gamboling.co.uk

1. The Fasting & Prayer Conference includes meals.

2. The sermon this morning: “Jesus Walks on the Water.” The sermon tonight: “Searching for Jesus.”

3. Ladies, don’t forget the rummage sale. It’s a chance to get rid of those things not worth keeping around the house. Bring your husbands.

4. The peacemaking meeting scheduled for today has been cancelled due to a conflict.

5. Remember in prayer the many who are sick of our community. Smile at someone who is hard to love. Say “Hell” to someone who doesn’t care much about you.

6. Don’t let worry kill you off, let the Church help.

7. Miss Charlene Mason sang “I will not pass this way again,” giving obvious pleasure to the congregation.

8. For those of you who have children and don’t know it, we have a nursery downstairs.

9. Next Thursday there will be tryouts for the choir. They need all the help they can get.

10. The Rector will preach his farewell message after which the choir will sing: “Break Forth Into Joy.”

11. Irving Benson and Jessie Carter were married on October 24 in the church. So ends a friendship that began in their school days.

12. A bean supper will be held on Tuesday evening in the church hall. Music will follow.

13. At the evening service tonight, the sermon topic will be “What Is Hell?” Come early and listen to our choir practice.

14. Eight new choir robes are currently needed due to the addition of several new members and to the deterioration of some older ones.

15. Scouts are saving aluminium cans, bottles and other items to be recycled. Proceeds will be used to cripple children.

16. Please place your donation in the envelope along with the deceased person you want remembered.

17. The church will host an evening of fine dining, super entertainment and gracious hostility.

18. Potluck supper Sunday at 5:00pm. Prayer and medication to follow.

19. The ladies of the Church have cast off clothing of every kind. They may be seen in the basement on Friday afternoon.

20. This evening at 7pm there will be a hymn singing in the park across from the Church. Bring a blanket and come prepared to sin.

21. Ladies Bible Study will be held Thursday morning at 10am. All ladies are invited to lunch in the Fellowship Hall after the B. S. is done.

22. The pastor would appreciate it if the ladies of the congregation would lend him their electric girdles for the pancake breakfast next Sunday.

23. Low Self Esteem Support Group will meet Thursday at 7pm. Please use the back door.

24. The primary 7’s will be presenting Shakespeare’s Hamlet in the Church basement Friday at 7pm. The congregation is invited to attend this tragedy

Because someone asked him how he felt.

After the demise of his football career Sol Campbell trains to become a vet. On his first day he is called out to a local farm where two cows and two horses are about to give birth. The first cow goes into lengthy labour, meanwhile within minutes the two horses go into labour. Sol tends to the two horses but due to schoolboy errors he messes up and both newborns sadly die. After 45 minutes the first cow gives birth and sol promptly picks up his coat and gets ready to leave. “Where are you going?” asked the baffled farmer to which sol replies “I was badly at fault for the two foals so I’m not staying for the second calf”!

If you don’t understand this joke you may want to see this article.

A bloke starts his new job at the zoo and is given three tasks.

First is to clear the exotic fish pool of weeds. As he does this a huge fish jumps out and bites him. To show who is boss he beats it to death with a spade. Realising his employer won’t be best pleased , he disposes of the fish by feeding it to the lions, as lions will eat anything.

Moving on to the second job of clearing out the Chimp house, he is attacked by the chimps who pelt him with coconuts. He swipes at two chimps with a spade killing them both. What can he do? Feed them to the lions, he says to himself, because lions eat anything. He hurls the corpses into the lion enclosure.

He moves on to the last job which is to collect honey from the South American Bees. As soon as he starts he is attacked by the bees. He grabs the spade and smashes the bees to a pulp. By now he knows what to do and throws them into the lions cage because lions eat anything.

Later that day a new lion arrives at the zoo. He wanders up to another lion and says “What’s the food like here?”

The lion says : “Absolutely brilliant, today we had Fish and Chimps with Mushy Bees!!”

A stray comment from last night turned into a joke in my mind while I was sleeping. Katherine thinks it’s not funny. But I feel that if I cage it in a discussion of if it’s funny or not then it might work. Here it is:

Why did the wall-eyed, crooked nosed MP abstain from the vote?

Because although he eyes were to the right, his nose was to the left.

Okay, she’s right. It’s not funny.

A man goes to a zoo. When he gets there he finds that there’s only a dog.

It was a Shitzu!

You may have noticed, if you’re a regular reader that I like a good joke.* I was on the train the other night after having dinner out in London at the fabulous trattoria on Goodge Street called Signor Grilli. One of its key features is that it has a really great quaffable house red at a good cheap price. Considering where it is (the heart of tourist London) this a real treat, and this alongside it’s great food is what has kept me coming back for six years.

Anyway, I was visiting with a friend the other night, and after I finished I was suitable squiffy. On my way home I found myself sitting opposite a group of people who had been to some kind of religious expo somewhere in London.

There were four of them who were sitting in a line. Three in a row on one side of the isle and one guy opposite me on my side of the isle. They were chatting about how much fun they had had at the expo and how it had been really energising. They seemed like a good bunch. For the purposes of this I’m going to have to give them names so that you can keep track of who they all are.

Sitting furthest from me was, I guess, non-descript guy. The only thing that was descript about him was that he had been unfortunately tied up in work all day so had been unable to make it over to the expo except for after work so although he’d been there for some of the keynote speeches at the end he’d missed all of the hands on action during the day. Sitting next to him in the middle of the threesome was a woman who was wearing a suit and tie. She looked like she had never knowingly engaged with popular culture in her life. I may be wrong about this, and I certainly don’t mean it harshly, I just think that she had been going very much her own way for an awfully long time. The guy who was on the end was, we’ll call him gregarious guy. He was slightly chubby, slightly red of cheek and seemed like he’d be quite fun in a roaring tory kind of a way. And the last guy was, well Sideshow Bob.

Gregarious guy wasn’t really playing to his audience here. He had started talking about how this guy looked quite a lot like Sideshow Bob. Unfortunately non-descript guy was kind of non-descript in his response and Be-suited Woman had never even seen the Simpsons. After some explanation she said, “is that the charming cartoon program that comes on before the news? But I always thought it was for children.”

After some explanation of the situation, and a few rather shocking impressions from Sideshow Bob gregarious man was scouting about for something interesting to carry on with. He decided that as Non-descript man had missed out on the earlier speakers in the day he ought to fill him in on something that had really tickled him. It was, he claimed, “the funniest joke that he had ever heard a vicar tell”.

And this was the point at which I became really interested. I had been casually taking in all of these guys just in case they could be useful later, but once there was a joke in the offing that was really it. I was hooked.

But what with my stop on the train coming up, I literally was on the edge of my seat. So much so, in fact, that Gregarious Man actually stopped telling the joke to say “are you okay”. I was leaning in so much, just willing him to get to the end.

So I said, the only thing I could say really which was the truth, that I was simply wishing that I could hear the punchline before I would have to get off the train. It didn’t matter, I said, because, as I suddenly noticed the train was slowing for my stop. But it did seem to matter to Be-suited Woman. She was concerned about me, clearly. So she said, “if you want to know the punchline I’ll tell you”. All of the others tried to stop her, all wanting this ultimate joke to be properly preserved for the Non-descript man for whom it was intended. But she blurted it out, “the punchline is ‘the vicar had to organise the bowling on Sunday’.”

What? I can hear you all collectively ask. What, on earth, was she talking about? It didn’t make any sense to me either because there really hadn’t been enough of a joke yet. Poor non-descript man probably got the joke retold to him with the punchline in it’s proper place at the end, but that can hardly have been the same as hearing the greatest joke a vicar ever told in front of a packed and willing room.

I of course was in torture. What did it mean? How could it make sense? It didn’t sound very funny. I felt though that I had one saving thing, I had actually had a funnier incident that the Non-descript man because I just couldn’t help thinking about the literalness of a woman who thought when I said that I wanted to hear the punchline that I would – actually – just want to hear the punchline rather than hear the rest of the joke first. It was incredible.

So what’s the joke? I have for my own benefit, and to a lesser extent yours, tracked it down. And it goes something like… Should I tell you?.. Should I? I don’t know?

Oh go on…

A vicar is goes to his bishop to get reprimanded.

Bishop: Now Vicar, I hear you have cancelled several services over the summer with parishioners left wallowing in sin, willy nilly, and you have been simply not showing up to mass. Is this true?
Vicar: Well…
Bishop: Is it?
Vicar: Welllll…
Bishop Look I’ve had reports of people leading their own services in Chipping Norton without any kind of guidance.
Vicar: Is that so bad?
Bishop: They sacrificed a goat!
Vicar: Oh okay. It’s no use. It was because of the cricket.
Bishop The cricket?
Vicar: Yes the cricket, I do so love cricket. And this summer we were doing so very well. And all the good bits were on a Sunday. So what was I to do?
Bishop: You were supposed to attend mass as planned Vicar. That is what you were supposed to do.
Vicar: But it’s sooooo boring.
Bishop: Boring? Boring! I’ve never heard such rot in all my life. The Christ’s immaculate conception boring? Wine into body – boring? Never heard such rot. Never! What have you got to say for yourself?
Vicar: I’m very sorry.
Bishop: Do you repent?
Vicar: I guess…
Bishop: Will you do it again?
Vicar: Well it’s not the ashes again for eighteen months so until then sir…
Bishop: Brian!
Vicar: Sorry you’re worshipfulness. But it seems life is so short these days. I want to enjoy every moment I can since I’m advancing in years. If only there was some way I could know…
Bishop: Know what?
Vicar: If there was cricket in heaven?
The Bishop sat back in his chair, placed his hands together, closed his eyes and prayed silently. After a few seconds he returned to the conversation
Bishop: Well there’s good news and bad news.
Vicar: Really. Well good news first I always say.
Bishop: Well the good news is that there is cricket in heaven. You’re even slated, when you get there, to manage your own team.
Vicar: And the bad news?
Bishop: You’ve got to organise the bowling this Sunday.

Oh God no.

* You may in fact think that I actually like bad jokes**

** Yes jokes and footnotes.

Having seen these guys perform I want all Back Street Boys tracks done that way:

click on the picture to see a very funny video

Brian, the world’s leading expert on European wasps and the sounds that they make, is taking a stroll down his local high street. As he passes by the record shop, a sign catches his eye. “Just Released – New LP – Wasps of the World & the sounds that they make – available now”

Unable to resist the temptation, Brian goes into the shop. “I am the world’s leading expert on European wasps and the sounds that they make. I’d very much like to listen to the new LP you have advertised in the window.”

“Certainly, Sir,” says the young man behind the counter. “If you’d like to step into the booth and put on the headphones, I’ll put the LP on for you.”

Brian, the world’s leading expert on European wasps, goes into the booth and puts on the earphones. Ten minutes later, he comes out of the booth and announces, “I am the world’s leading expert on European wasps and the sounds that they make and yet I recognised none of those.”

“I’m sorry Sir”, says the young assistant.

“If you’d care to step into the booth, I can let you have another 10 minutes.”

Brian, the world’s leading expert on European wasps and the sounds they make, steps back into the booth and replaces the headphones. Ten minutes later, he comes out of the booth shaking his head. “I don’t understand it”, he says, “I am the worlds leading expert on European wasps and the sounds that they make, and yet I still can’t recognise any of those!”

“I really am terribly sorry”, says the young assistant…

“I’ve just realised I was playing you the B side!”

There is a rather enduring rumour that George Washington actually had wooden teeth. Of course he didn’t really. His teeth were mostly made from hippopotamus bone which is a very different thing. However the teeth thing must have been something of an issue because he made sure that his six white horses had their teeth brushed every day!

Somehow this, and I know this is much more my problem than his, always makes me think of the idea of having wallpaper for teeth. You can actually get patterned mouth guards but what about patterned teeth? I think it would be a great conversation starter.

To this end I have commissioned a range of tooth wallpaper which is now available in all good dentists. I’ve even been able to get celebrity support in the shape of some of the best grinners in the business, Tony Blair and Richard Branson.