davidgillon | Gigging With Satan's Slaves/Catholic Teacher Humour (Reply)

My sister and I went out with family friends last week* to catch a band at one of the local pubs, the slightly unusual element being that it was at the local biker bar (Satan's Slaves, County Durham Chapter). I did wonder if the band ('One-oh-One, I think) would be any good, but they opened with All The Small Things, then segued into London Calling, followed by No More Heroes, and I'd basically found my ideal playlist - I did think at one point 'All this needs to be perfect is Swords of a Thousand Men', and it cropped up shortly afterwards.

There's something slightly incongruous about having a bunch of bikers in denim and leathers warning you as you leave to "Be careful on these steps now, they're really slippy. Hope you had a good time, this rainy weather's horrible, isn't it?'

My sister was also out the day before at a Lourdes fundraiser at a church-hall over in Darlington - pie, peas, and 'Bongo-Bingo'. Proper Bongo-Bingo is apparently a raucous franchise version of bingo with lots of party games, silly prizes and dancing on tables, but this was the Catholic version, so they missed out the dancing on tables. The compere/bingo caller, sitting next to a life-sized cut-out of Pope Leo, was moonlighting from his day-job as Head of RE at the local Catholic comprehensive, and pointed out any complaints should go to the Dean (senior priest, sitting on my sister's table).

Sample bingo call: 'Thirty-Three - Nailed to a Tree' (OMG, you can't say that!)

"We have bingo dabbers for sale if you need them - a pound to Catholics, four pounds to Protestants"!

"Hands up if you're a teacher?", followed by disappointed look + <*Teacherly voice /*> "It's your own time you're wasting".

Trying to jolly everyone up "This is about as lively as the Lourdes fund-raiser at St Johns!"**

First prize dished out was a Virgin Mary fancy dress costume, other prizes included the life-sized cut-out of Pope Leo.

* I wrote this the next day, but accidentally lost the complete post just short of posting and didn't have the energy to re-write it, but it restored itself when I accidentally went into message creation just now.

** The next Catholic comprehensive over, the one I went to.