer hopelessness of the whole chicken/phone scenario that gets me.

Matt, oh ye of little humour! I had taken you to be a man of at least average taste in comedy but this cannot be so. Surely you can see that the comic genius of Collier is at least on a parr with a classic play like Waiting For Godot. Samuel Beckett was a great fan of Collier by the way and of Duncan Norvell, the camp one who used to tap people, shout "Chase me!" and skip off.

BTW a pal once ruined a performance of Godot when he was at college. He dressed up as a tramp and twenty minutes into the play, he burst into the auditorium and ran on stage shouting "Oh God, I'm so sorry I'm late".

Andy, you flatter me undeservedly. I am an ill-educated yobbo. I thought Samuel Beckett got knifed up the jacksy in some cathedral somewher down south.
Furthermore, I wouldn't know the difference between Waiting for Godot and waiting for the #73 nightbus from Stanningley.

[Matt Harper]

In more ways than one - thanks for asking H. Now praying for fair weather for the 12 hour race. Sebring in the wet is rumoured to be very unpalateable. Thank you for the link to the profanosaurus. I find filthy language so expressive.

[Andy Zarse]

Andy, you flatter me undeservedly. I am an ill-educated yobbo. I thought Samuel Beckett got knifed up the jacksy in some cathedral somewher down south.
Furthermore, I wouldn't know the difference between Waiting for Godot and waiting for the #73 nightbus from Stanningley.

None Matt. The point is that Godot never turns up. It's a great work of hopelessness.

I assume does the bus never shows either.

[Matt Harper]

See, you learn something new every day!
I now understand the gag about the tramp. Andy, are you telling me that you sat through a play about waiting for some character to turn up, who fails to put in an appearence? Why were they waiting for Godot anyway? I'd have thought the least Godot could have done was send a note - or leave a message, saying that he'd been indisposed. Some people are so rude. Was it ever explained what the hold-up was? Who knows - there could have been an accident, or family sickness - or maybe he just couldn't get to a phone. Perhaps he got lucky, met a nice bit of skirt and got laid - or maybe he just plain couldn't be arsed. What were they going to do when he finally dained to show up anyway? Was everybody pissed off that the ignorant bugger kept them hanging around all day? It's a disgrace.

[Andy Zarse]

Matt

I think half the problem, and this is a personal opinion you understand, is that Godot doesn't actually exist. As to why the pair of twits, Estragon and Vladimir, are hanging around on the roadside, I can offer no rational explanation. So I think that puts paid to your getting getting laid theory, although i am open to be pursuaded otherwise.

Basically it's an existential play, their waiting for the eponymous and rhetorical Mr Godot is a demonstration of our desire to know answers to which maybe there are no answers in the empirical sense. It is also boring and a load of utter sh ite in my book, unless you happen to be a rather fey effete chap who ponces around in a corduroy jacket, drinking pale sherry and discussing shakespeare's odes etc. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think you are.

Being late is still bad manners in my book but then again the characters are fu cking halfwitted idiots. Without going into racial stereotypes, the Irish have a charming record of poor timekeeping generally. Which may go some way to explaning why the two tw ats are not effing and blinding because someone who doesn't exist hasn't bothered to turn up or send their apologies. If only they'd both been given tracheotomys we would not have to listen to this crap. Bring back Throaty I say.

I'm off to Norfolk in the morning and if I see two tramps waiting by the road, I'm gonna run the mothers down.

[BigH]

Bloody Godot!

I've never really been a fan of the theatre, I think I was given the Pavlovs Dogs treatment at an early age when a couple of school trips to The Empire went badly wrong.
A few years after school, a friend I was sharing some digs with suggested we all go to the local theatre to see a 'great production of Waiting for Godot', he reckoned we'd have a great time, and I thought well, it's the theatre, so there could be a chance of some gratuitous nudity and anyway, they've got a bar.
Kinnell. The first half lasted about an hour and a half, and as Andy says absolutely nothing happens!. I just couldn't believe it, and after ten minutes was looking around the place, sure there was going to be a riot any minute, but people seemed to be actually paying attention. In the bar during the interval I couldn't speak for astonishment, I'd assumed that everyone else would be up in arms about being ripped off. But no! There were even punters talking loudly about magnificent interpretations and the like, and then I was dragged back in for another 90 f*cking minutes!
You can talk about existentialism all you like, I'm never ever going back into one of those places. Makes me realise that pyromania can actually be a virtue.
H

[Chef]

When i was staying with a friend in san francisco, a dvd arrived he had been waiting for. I, for the life of me, cant remember what it was called but it was about 2 guys paying tramps 10 bucks to have a fight and filming them. It was bloody violent and the tramps got a servere beating. One also got in a shopping trolley and was pushed down a set of steps. It was sick but in a strange way, amusing.