Gathering 12, The Dirty Dozen

Sigh, after last month's pretty decent G, we return to normal with this, a
meeting so well attended that if one of us went to the toilet, it looked
like we'd left the pub...  A hugely unimpressive four of us made up the
"crowd" this time.  Ack ptui.  But am I depressed?  Abso-fraggin-lutely
not.  Oh, don't misunderstand me, the low turnout is saddening, but other
events recently have put me on enough of a high such that the lows of this
G are only a minor setback in the great scheme of things.

Fortunately, those of us who were there were working overtime to extract
some fun from the evening.  Starting the evening just a shade after 7,
the New Look Janet arrived, and we settled down to pick over The Gathering.
That is, the B5 pilot, not this meeting...

Ian and Keith trundled in just before 20 past, at which point Janet rather
politely gave up her seat for Keith (but only so she could nab one of the
really comfy seats before him ;-).  This gave rise to a brief but fortunately
not too technical conversation about temperature differentials between 
bottoms and seats.  Keith then revealed his true sad nature by showing us his
collection of priviledge cards for various eateries and drinkeries around
the town.  So Keith, just HOW do you get a McDonalds card???

Well, last week we had 405, complete with the sacrificial lamb (aka Ericsson).
The jury was polled, and returned a 3:1 verdict in favour of Sheridan's
actions, although we were all agreed that he could have been a bit more
tactful about it.

Once again, the Tap & Spile didn't disappoint us in its provision of wierd
events to fill out the evening.  First up on the list was the incredible
re-appearing man - he walks past one way, a couple of minutes later he
walks past again, in the same direction.  And then, just to round off his
exercise for the night, he wanders past the other way.
That was a mere taster for the main event of the night, the Hippy Chicks
on Choppers!  Although this might sound like a particularly bad troma
flick you might have the misfortune to catch on Bravo, it was real...
Two young females, dressed in hotpants, knee high boots and with hair down to 
their waists, were cycling up and down the road and pavement on a couple of
those classic Choppers.  Strange, that begins to come near to an approximation
of the beginnings of a descriptive narrative...

And not content with the shrinking policeman of Gatherings past, this time
we had the Newcastle traffic warden drama society re-enacting a scene from
The Good, The Bad and The Ugly.  "Old Woman in a Micra" demonstrated how to
park a car with millimetric precision, although if the owner of the car
parked in front of her had been watching, I suspect they'd have described it
as something quite different...

Inspired by the traffic wardens, we decided to get into the performing mood,
and so Keith and Janet did The Scottish Play, then me and Ian did extracts
from Not The Nine O'Clock News, including that classic, the Swedish Chemists
Shop.  Ball, or aerosol?

For once, the evening finished only slightly after 11pm, no getting hoyed
oot the pub by the barstaff this time.  And so, G12 drew to a close.  Which
is just as well, because I'm not sure it deserved a full 4 hours of our time.



Oh, and Keith, in case you thought I'd forgotten...  (evil laugh)


Throughout the evening, Mr S just couldn't stop uttering sentences that, when
taken completely out of context and listed in chronological order, provide
a most amusing little sequence of comments:

  I'm waiting to see what he whips out next
  Everybody blow on it
  Stop licking it
  Have my teeth, I'm not using them
  It tastes like sherry
  Oh don't you start panting
  Do you want to surprise me
  
Who knows where this would have gone, thank the maker for closing time ;-)



Chris

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