Gags or Gaffs?, Whos that Greebo Goofing and a bit of The Gospel

The Gags

I've just come back from the weekend away, and well this weeks gags is more a story of a gaffs.

Now as I've been saying the last few weeks I love thinking up of things to joke about and love trying to build a set with layers/ different angles. I was ready to roll with some new and old hoping for a few laughs.

Having had a fairly rubbish week I struggled to shake the nerves off, but I thought I'd get up and give it a go anyway. Now, normally I'll start off by asking how people got on during the free time in the afternoon, which gets people a bit involved and you can tell how things are going to go. This time there was little or no response, it took me off my stride a bit, and I never really recovered.

It truly bombed, I did get a few laughs but it was tough, I cut the set short, the gaff was that by doing so I skipped some of the build up for certain gags or else cut out the added gems from an otherwise unfunny line. I tried to get off as quickly as possible, feeling it was the worst thing I'd done since I started doing these things a couple of years ago.

Actually as weird as it sounds it was a good “bad” experience, I've never really though about a back up plan for when some things not working, I know Eddie Izzard will make a joke of it “note to self . . . nobody's going with it”. It also got me thinking how professional comedians do it, say if they go up after a row or some bad news, credit to them I'd say.

So is this the end of the line for it, nah you pick up and learn from it, if you give in when something goes wrong you never learn, its also a good thing to get cut down occasionally it stops you getting too cocky and proud.

In the mean time a little Gem from the great Peter Kay “Me mates just got sacked off dodgems . . . he's doing them for funfair dismissal!” 

The Greebo

Now, as many of you know I am a self confessed greebo at heart, I think its really down to years of love for Grunge, Punk, Rock, Metal etc. and my love of the festivals. I try at times to move out of this and smarten up a bit but always end up reverting to type. I know its not very Cheltenham of me but to be fair, I'm not very Cheltenham. It's been hard enough getting me into shirts with buttons let alone fancy jumpers.

With the weather as it is there's nothing better to wear than your favourite hoodie, I've tried picking out jumpers but always end up with some weird looking thing that once on I end up looking like an old Grandad. Someone said to go to a place like Debenhams and have a personal shopper help you out, but theres 2 things that get in the way of that. First is my hate of shopping and second is DEBENHAMS!! 

The Goof

After a friends birthday drinks, Hughes, Bully and I legged it off to the pigs to save our ears from the cheese that was “fever”. Now I love the pigs, many don't but I think its down to what your expecting. If you only ever go to the likes of Time, I mean Moda, I mean The Place :-p then of course you might think what's going on? I've always been on the rock / Greebo side of things, so when people walk in with piercings everywhere, Pink hair or are Gothed out its all good for to me. This night was even better because there was a big party who had come in fancy dress, and credit to them they had gone all out, super heroes, horror movie characters, fairies etc.

The best of the night was a girl who'd painted herself completely orange with a diamond encrused phantom of the opera mask and a cape with “The FANTA of the Opera” on the back, absolute genius, take a bow girl, take a bow!!

Other goofing this week was with Readie, we met up for a catch up in Aprés bar in town, now the funny thing about Apré is that you get all sorts go in there, freshers to oldies, this makes for a field day of gags, as you cringe at the site of old boys trying to chat up uni girls. One guy made us laugh so hard, he was obviously wasted and dancing about thinking he was it. Clearly a veteran sharker, the girls were used to blocking the attempts. We were gonna go over and encourage him to move away but fortunately they left and he was off onto someone his own age. Clearly the jaws theme tune should follow him around. 

The Gospel
While away at the Alpha weekend, we we're lead to look at Galatians 5, the fruits of the Spirit. The fruit analogy is perfect, think about what we need to do for fruit to grow, we have to prepare the ground, plant the seed and water it, then gradually things begin to grow, a small shoot first and after time something more. I think people can be too caught up in instant solutions and forget that anything worthwhile takes time and attention.

Galatians 5:22-26 (ESV)

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience,kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.

If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit. Let us not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another. 

This is something many of us overlook, we have a God who not only loves us enough to die for us, but by inviting his him into our lives we also bear fruit in the likeness of him. Who wouldn't want to be more loving, joyful, kind etc. I love this passage as it is so true, we people make the decision to follow Jesus they start to grow in these areas. It's never an instant solution, which can be frustrating for some, but I think its amazing seeing how we change as we become more like Jesus.

Commitment, that's the word “If we live by the Spirit, let us walk by the Spirit” its not about just talking the talk its about walking the walk! It's a gradual process, some things seem to happen instantly others take a long time and yes of course from time to time we may slip up. But if we do we get back up confess it and carry on moving towards God, we are not perfect God knows that, its why he sent Jesus to bear the load for us.

Another element with fruit is sometimes you need to prune a plant to get more fruit from it, we get pruned at times, and wonder what is happening and what we've done wrong. Sometimes its the opposite, we are doing well but in order to do better we need to strip everything back until all that's left is us clinging to God.

Sometimes we don't understand what God is doing until months or years later, sometimes we won't know until we see him face to face.

The decision is do we trust him or not, if we do, then we know he's always gonna be with us and even when life gets bumpy, he's sat there right next to us.

=Monte Has Spoken =