Angela Lansbury Speeches and Making Speeches

2009-02-02T13:12:00.000-08:00

THE PERFECT SPEECH

On You Tube see the video of The Perfect Speech by Angela Lansbury Author on the site of William Brougham.

To summarise my points:

1 Start with a surprise.

I demonstrate a visual surprise with a prop.

I am assuming the audience is sitting in front of you waiting.

On a magic site I saw an except from a video showing you how to do street magic. They showed how to use sound to get attention from passers-by.

2 Speak loudly enough to be heard.

3 Know where your speech is going and make this clear, especially if you have something to sell or promote.

4 Forget fear. Take deep breaths. Plan your speech. Practise at a speakers' training club such as Toastmasters International.

5 End with a call to action - if possible echoing the message from the start. As I am now:

See me demonstrating The Perfect Speech on you tube - search for You tube Perfect speech Angela Lansbury author.

2008-07-21T06:04:00.000-07:00

WRITING, TIMING & REHEARSING A SPEECH

Many speakers run over time. Their apparently endless monologue is cut short by the event organizer before the speaker has reached the end. Or the speaker, seeing a clock or hearing a bell - or worse, seeing people start to walk out, finishes suddenly.

So how do you time your speech? Often a speaker will rehearse the speech two or three times in its entirety. You can write your speech to a certain length, write the paragraph headings on card index cards, and then try to rehearse it until you remember it.

One speaker told me he shut himself in his bedroom - then the lounge after the family left for the afternoon, and rehearsed his ten minute speech thirty times over about three hours.

A past president of my nearest speakers' club told me that it's better to chop a ten minute speech into sections and rehearse each section. So the introduction is one minute. You rehearse that ten times until you have the wording and timing right. For a five minute speech your three middle sections are one minute.

For a ten minute speech you might have four middle sections of two minutes each.

Similarly for a thirty minute speech you could have a five minute introduction, a five minute conclusion, and three middle sections of five minutes.

For a one hour speech you could have a five minute introduction, a five minute ending, and five sections of ten minutes each. Or a ten minute introduction, a ten minute ending, and four ten minute middle sections.

Some people speak slowly, whilst others speak faster. You could allow an extra minute or so for pauses for laughs. Or interruptions. Or audience interaction when you ask them questions.

How do you judge your pace? If you have a word counter on your computer, take a thousand word piece and see how long it takes you to read it.

Or take a newspaper and time yourself for ten minutes, read aloud and mark where you stop. Then count the words to that point.

2008-07-12T07:01:00.000-07:00

How To Improve Your Photos

Men's Photos I am speaking for women like me. My opinion - only my opinion, is this: 1 Show a face photo. 2 Smile. 3 Nothing without a shirt unless you are in the sea or on a boat. 4 Shirt and tie is better than a t-shirt. Dinner jacket and bow tie is better than a shirt and tie.

Women's Photos 1 Show a face photo. 2 Wear lipstick. And smile. 3 if photographed from above (eg by somebody standing whilst you are sitting on a chair or bed) make sure that the photo does not elongate your nose and hide your upper lip so your nose seems to run into your mouth. 4 If you've got smart clothes but your face and hair still look frumpy and frizzy, go to the hairdresser for cut, or colour, or styling, or all three, and get lots of shots taken that day while the hair styling is fresh. Or wash your hair before the photo is taken. Check in the mirror that it looks right. Edit to eliminate stray hair sticking up or across your forehead. This can be done in a photo programme. You simply copy a few squares of colour from the adjoining area - painted wall or forehead. Superimpose the background colour over the stray hair you want to eliminate. I just got a MacBook which makes cropping photos even easier. If you have a friend who has a camera or phone which takes pictures or video, they can store them on their computer and crop them and then email them to you. Editing I watched a TV programme on professional photos. One woman paid £1500 for photos for her work. The photographer edited the pictures to make her larger in some areas and slimmer in others. All done on the computers. You can edit pictures for simpler improvements. Remove glare. Remove distracting item in the background by cropping. You can insert your picture in a coloured frame. Or draw a frame. Even if you do it freehand, you can draw the left side of a square or oval or heart shape or arch. Then reverse and copy so that you have the two sides matching,

2008-07-10T17:22:00.000-07:00

ANGELA LANSBURY’S TOASTMASTERS SPEECHES & PRIZES

I just made a list of ribbons which I had won for speeches.

First I wanted to know how many ribbons I had for each type of speech. A few days ago I had won a ribbon for evaluating.

I had a new ribbon to put in a frame. I used to write on the back of the ribbon the place, date and subject. But now it seems easier to write on the front. Although it defaces the ribbon, once you have two or three or four in a frame they all look the same. I want to remember when I won them, and where.

I had twelve ribbons, but I don't count the ones for the first speech and the tenth speech. They are rewards for milestones, for numbers of speeches given, quantity not quality.

Look at what I discovered about my ribbons.

I had 12 ribbons: 2 for completing 1st and 10th speeches; 3 for evaluations; 7 for impromptu speeches. But none for planned speeches!

Clearly my most successful performances are impromptu speeches. So I should continue with my plans to do stand-up comedy.

Ribbons
For completed speeches (2)
1 Ice Breaker (First speech) Harrovians 2004 (& HOD 2004)
2 CTM (Tenth speech) Harrovians

Ribbons for Best Table Topics
1 Holborn, UK, 8/11/2005 ‘Speak for turkeys at Christmas.’ Remember the turkey which escaped from the overturned lorry? As PR I had turkeys on TV but they ran away, all over the set, amongst the audience, like this (making noise and fIapping wings I gallop down the aisle back to my seat) ...’

2 Shanghai 2006 ‘Is computer dating and blind dating good?’ (Yes - except for my blind date with a bearded man - there was one on the restaurant doorstep, 3 inside ...)

3 Shanghai 2006 ‘How would you sell a bicycle which supports a ladder?’ (Illustrated) ‘I’d say: use it to hang washing in trees; be seen in traffic when meeting your friends.’

4 Harrovians 2007 ‘Thatcher said, “Ask a man to speak but ask a women to get something done”. Do you agree?’ (Yes, but father was action man and my mother did all the talking - because my father was deaf; after she died I did the talking and found out he’d been deaf for years.)

5 Harrovians Jul 2007 ‘Is Computer Dating successful?’ (Yes, I’m on 40 dating sites, under different names. I date men with viagra and heart bypasses and hopeful virgins.)

6 Harrovians Aug 6 2007 ‘How does a blind baby make sense of the world?’ (Sniffs the Toastmaster; feels the beard of a man in the audience, pats his shoulders and waist ...)

7 Harrovians July 2008 ‘Should we tax the rich?’ (No. they’ll emigrate. Make the rich run on treadmills in gyms to power buildings. You in the audience could be powering light bulbs, please stamp your feet.)

Ribbons for Best Evaluator
1 Singapore Props 2006 Company club evaluated Chinese girl speaker who acted an old and a young man. (I recommended props - baseball cap for younger man. She did not know what props were.)

2 HOD June 22 2006

3 Harrovians July 7 2008 Evaluated Warren Sheng facing a hostile audience. (He bravely got Shirley to heckle and throw water, which was convincing, ‘she’s that type of person’ and he did not get angry but got the audience on his side.)

I belong to Harrovians and HOD clubs in London. Both of them give you ribbons. But Holborn club in central London also gives you a certificate showing the club and date. I think that's a good idea. It saves you having to spoil the ribbon by writing on it, or having to type and print your own caption. Or forgetting where and when you won the ribbons.

I had made a list on the back of my Toastmasters manual of the competitions I'd entered and won. Then I added a list of ribbons.

I hope to persuade Harrovians speakers' club to start printing mini certificates to go with the colourful red or white ribbons with the glamorous gold lettering. The committee are a bit doubtful about this idea.

They were thinking of giving a certificate for the fifth speech. Then decided that the sixth was a milestone. So if you had a certificate with every ribbon, a certificate for the sixth speech would not be appreciated so much.

I think it would be. If a ribbon is always special, so is a certificate. Just as you get ribbons for best speech as well as for 10th speech, you can have certificates if you are voted best speaker, as well as for doing your sixth speech.

The alternative is to give a larger A4 certificate for the 6th speech. Or a small A5 certificate for the 6th speech and larger A4 certificates for prize-winning speeches.

If you win certificates or ribbons or trophies for speeches or anything else, it is good to have a record. When I am listed as a speaker in speakers' bureau or agency, it will be advantageous and prestigious to be able to say how many ribbons I have won.

2008-05-07T06:08:00.000-07:00

Welcome to Harrovians’ Twelve Table Topic Tuesday

said the alliterative agenda, ‘lovingly designed by Witty Warren’,

at Harrovians Toastmasters May 5^th 2008:

report by Angela Lansbury

President ‘Tireless Tie-less Tony ’ regrets the absence of Grammarian ‘Lovely Lorna ’. He says, ‘We are going to have less speeches tonight.’

From the front row I instinctively mutter my own grammar correction, ‘Fewer!’

Tony, hearing, grins good-humouredly, ‘Angela, our impromptu grammarian, says I should say fewer. Thank you for that, Angela.’

‘Instead of speeches tonight we shall have twelve table topics, prepared by Saley who I saw preparing excellent table topics for another club. They were very appreciative.

Tonight we have two table topics evaluators, each evaluating six speeches, Inscrutable Indra and Authoress Angela Lansbury.

Speakers include volunteers Maneesha (Queen of Table Topics); Angela; Indra; and Warren.’

Toastmaster of the evening ‘Affable Alan’ introduces timekeeper ‘Firewall Francis and Table Topics Master ‘Sexy Saley’.

Tony and Alan had arranged that Indra and I would both evaluate and therefore also be able to speak and be evaluated by each other.

However, Saley, apparently unaware of this, matched his questions to members of the audience and both Angela and Indra spoke in the second half of the meeting evaluated by Angela.

Angela Evaluating Table Topics (Impromptu two minute speeches):

First table topics speaker was Frances. He just had a wonderful birthday party (to which members of Harrovians were invited). How old are you? Forty!

Forty wonderful years - and then it culminates in the speech we heard tonight!

A wonderful speech.

He told a humorous anecdote - about telling the time using a cow’s udders, which kept our attention. We were totally tense, all the way through, wondering what he was going to do with the cow’s udders (which he pushed aside to tell the time). Then a brilliant punchline, (pushing the cow’s udders aside – he could see the village clock). Visual, memorable. Transfixing.

I was next. Is anybody going to evaluate me? No? Well, then I’ll have to evaluate myself. (Laughter.)

This is not difficult. I was the best. (Laughter.)

I was asked to give an eggciting speech about eggs. So I described how I’d like to receive the most eggsciting Faberge egg with diamonds. But while waiting for the millionaire to buy me Faberge eggs, I’ll describe how you decorate ordinary boiled eggs for Easter time. Any time. A very useful speech which gave you helpful information - because I am a teacher. I am such good value. I give free lessons at Toastmasters every time.

I could have told a personal story. About how shocked I was on a writing holiday hearing a story about somebody being covered in chocolate. A first person story. I thought the narrator was going to be eaten alive, killed. At the end you find out the narrator is a chocolate egg.

I didn’t tell that personal story. But it didn’t matter. Because I did something else. I gave a different - brilliant speech. (Laughter.)

I gave information. On how to decorate eggs using non-toxic food colouring. What can I say about it? I was wonderful. The only person who told you something valuable. I was the best. Eggscellent.

After that we had Mandip. He did very well - considering he had to follow my amazing speech. (Laughter.)

Commend. First he held his hands in front.

Then he held them behind. Like Prince Charles. Very good to hold your hands behind. Makes you stand up straight. Little people, like me and Mandip, we have to wear high heeled shoes, and stand up straight, to command attention. To be seen. And to feel important! (Laughter.) And therefore feel and look confident.

Tall people like Francis do the reverse. They bend over, and talk down to the audience, indulgently, condescendingly, like this. Listening hard, with eyebrows raised, as if you, in the audience, are all half-witted, lisping five-year-olds. (Laughter.)

Back to Mandip. Mandip made up statistics – and told us he’d made them up. Then he did it again – he made up another statistic. He told us he had made it up.

He did something remarkable. He set a precedent, which influenced the next speaker. He even influenced speakers later, way down the line. Soon everybody was making up statistics.

That’s the sign of a leader. A man of influence.

(Maneesha heckles: And power.)

Maneesha says Power. Yes, that’s right, Maneesha. You sit next to ‘Mandip - The Man of Power’!

Now, our visitor – an excellent speech, delivered joyfully, to new people in a new place. Confident and happy. Copied Mandip’s idea of statistics. Only one comment or recommend to make your speech even better next time:

You spoke much of the time looking at topics master Saley – as if seeking his approval. Understandable, as he is so handsome. I say that because the Word of the day is ‘handsome’. And because he is so handsome. And he keeps telling us he thinks he is handsome.

But the rest of the people in the audience think they are handsome. Alan thinks he’s handsome. Indra thinks he’s handsome.

Indra probably thinks you’re handsome. To be sure, he’d like you to look at him, turning your handsome face so he can see it. Same applies to the other men in the audience. And the women. So next time let’s all of us in the audience see your handsome face looking at our handsome faces. Apart from that, very good.

Indra gave us information. His speech was almost as good as mine. He tries hard.

Indra was very visual. He rubbed his stomach talking about a pregnant woman. He touched his face talking about eye tests.

He informed us that an eye test costs £5 an eye. Interesting way of looking at it.

Total cost of the eye test £10. Indra always knows the price of everything. Very useful. Practical. Authoritative.

He related to Alan in the audience.

And finished by talking about an ‘incentive’. Which we all need.

Mike was most inventive. What a challenge! He was given a series of words to comment on, beginning with the letter D: denoted, deranged, depressed. He told a personal anecdote (about being made redundant – a sad story made light by a gleeful sense of revenge adding humour).

When he got to the end, he even made up his own word beginning with D. What was it? Decomambulated? Thank you.

Finally, the red light is up but I must comment on Ruth in her stunning red outfit. Co-ordinated. Impressive to look at. Memorable outfit and memorable speech. When she was asked why women have smaller feet, she challenged the question. Not true in her case. We won’t forget her telling us that she wears huge size 8 shoes.

Lastly, before going I must shake hand with Topics Master Saley, on my left (I reach across with my right hand. Toastmaster Alan leaps up and says, ‘No – me!’

I am not fazed but continue speaking, holding Saley’s hand, which I pump up and down, crossing my left hand to my right to clasp Alan’s hand and shake it:) and Toastmaster Alan on my right –oh – I’ve crossed my arms – like New Years Eve – ‘For the Sake of Auld Lang Syne!’ (Laughter.)

Over dinner at nearby Panom Thai restaurant (www.panomthai.co.uk) somebody asked Indra if he knew that he was supposed to evaluate Angela.

Indra replied, ‘I knew that I was suppose to evaluate the first six speeches. So that was what I did.’

Indra, a civil servant, is a typical rule-follower, as the Myers Briggs personality type analysis clearly explains.

I told Saley that his table topics questions were original and had inspired all the speakers. I asked how long it had taken him to prepare the questions? He said 42 years.

Saley said my evaluation was the best evaluation I had ever given. (In morning after retrospect, I realise this handy catch-all phrase of praise could be used when the person paying the compliment actually meant to damn with faint praise the best speech of a bad bunch.

But from his enthusiastic tone, and my confidence, and the audience feedback I’d had of warm laughter, all through, I assumed he meant my evaluation was good. And that he was right.)

For more information on Harrovians go to their website.
You might also like to look at the Toastmasters (now called Communicators) clubs in Stanmore, Watford, all over London, Singapore, Shanghai, the USA and around the world. For your nearest log onto Toastmasters International Find A Club.
Copyright Angela Lansbury

2008-04-03T06:38:00.000-07:00

Competition Speeches
In Toastmasters International (now renamed Communicators) we learn to stop reading our notes sentence by sentence and to be able to speak without notes and walk about maintaining eye contact with the audience.

Planned And Perfect Sentences
However, a former club president advised me that when it comes to competition speeches, you are supposed to have written out and planned your speech so that every sentence zings. With alliteration. Metaphors. Similes. Rule of three. You should know exactly what you are going to say.

Rehearsed. Sticking to time so you don't see the red stop light before you've reached the end. Not getting side-tracked. Following a clear structure and making it clear to the audience.

Predictability Versus Variety
Some people go from club to club until they have given the same speech ten times.

But I like to give a different speech every time. Even if the same speech - different puppets.
That's my personality type, ENFP. Likes change. I am astonished when I hear a speaker give the same speech year after year at different venues. I feel short-changed, that they are lazy and boring.

As a teacher I have to make every lesson different to hold the pupils' attention. But as a workshop leader everything is new every time. The timing of a one hour poetry workshop can still be exact. That I speak for ten minutes as an introduction to writing a type of poem such as a haiku or limerick, five explaining its history and how you do it, five minutes reading out examples. The audience have 10 minutes to write. We have twenty minutes to hear the results and make brief comments. Finally I sum up in another ten minutes.

The first time I gave my speech on writing poetry one of the audience told me she liked the audience interaction. This can be kept to time if you allow a maximum of ten people to speak. Then have a transition sentence linking back to your talk. It should reflect on the audience and praise them but lead on. For example, 'I'm impressed. We have ten potential Nobel prize winners in the audience. Speaking of Nobel prize winners, ...'

I told my son this. He said that the difference between a good amateur and a good or poor professional is that the professional guarantees to give a product or performance which reaches a minimum and predictable standard.

Professionals And Predictability
For example, a group call on a speaker who has one speech. If all else fails, they can fill a programme with his speech. They know exactly what they are getting. It's boring for the committee but most of the audience will find it new and some people who haven't heard it recently and have forgotten it will be glad to hear it again. Over the years, the delivery and timing may have improved slightly, and any lack of clarity has been improved. The timing is exact. It's a 45 minute speech. The speaker doesn't need notes. It's his life story, how he changed tracks, and he's told it in that exact form dozens of times.

On TV recently my son saw an episode of Lion's Den or a similar programme in which a contestant wanted money for a show which he hoped would rival the money-spinning circus, Circle du Soleil. The contestant thought his show would be more original, different every time. But the interviewers were reluctant to lend money because they could not be sure whether each performance would be a success. They wanted predictability. What they were being asked was to sponsor a series of unknown events, as if it were a different production company every time.

So now I am going 'back to the drawing board'.

I tried to turn a poetry workshop into a speech. Still allowing some interaction with the audience.

How can I make my speech more predictable?

My speech has to be written out with the number of words I can speak in 7 minutes. This varies from person to person.

Last time I realized that if I am doing a poetry workshop and reading out poems, the sheets of photocopied poems or books must be numbered. No shuffling papers and props.

The props are marked in the speech.

When I get to the green light, I should know where I should be in the speech. Whether I am slow or fast.

Ending With Applause
When I see the orange light showing one minute to go I should have my three sentences planned and timed to deliver. On TV the show ends on time. No good saying - but I haven't finished and hoping they will cancel The News. They won't. Your camera and microphone will be switched off and the presenter will say goodnight as the audience claps.

2007-10-12T09:03:00.000-07:00

2007 St Albans Table Topics Competition

My table topic:
Is a computer a bane or a blessing - in your life?

A computer used to be a bane. The worst thing which happened to me was when I was preparing a book of short stories to send to a publisher. I saw a tab marked autosort and I thought something which sorted out the layout and fonts would be a great idea. I clicked on it and my wonderful work vanished. I couldn't work out where it had gone. When I scrolled down the pages there were rows of dots. Then commas. Followed by question marks. Then pages of the word and. Mid-way were several pages of the word THE.

(A few members of the audience start smiling here.)

Finally the word zoo. The autosort had sorted all the words in my book alphabetically. I never got that book published.

However, now the computer is a blessing. Using it, I have managed to publish three books, a book of poetry, a humorous book on online dating, and my family history. With just one click I can load up the text. With another click I can load up a picture on the front cover. With another click I can load up the title on the spine. So to me the computer is both a bane and a blessing.

That was my best table topic. It had two personal stories. Not one. Nor a dozen. It was clear and memorable. It stuck to the subject. It didn't suddenly stop with me waving goodbye when I saw the red light but ended with a conclusion.

2007-10-07T19:25:00.000-07:00

Today I was in a competition. Humorous Speech. Table topics (impromptu speech).

I didn't win either competition at next level. I was a bit fed up about this. I ate lots of donuts afterwards and ended up with a sugar hangover.

I came back and went out to dinner with my son.

He said consolingly, 'You've just started aiming higher. This time two years ago, you thought it was wonderful when you completed ten speeches.'

For me visiting a solicitor or a doctor or dentist are far worse than giving a speech.

My son who knows me agrees with me that people who see me happily giving a speech think I am super confident, which is ludicrous, when many days I am so afraid of life that I don't step outside my front door for fear of being knocked over by a car again.

Of course, paying thousands of pounds in solicitor's fees or taxes is more important than winning a competition, which I might win next year.

It is often said that people are more afraid of giving a speech then dying. But compared with dying, I can't see why a single person would think giving a speech is worse than dying. I rather think that thinking about dying puts the whole thing of being afraid about giving a speech in perspective.

The speakers' club president asked if I was nervous. I looked at him as if he was nuts. I knew most of the people in the room. They are only people.

He asked if I was afraid of anything.
I thought for a minute. I replied: 'Bungee jumping. But that's not something I ever have to do.'

After the meeting the woman who kindly gave me a lift to and from the meeting asked to see my book about my family history. I had mentioned it in table topics and when interviewed in the interval when they count the votes. She wants to publish a similar book about her mother's life story. I think helping somebody publish their life story is the most valuable thing I did today.

2007-08-07T04:47:00.001-07:00

TIPS ON BEING AN EVALUATOR
Today I was General Evaluator at Harrovians Speakers, evaluating all the other evaluators.

When I first did the GE role two years ago I could not remember to evaluate the evaluators. It seems absurd now.

Today I just sailed through as GE. It's much easier if you know the people. And write comments you want to read out in capital letters. And, as my friend William always advised, focus on just one to three points about each person.

MY PRIZE-WINNING HUMOROUS IMPROMPTU SPEECH
I also won a ribbon for a table topic. The President Tony Lazar said before presenting me with the prize, that I had done very well with a difficult topic. I didn't think it was difficult. The topic was: How does a blind baby learn to understand its surroundings?

I rushed up to the topics master and grabbed his hand and thought to myself, and said aloud:
''I must just close your eyes for a second and think how a blind baby would feel.''

(I shut my eyes and kept hold of the topics master's hand.)
''How would I recognize people? By their smell!''
(I sniffed the topic's master's hand and arm. He was trying to pull to get away and I was wrinkling up my nose like a hamster and the audience was already in hysterics.)

''I suppose I'd better let you go. And find somebody else. In the front row. Who's there?''

(I stepped forward. I found the arm of somebody wearing a jacket with padded shoulders.)

''Ah, how do you tell a man from a woman? I think this is a man. A jacket with padded shoulders.
Who else is out there?''

(I started feeling an empty chair.)

''Nobody. Some babies are just unlucky.

''Can't somebody help me? Lead me to somebody else. Somebody's leading me forward. Somebody will always find a baby which is in trouble and help it.

''Now I have a problem. I can't see the red and green traffic lights. Somebody tell me how much time I've had? Amber?

''Can you lead me back to the front again? Thank you, so kind of you to help a little blind baby.
'
'Oh dear, what's that? A rattle? Time's up! I'd better open my eyes.''

2007-07-17T05:59:00.000-07:00

ANGELA'S TRAVELS - travel and language - lost in translation

In France Thanks Means No

The French no: saying 'thanks' means no thanks.

In France we used to be asked if we'd like tea, or coffee. We said, 'Thanks,' which in the UK means 'yes, thanks'.

We were asked if we'd like more. We said, 'but you didn't give us any last time.'

We were told, 'But last time you said, ''No thanks''.'

At this point we reiterated our conversation, word by word, and discovered the cause of the confusion.

The French use fewer words. They say, 'Yes, please,' or 'No, thanks,' and shorten those phrases to 'please', meaning yes, and 'thanks' meaning no.

2007-06-20T03:24:00.000-07:00

ANGELA'S SPEECHES

Prize-winning Table Topics Speech

Margaret Thatcher said:

'If you want to get anything said, ask a man;

if you want to get anything done, ask a woman.'

Comment.

Angela Lansbury speaking impromptu on June 18th at Harrovians Speakers, NW London

Contents of this post:

Introduction To Toastmasters;

Prizewinning Speech;

Comments On Speech

INTRODUCTION

What Is Toastmasters?

Toastmasters International is a mutual self-help group which trains speakers and Toastmasters. Speakers are often those giving presentations in business as well as motivating workers or schoolchildren or raising funds for charity. Toastmasters are not just the ones who wear red coats at weddings but also and more often anybody running a committee or meeting or introducing or thanking a speaker.

At Harrovians our future President from July 1st was Topics Master giving out subjects for impromptu speeches and he had chosen quotations. Tony Lazar is a charismatic former teacher who has often given speeches about encouraging children to enjoy lessons and work enthusiastically.

He told me in the interval my topic would be something about women's liberation.

I am working on humour, planning to start a local group on stand-up comedy writing. So I had planned to treat whatever subject I was given humorously. I could have written a serious one hour motivational speech if I'd had more time. But I treated this political and non politically correct subject humorously.

Margaret Thatcher said,

"In politics, if you want anything said, ask a man; if you want anything done, ask a woman."

(An on-line quotations site will remind you that Mrs Thatcher was Britain's first female prime minister. )

My table topic was to comment on this.

MY SPEECH

I paced left to right and looked at both sides of the audience and demanded:

Are you all listening - because I'm going to do lots of talking!

I'm very glad you asked me to speak on this topic because I always like to do all the talking.

Maybe I got this from my Jewish mother because she did all the talking.

(Gesture - I hold my hand above my head so everybody at the back can see it although I'm short and my index finger is striking my thumb several times to indicate talking).

My father did all the listening.

(Gesture - I cup hand over ear to indicate listening.)

After my mother died I realised that my father was deaf. (ROFL)

All his life he'd just nodded.

(I nod.)

He hadn't hear a word!

(I shake my head.)

Although my mother did all the talking, she also worked very hard, so it's not entirely true that my father did all the work. He went out to work and was the breadwinner. But my mother worked all day, doing the cooking and washing and cleaning and decorating.So who did all the work? It could be argued that they both worked, in different ways.

So, have I inherited the tendency to talk? Or to work?

I certainly talk. You probably noticed me talking earlier.

I wanted the lights turned on. But I didn't want to find the light switch. Or go downstairs and ask the manager to switch on the lights. I wanted somebody else to do it.

In Harrovians, I'm quite happy to play a big part and do lots of talking. Next year when I'm secretary I shall do lots of talking. But I hope somebody else will do all the work.

What of the women in this audience.

(I walk forward and point to women on either side of the aisle.)

What do you think? I don't care whether you do the talking, or the listening. Or the work.

So long as I can do lots of talking and somebody else does the work!

(End with hands outstretched.)

Angela Lansbury BA Hons English Teacher. O level. A level. EFL. ESL. (Taught in private schools and state school cramming courses in Singapore.) Conversation and Pronunciation.) Author. Ten published books including Wedding Speeches & Toasts. Self-published E-books and Print On Demand in preparation.

I asked if we could have the lights switched on.
I didn't want to find the light switch.
Or go downstairs and ask the manager to switch on the lights.
I wanted somebody else to do it.

In Harrovians, I'm quite happy to play a big part and do lots of talking.
Next year when I'm secretary I shall do lots of talking. But I hope somebody else will do all the work.

I don't mind whether the women in this audience do the talking, or the listening. Or the work.
So long as I can do lots of talking –
and somebody else does the work!
(End with hands outstretched.)

COMMENTS ON SPEECH

Reading this is over next day, I ask myself whether a reader who does not know me, seeing

just the printed words, might find the mini-speech looks rather self-centred. But it did win. Why?

It keeps to the topic. Many speakers faced with a new topic will speak about something else, or apologise, protest, um and er, fall silent or leave early.

I had a clear, dramatic beginning and end. I finished to time. I kept attention, created laughter and addressed the audience.

Have a clear message or viewpoint. Even if it is stupid. To be funny you can be outrageous and over the top. Or subtly ironic.

Or discuss both sides of the question. I hope reading the speech has been entertaining and instructive for you, that it has taught you something about speech construction. I did win the prize, although you have to see me grinning and jumping around to get the full effect.

KEEPING A RECORD OF SUCCESSES

It is pity we did not have a video. Last meeting somebody took a video. At least I have a photograph.

PHOTOGRAPH

Americans are proud of successes, especially business success. Any American salesman in a garage showroom will have a wall of framed awards, whether of his business or sports success. But in the UK we are still too modest. Although UK restaurants are starting to display framed certificates.

I took a photograph, or rather got another member to photograph me, with my mobile camera. The picture showed me holding the ribbon as I stood next to the Harrovians banner to record the occasion. At least I shall know that I won that prize at that club.

Showing the date would have been helpful. A newspaper would have been intrusive. But I could have had the evening's programme on the shelf behind me. Then in years to come I could expand the photo ten times on the computer screen to read the date.

FRAMING RIBBONS

At home I frame ribbons. Toastmasters friends know about the ribbons. My non-toastmasters friends don't. Nor does a new pupil, nor an old pupil come back to visit. (I teach English - very seasonal work - the first week in September my phone is busy with potential pupils. June to August are silent months.)

When I reached home I immediately looked for a frame for my ribbon. I thought this topics ribbon was a first for me. I usually win as an evaluator. But I already had an identical ribbon! Once you have two or more ribbons you start to lose track. You need to keep records.

I once went to a writing conference. Another writer was introduced as having written five books or published 20 travel articles. I was astonished. Fancy making so much of so little! Her PR was better than mine. I had written twice as many books and five times as many travel articles. But I hadn't kept count.

I didn't tell people. But from then onwards I told everybody I met: I am the author of ten books.

I'd always been shy, because when I go to writers' conferences I meet people who have written 100 b00ks. But when you meet somebody who has never written a book, or you are speaking to a group of beginners, ten books sounds good.

I realised that facts and statistics are necessary in order to establish credibility with an audience. The records are vital to getting bookings as a speaker with a conference organizer or agency which doesn't know you and wants to check your CV. How will your agent promote you?

I needed a record of every achievement, however minor. Otherwise any nobody with chutzpah will get the spot you deserved, or would have deserved if you hadn't been so self-destructively shy and modest.

I went home with my white ribbon saying Best Table Topics Speaker. No need to buy a new frame. My last Best Topics Speaker ribbon is in a frame with plenty of room for more ribbons.

How do I record which ribbons was won where, when, and for which speech? I should type out the record and put it underneath as a caption.

But it's late at night. I don't want to deface the front of the ribbon. However, to be sure I don't have another unidentified ribbon, I write in pen on the back the date and place, June 18 2007, Harrovians, and the abbreviated title of the speech Thatcher: Men talk, women do.

Then I type up my record of the speech. Why do I need a record? Because only three hours later I've forgotten what I said and need to ask a friend in order to fill in the gaps. If I've forgotten it, so have the audience. I might want to reproduce my speech on another occasion.

A written record is handy. I can read about it to cheer myself up on a rainy day. I can amuse my friends and overseas visitors who are bored. I can look back in ten years time and think that was dreadful, I could have done so much better and realize how much progress I have made. I can use it in a book on speeches. Or a book of memoirs. And one day somebody else can use it in my obituary.

I think I proved that if you want to get anything said, you can ask a woman - me!

GLOSSARY

ROFL Text talk for Roll On the Floor Laughing!

2007-06-08T08:47:00.000-07:00

ARMCHAIR TRAVELLER'S WISH LIST

Alabama, Home of Hank Williams Trail and More
Alabama is on my traveller's wish list, high today, not high normally, admittedly rather low, but is it on the wish list, because I have not visited it although I have seen half of America's states including several in Nashville, Tennessee. Yes, I have visited several popular places associated with writers such as Poe and singers such as Presley and Parton, and bought souvenir postcards and books on writers, songwriters, singers and songwriting. But who, immortally famous, comes from Alabama?

Alabama is the home of two or three Americans who are watching my blogs - Alabama? I thought of asking them to tell me about Alabama but decided that it would sound rude to admit that my knowledge of Alabama is so sketchy, a bit black and white, that the only images I associate with the historical deep south and Alabama were the Civil War, killing black people and marrying girls aged 12 wearing little white dresses.

I confess I should know better and more because I have actually been to Alabama. But although I used to be a travel writer, I never found the Alabama tourist board at the American travel trade Pow Wow, and they never found me. However, I'm always keen to add new places to my list of been there, done that, so when I was in New Orleans we drove into Alabama. But after several miles of seeing nothing interesting my driver insisted on turning back to the jazzy attractions of New Orleans.

To be polite to my Alabama readers, I should first check out Alabama on the Internet and find something warm to say about the tourist attractions of their region. Where would I find tourist information and houses of famous residents - from the tourist board of course. Onc click and up on the computer screen is all you and I and anybody else would want to know - the Hank Williams Trail. Although I'm a rabid lover of country music, you can tie me to a chair by playing Patsy Cline, it took me a second to recall Hank Williams, who sang "Hey good lookin' ". What else? "Your Cheating Heart."

The Museum in Montgomery, like any good old American museum, has the coloured car - blue -with haunting memories, this being the car he died in.

Highlights and landmarks of the trail include:
Mount Olive, Hank Williams' birthplace.
Georgiana - Boyhood Home and museum.

Montgomery - Life-size statue of Hank holding his guitar opposite (Americans say across from) the Municipal Auditorium (now offices) where his funeral was held for 2,750 mourners, with an estimated 20,000 standing outside in the cold.
Oakwood Cemetery nearby has a wreath-laying ceremony on New Year's Day followed by music at the museum.
Alabama's Music Hall of Fame is in Tuscumbria.

Traveller's Calendar
New Year's Day - Oakwood Cemetery and Montgomery Museum
First Saturday in June music celebration.

What else is there to see in Alabama? Any romantic restaurants with mood music and memorabilia or amazing views, or hotels with honeymoon suites? Please tell me.
angelalansbury@hotmail.com
If anybody can send me a picture of Alabama, its attractions and Hank Williams, or which is out of copyright or available free to journalists and bloggers promoting something suitable. I'd be glad to receive it.

My websites include: annalondon8.googlepages.com

Alabama Tourism Websites:
thehankwilliamsmuseum.com
alamhof.org

2006-10-20T14:40:00.000-07:00

Testimonials (From blogs on assorted sites.)

Hello A. Well here’s something different. I don’t want your phone number nor any nude pictures of you. (Not that they wouldn’t look great.) I am not offering my phone number nor any nude pictures of me. (Not that they don’t look great LOL). I really enjoyed reading your blogs. They gave me a smile which on this site is a rarity. Most people find it difficult to string a rude sentence together, let alone something worth reading. ( I am nervous enough writing anything to an English teacher.) I just wanted to say thank you for reminding me there are intelligent and witty people out there. I look forward to the next instalments.
‘James’

Dear 'James'
Thank you so much for your kind testimonial which I shall quote joyfully and shamelessly.

Absolutely hilarious. I couldn't stop laughing. I'd love a dinner date with this lady.
FH

2006-09-18T06:06:00.000-07:00

SPEECHES

Warm-up game
for Toastmasters, teachers, meetings

I now have a better variation on that warm-up game in which you start a story going around the audience and each person adds three words. Most of it is usually nonsense. Instead I suggest:
Angela's WARM UP RAP SONG
OH MY PAPA
My variation on this is a communal rap song. It's a rhyming game with a well-known tune. Each person must complete a brief sentence or phrase which makes sense in context and rhymes with the preceding lines. You could do it in couplets so that half the people, the first and all odd numbers, say what they like, and the second and all even numbered seats have to rhyme with the preceeding sentence. However, it's simpler if everybody has the same rhyme and then some of them can plan their rhyme in advance.
You can have four people, or eight, make up each verse.
For example, take the song: Oh my papa. (4 beats, 4 syllables.)
Oh My Papa
The original first line goes: Oh, my papa - to me he was - so wonderful.
I shall ask everybody to rhyme. I shall tell them that you don't have to stick to four syllables but you must end with ah!
I shall ask people to call out words ending with ah: bar, baba, car, far, ga-ga, ha-ha, jar, 0o-la-la, mama, na, papa, ra-ra, salsa, ta-ta, yah, Sza-Sza, oom-pa-pa, tra-la-la, la-dee-dah.
They must make couplets about two Toastmasters talking in the bar.
Here's a sample O my papa parody:
"O my papa -
Meet me in the downstairs bar -
Bring some cash, mine won't go far."
"We're skint, let's call mama."
"She says, 'Stay in that bar.-
It's your problem - ta-ta!' "

I can then get the next row people sitting in the audience to do Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.
My example of a parody is:
"Twinkle, twinkle little star;
Meet me in the Old Vic bar;
Me director, make you star!
Why did you bring your papa?"
After that the next person can change the rhyme and everybody must follow or go back to the orginal rhyme, making couplets. eg
The bar's a super place to meet.
We can have a bite to eat.
The problem is I don't eat meat.
Vegetarians must bring sweets.
I'm teetotal. I don't drink.
Drink some water. Helps you think.
I'm nervous. That's why I blink.
I must be sick into the sink.
Reader -
You may continue this refrain.
Be assured I won't complain.
Bring your rhyme - and read again.
This game could drive us both insane.
It's a warm-up and like brainstorming you allow some random nonsense.
However, the discipline of ending with a rhyme helps you with writing poetry and songwriting and creating humorous verse for birthday cards, leaving parties and speeches.

2006-09-11T04:36:00.000-07:00

Pearl's 90th Birthday Party
Pearl's 90th birthday celebration on Sunday Ocober 10th was a great success, although she said she was too tired to go out to lunch or dinner and simply wanted to stay at home for tea. I drove to Morrisons supermarket to look for a birthday cake. The only decorated cakes were footballs and kiddie cakes. But I was delighted to find a delicious Thorntons toffee cake topped by tiny dice-shaped pieces of fudge.
I was talking on my mobile phone to my son Anthony who was in Tesco and he selected the largest traditonal iced fruit cake with marzipan, meant to be the lowest level of a wedding cake, with a nice flat surface to decorate. I purchased Happy Birthday to go on top, plus the numbers for ninety. I discovered and could not resist twisted candles and candles shaped like champagne bottles.
So that we did not overload on sugar, I stocked up with some savoury snacks: including falafel (fried chickpea balls), taramasalata and chopped herring.
I drank orange juice. (Not enough vegetables for the five portions a day, which should be seven. Later when I got home I made freshly-squeezed orange juice and ate melon.)
On Saturday I had bought the best and most beautiful bunch of flowers, pinks and purples, containing perfect roses and cute carnations and dramatic giant lilies. We had enough flowers to fill two huge flower vases and the perfume wafted across the room creating heavenly aroma therapy.
Relatives from overseas (Steve and Tami) sent more flowers including cheerful yellow sunflowers.
Pearl brought out a box of photos, large wedding photos, hers, her mothers, family certificates, the barmitzvah certificate of Trevor, her younger son, the graduation of her older son, his first graduation. 'He was at Southampton and then Oxford, and then became a professor,' she said proudly.
'They wouldn't put him in for the eleven plus! So David sent him to a private tutor. Then he want to the poly and passed his exams and went to uni. Here's his exam certificate.
Anthony said, 'Lots of people succeed in life and business without passing school exams.'
After another think, Anthony asked, 'Why did you think pasing the eleven plus so important?'
Pearl explains, 'They didn't have Comprehensives in those days. You needed to get into grammar school, so you could take O level exams, and A levels, and go to University.'
Pearl continues, 'We went to the parents evening and they said he knew the answers but he didn't put his hand up.'
We hear this twice. I accept it unquestioningly. But Anthony puzzles over it.
'If he doesn't put his hand up, how do they know he knows the answers? From his written work? What does it matter whether he puts his hand up?'
Pearl tells the story again.
Eventually Anthony queries, 'But the eleven plus is a written exam. Why does not putting your hand up affect going in for the exam?'
I say, 'Because when you go to enter the eleven plus, even if you pass, they give you an oral. I think I was good at English and I was expected to pass so I had my interview at the Grammar school before I got the results. Or was it afterwards? Maybe there were two interviews. After the exam, the headmistress told my mother my maths result was low but the English mark was high and pulled me up, which is very common with girls. Maybe you get offered a conditional place. But if you are too shy to talk, and you don't get given a provisional place, there's no point in taking the exam.'
Anthony is still not convinced.
Now neither of us understand the the logical leap between Pearl's stories.
Neither does Pearl.
But as far as she is concerned, the point of the story is that despite that the school was unhelpful. They helped their son. He proved his parents were right to believe in him. The facts are, that they were told that their son Stephen would not succeed, but they got him coached and he took his exams at the Poly and became a professon and a prize-winning author and a great success.
However, we are all still puzzled.
I took pictures of us and of old wedding photos to make up This Is Your Life for a big family party when relatives come from abroad later this month.
I was disappointed not to go out for a meal. I had wanted to go to Friends Restaurant in Pinner which has a Michelin star and is our family's favourite but it is closed until Tuesday.
However, Anthony's Granny did not feel up to going out and said several times that she had had a great time, 'I shall tell everybody I had the most wonderful tea party'. She insisted on giving me a couple of the flowers 'because you brought the tea'. And the next day she phoned to thank me.

Here's This Is Your Life
Pearl was born September 10th 1916, in the middle of The Great War. It was not known as WWI until WWII.
Pearl thought she was named after her paternal grandmother (shown on the far left of the wedding photo of her mother Sarah Geduld to ... Houtman in 1915).
Pearl's grandmother died in 1916 before Pearl was born. But family records show the grandmother listed with a different name.
Pearl shrugs and waves her hand, dismissing my objection: 'It doesn't matter.'
Pearl's sister Daphne was six years younger, so when Pearl was a teenager she had her mother's undivided attention on the day when their dress shop closed for the half day and they went out for tea to a glamorous hotel. They started with gateaux.
Pearl remembers how when she was aged about fourteen, in about 1930, her mother took her shopping in Selfridges, bought a squirrel fur coat, and then said to the assistant, "Do you have one to fit my daughter?"
Pearl was thrilled to receive such a grown-up costume. And to march proudly down the road with her mother in mother-and-daughter outfits.
Pearl's mother had married in WWI. Pearl's wedding took place during the next world war, WWII. The date was March 25, 1940.
Pearl had an ice cream wedding cake. Her mother ordered it from Cadby Hall. "She knew the manager. She probably served his wife in the shop."
I dutifully write this down. Recording it for posterity. Before my memory can lose the information or change it.
I ask her whether Cadby Hall was in London.
'Yes,' she says, 'It's still there.'
A moment later she adds, 'They have premises all over England. Cadbury, the chocolate people.' I query, 'White chocolate, in the cake?'
'Yes.' A second later she says, 'The cake was made by the ice cream people. What's-it's name?'
'Walls?' I speculate. 'Lyons?'
'That was it. Lyons.'
Pen poised, I pause and I query this. 'I thought you said the cake was made by Cadbury's?'
'Whatever.'
Later, as my son Anthony drives me home, we try to pool our thoughts and sort out the facts, but come to no conclusion.
He shakes his head, 'When I was trained at school and university to interview older people, no-one warned me about this. Nobody ever prepares you for this sort of confusion. You are told to expect that most of the public will tell you the truth but sometime they will tell you lies. One or the other. But nobody says that perfectly willing and honest interviewees will give you two completely conflicting accounts of events.'
I added, 'Or that they often contradict themselves within the same sentence!'
We don't care. We have hysterics. We share the same sense of humour. The hilarity, the absurdity, of this family trip, or trip up, down memory lane, has been a major part of the day's entertainment.

2006-09-06T02:25:00.000-07:00

Obituary Eugene Mullan ( 19??-September 2006)

I met Eugene at Caerleon Writers' Holiday in 2005. He was tall, dark and handsome, an English teacher like me, and the author of an award-winning book. I was on the course in erotic writing run by his good friend Mitzi Szereto and I kept in touch with both of them.

After Caerleon I exchanged emails with Eugene, lengthy thoughtful emails about our respective lives, teaching, and life in general. His reply to me about classroom discipline was:

'Good idea to have a few stock responses to impertinence ... certainly don't lose your temper ... the "naughty" ones enjoy that and will look for ways of winding you up ... and it frightens the more timid children ....
Better to "act" at being angry in short bursts and direct it at an individual who needs putting in his/her place ... not a whole class ...
Look as if you are enjoying yourself ... praise good behaviour as much as possible ... troublemakers at the front of course ... never go back on your word ... "a final warning" means just that ... never punish a whole class for the misdemeanours of a few ... sometimes speak very quietly so they have to concentrate to hear you ... set ground rules early and don't change the boundaries ..... '

His comment on singing was:

'That was very sweet of Mitzi to say so ... but I'm really a "one trick pony" .... as far as playing music is concerned ...

my two brothers are very good ... I was always the least musical in our family ....

as for singing .... I don't mind saying that I can sing a bit ...

I don't know if I could teach you to sing ... other than I know that it is all about finding the "centre" of your voice ... which may be higher or lower than your speaking voice ... and breathing .... and confidence ...

I am singing on Friday too .... let me know how it goes for you ...

doo-wa ...doo-wa

Eugene x '

He was dealing with the law courts about his divorce, unhappy about the divorce proceedings, later happy when it was over, and happy about his new house, but needed a break. I invited him to attend Writers' Summer School in Derbyshire.
I was living in London and he was living further north or visiting friends in Leicester and Sheffield so we did not see each other again. We continued emailing and I last wrote to him on a Thursday in September 2006. You can imagine my horror on opening an email from Mitzi at midnight on Friday with the subject: Bad News.

Eugene had died from pneumonia after being confined to bed with food poisoning.
Mitzi said he had had food poisoning previously. Possibly from food which had gone off whilst he was away on holiday.
I keep churning this fact over and over, as if I could turn the clock back, rewind the video, if only I could find the exact moment when things went wrong.
I thought, maybe he believed that having had food poisoning previously and recovered, he assumed it was not a serious problem, instead of thinking it was a lucky escape and a warning.
I am shocked, uneasy, in denial.
I wrote to Mitzi and she put me in touch with Linda and Andy, 'long time friends of his in Sheffield. They go way back.'
Andy sent me information about Eugene's career.

Linda gave me the email of Wendy Gallagher who wrote:
'I first met Eugene in 2003 thro Linda Lee. I last saw him on August 6th.
Here is some of what I know.
He took me to a Blake exhibition and I learned to appreciate Blake via Eugene's enthusiasm. I introduced him to ballet and he instantly adored it, especially classical, tho the last ballet he took me to, in May, was Deborah Culker's co, which we had seen and loved once before.
Eugene was a runner. There is a very steep hill in beautiful countryside on the outskirts of Sheffield where he used to run regularly. Once, when he was about to miss a ferry in Scotland, he broke into a graceful, loping glide and covered the distance to the boat in seconds without getting out of breath.
He was a gardener; his garden orderly and tended according to season. He had a small but deep pond in his garden which he acquired, with its fish, along with his house. And there came baby fish which delighted him as, apparently, the only way they cd hv come into being was by Eugene's having carried eggs in the crevices of his wellies as he tended to the pumping system. (Well, I understood at the time he explained it to me!).
He loved flowers and loved sending them.
He loved the fragrance of lavender.
He packed for trips two days before departure and always took too much and wondered why.
He enjoyed wine and real ales.
He liked to eat steak.
He loved to cook. But not often enough for himself.
He strung fairy lights on the bedroom ceiling.
He loved going to art exhibitions and encouraged local artists.
He had a beautiful voice and played guitar and banjo. He made me cry with pleasure at the sweetness of his voice when, early in our relationship, he simply took his guitar and sang to me. He was wonderfully supportive of his friends.
Not only was he an extremely talented writer, he really understood the craft of writing and was generous with his time and analytical powers. But not indulgent: I consulted him about a story; he said "You need to cut it by 50%" He gave me a tiny tape recorder to record my late night and early morning ramblings.
He starred in local productions - annual G&S - occasional drama.
He was multi-talented, passionate, loyal.
He is admired and loved by many people.
He didn't take care of himself physically and only showed irritation at any suggestion of healthcheck.
I cannot understand that he no longer is.'

Eugene is survived by two sons.

Mitzi writes that Eugene was with a friend in France 'only the week before and he was so happy when he rang me on his return -- I think he'd spent the happiest week of his life with her there. So maybe that's some comfort. Thing is, it should have continued. He had been through too many rough times and happiness should not be so fleeting.'

Mitzi expecting to be teaching in Greece at the time of the funeral wrote:
'I've decided to visit a church there and light a candle for him. If I can get hold of a priest, I'll ask him to say a prayer (or rather get someone to translate what I want to said priest). Eugene lived in Greece for several years and always dreamed of going back there to live again. So I think it's appropriate.'

If anybody wishes to send any comments about Eugene, details of his life, or photos of him, or general issues raised, such as teaching, death, food poisoning and pnemonia, please contact me at angelalansbury@hotmail.com or phone 0208 428 9638.

2006-08-05T15:19:00.000-07:00

Chat up lines
What are the best chat-up lines? I am sent lots of newsletters on life coaching and psychology and dating all telling me how to improve my life and occasionally asking for feedback. Today I read a complimentary e-letter from David deAngelo and if you want to read it go to www.DoubleYourDatingProgram.com His latest letter inspired me to reply:
One reason why the 'are you single line' does not work is that a lot of women are separated or divorcing. These women want company, dates - and sex, eventually - but strictly speaking are not 'single'. A widow isn't 'single' either. She may not want to go into a lengthy explanation with a stranger.

Who Pays For The Dinner Date?
I agree that asking a woman her opinion on anything is a good opener. However, tread carefully about asking her if she wants to pay the bill. Maybe what you are saying about women paying applies to twenty-year-old New York women but it does not apply to second time around women in London, nor women of any age in most of Asia.
A successful woman who bosses men about at work also wants a man to take charge for a change. I want my male companion to be taller than me and able to hail a taxi.
In any drama, from a hurricane on honeymoon to a holiday in a country which turns into a war zone, I want him to get me out of trouble.
I'm an older woman, an ex-pat, used to the ex-pat lifestyle. I like eating out and I like a guy who opens doors and carries the luggage and drives the car.
Financial surveys show that most men earn more than women. We'll have a better time on his budget than on mine.
If a guy asks me to pay for myself, I assume he is mean.
If you split the bill it looks as though you are on business, not a date. The waiter in the UK usually gives the man the bill.
If you take turns paying, when an older woman pays for the man, it looks like she is with a gigolo.
I ask myself, where will he be if we have a child which needs looking after? When I had threatened miscarriages I had to give up my job and relied on my husband for support.
I've met a lot of married men who have handicapped children. I've also met men, and women, who are supporting teenagers and older children through college, or drug rehab, all sorts of financial responsibilities. I don't want a man who is not able, or not willing, to support a wife and child. He is spending his money on himself or his mistress rather than his wife. He is not reliable financially, nor morally.
Maybe younger women want to pay their own way but I want a man to keep me in the same style as my husband.
When I invite a girlfriend out I want to pay for her. If a man invited me out and wanted to me to pay for myself I'd think, he wants free sex.
If a guy wants me to pay for myself, I conclude that he doesn't really like me.
When my girlfriends and I go out we are always trying to pay for each other. Once we actually tore the bill in half, both trying to take it.
A guy who doesn't want to pay the bill, or even raises the subject of my paying, does not get a date with me.
A much better line is for a man to ask if I know any good restaurants I can recommend. Then ask if I'm free for dinner.
At dinner, make it clear to your guest, ' This is my treat. Order whatever you want. Enjoy yourself.'
If a man is chatting away already in a neutral situation and knows the women is 'single', he could ask about films or plays or exhibitions, find a film, play or exhibition she hasn't yet seen, and wants to see, and offer to take her to see it.
My other advice is arrange a second date before you try to kiss a woman goodnight. Then you already have her goodwill. She knows you care for her friendship and like her company whether or not you get sex. She knows you are not just after a one night stand.
Of course I don't speak for every woman. Only for my type. But it's no use chatting my type up with lines you use for the other type. You need to know about both.
I am a freelance journalist. You may quote my comments from the above section on Chat up lines and Who pays for the dinner date? providing you use my name.
If you quote me I'd be glad to know. And if you want, I'll send you more you can quote.

2006-07-30T10:56:00.000-07:00

Writers' Holiday at Caerleon Campus, University of Wales
Newport, South Wales 23-28 July 2006

COMEDY COURSE by BRAD ASHTON
I took the course The Funniest Thing About Comedy run by Brad Ashton who has written more than 1000 TV scripts. Brad, an energetic, amusing 75-year-old, provided non-stop entertainment. He described how he had lunch with Goucho Marx who appeared incognito at a London restaurant without his moustache and was nearly thrown out for not wearing a tie, until he produced his trademark cigar. (If I remember correctly, which I rarely do. That's my shortened, second-hand version of the story.)

Brad recalled Benny Hills' flat, which had hardly any furniture. But cartoons and newspaper cuttings of jokes covered the walls.

Brad also witnessed arguments over theatre dressing rooms. Famous comedy singers demanded the top dressing room, saying that if they did not get it, they would refuse to perform.

Brad has written for Tommy Cooper, Les Dawson and Bob Monkhouse. His first book, published in 1983 by Elmtree books, was How to Write Comedy which is used in universities in Canada and America. His latest book is The Funny Thing About Writing Comedy.

Our workshop finished with everybody giving a short performance. It was most reassuring to learn that even the greats have days or nights when they die on stage. For example, an act which went down well in the USA last night might mystify the puzzled UK audience next morning.

Brad learned to write by copying jokes until he had six notebooks full of them and could spot the pattern or formula.

If you need an after dinner speaker, he is immensely entertaining.

Performance Poetry and Humour
by Angela Lansbury
I made a brief appearance during the poetry evening. I listened to all the humorous poems, the majority of which were about sex. I now have to adapt my comedy act to one with humorous verse so that I can perform at poetry events which are another opportunity.

Since it was a poetry evening, I could not perform my usual routine with the sex jokes. However, I ended by saying that as there were not enough men I had brought my own. I pulled out of my bag a talking boy doll which speaks when you press its hand.

Brad pointed out that a further opportunity for speakers is entertaining at homes for the elderly. However, they are frequently hard of hearing and an act all about sex would not be ideal, though an act including humour about being chased and evading a lustful old man could be amusing.

Public Speaking workshop by Angela Lansbury
I gave an afternoon tea workshop on public Speaking. I told one of the quietly-spoken speakers to speak to an imaginary person in the empty back row of the long room. Then I thought, why not move myself, or one of the audience, to the back row? Why not everybody?

So I moved everybody to the back of the room. I made the muttering impromptu speakers practice raising their voices so they could be heard at the back.

So simple. But we always do the opposite. We move the audience forward at Toastmasters.

I started them doing elevator speeches. My friend Linda does Tai Chi. Her one minute elevator speech was fine but nothing visual. So I got her to stand on one leg to demonstrate tai chil. Everybody thought that was very funny.

One of the speakers was giving regular speeches about audio books for the blind. I mentioned using glasses or an audio tape as a prop.

During the speech she said that the council only gave a tiny amount towards the cost, which was why she was fund-raising. As she said 'a tiny amount' she gave a slight gesture of dismissal, like throwing away something tiny. I got her to exaggerate that.

Another speaker talked about writing a mystery novel and subconsciously made a slight gesture of both palms down facing forward with a shrug. I got him to exaggerate that.

A good time was had by all. I gave out a four-sided handout

The next week-long Writers' Holiday is 29 July - August 3rd 2007, costing £339 which includes university accommodation, three meals and coffee with biscuits, a free excursion Wednesday afternoon, all tuition and evening lectures. Gerry Hobbs will even collect you from the railway station and organise a coach back to the station Friday lunchtime and packed lunches for those who can't stay for lunch.
However, if you can't wait, there are also shorter and cheaper courses:
Fishguard Bay Hotel, Pembrokeshire, Friday 10th-Sunday 12th November for £199.
Or Friday 16th-Sunday February 18th. More details from Anne Hobbs:

2006-07-19T16:01:00.000-07:00

Wednesday 19th July 2006

Stand-up Comedy
Yesterday, Tuesday night, I went to The Live Bar, a comedy bar, an oasis of glamour in seedy littered Deptford, South East London. If I had been on stage at Deptford, that would have been an encouragement. It would have counterbalanced the nightmare of rushing diagonally across London from the North West, arriving late.

WHY WAS I LATE?
Here's my excuse for being late - the lady will protest too much. (That's about Lady Macbeth?) I spent half the day trying to get a map of Deptford and the pub. Friendly fellow comic Joanne emailed my and those who trained with me to ask who is going tonight. I phoned her mobile and left a message to say yes.

I e-mailed Live Bar big shot organiser Lloydy boidy to say I would like to be on stage, preferably early because I travel a Long way. (Today, Wednesday, a day too late, I am notified of a delay - my email has not yet been delivered to him!)

Yesterday, magic Tuesday, I'm all over the Internet 'like a rash'. Never mind AA and RAC route planner. First I need to get the address and see a picture of the venue. Downloading the map is a challenge. You print off blank pages or only the ads around the map unless you click on microscopic print which says 'to print map click here'.

The London transport travel planner shows that my journey is in three sections - or four. There are delays on all the shorter three section routes. The temperature is in the 90s.

I told my son Anthony I was not going. He says that from the London suburbs his French girlfriends need two and a half hours to arrive on time at work in London. But in only two hours they travel all the way from Paris to London, or London to Paris!

I took my car in late to garage for service and MOT. My son Anthony comes over - to ask for money. But, so sorry, I must rush off, because Joanne rings cheerily to say she's glad I'm coming tonight and she'll meet me at Deptford station. The show doesn't start until 8.30.

The garage phones to say car can be collected just as I'm about to leave. So I collect the car. And set off late.

My son leaves his wallet in my car. So I have to deal with that, phone him to call him back. I unlock the house. Put the wallet where he can see it. Phone him to tell him. Then decide to hide it. Phone him to tell him. Why make one call when you can make three. Feel like a family.

At the station my first difficulty is buying a ticket to Deptford. Nobody is at my unmanned station, Hatch End, to tell me whether an all day travel card will do the trick.

The train is already on the platform! But by the time I have bought my ticket, and taken the overhead bridge, the train has gone. The wood pigeons overhead think it's very funny. They are playing shit on people who sit waiting. I have a twenty-minute wait. You can go off wood pigeons.

So I hunt in my huge bag and find leftovers from lunch which I forgot to put in the fridge. The food has been out in 90 degrees of heat more than one hour. Therefore, according to health and safety regulations, I am acting illegally, and giving the consumer, myself, food poisoning.

After I finish eating, I remember we finished lunch about 2.30 and my chicken has sat around until six thirty. Four hours.

No time to worry about food poisoning. You can only worry about one thing at a time. I now have to worry about my route. And rehearse my act.

At Euston I queued and spoke to a man at a ticket sales window. I spent five minutes trying to communicate: 'Deptford, not Dartford, Depford not Darford, Detford, not Dartford, not Deptford Bridge, Deptford. Thank you so much for your patience.'

I don't run down the escalator. A sign warns that there are more than 900 injuries a year on escalators. (That's only the ones which get reported!)

At Euston I chat to a friendly black girl. I tell her about my act and demonstrate all my props. The furry black and white panda which droops its had and looks sad, and lifts its head to look happy, or claps me. I also bring out my two pianos. And show my bright orange lady's blouse with orange maple leaves on white. My joke is: My relative Pat died in this. So I thought as it was a favourite outfit of the deceased, they should wear it in the coffin. Ready to go to the Pearly Gates. Uncle Pat will arrive and try to talk his way past St Peter, dressed in drag. Not St Peter in drag, my uncle Pat.

Hurray! I have done my rehearsal.

At London bridge I went in and out of three or four barriers. I asked a disembodied helpline. I galloped down assorted tunnels, like an underground fairground. I stood on scary endless escalators.

I finally leaped on the advertised train at London bridge. I phoned Joanne to say I'd reach Deptford Bridge shortly. Then I found I was on a train to Greenwich and Brighton.

Six passengers gave me conflicting advice. 'Go back.' 'No, go onwards.' I had to get off at Lewisham. Then walk to the Docklands Light Railway. The LTR train came in and sat just to annoy me. So I had to call Joanne who was waiting for me and let her go.

At Deptford Bridge the lift down to ground level from DLR is windowless grey metal and the size of an upright dirty coffin. I am squashed in with somebody who looks pregnant. He's more scared than I am.

Dim light. Noisy trundling, screeching of brakes and rocking. Lift hits the ground with a thud like a plane making an emergency landing.

Outside everybody is as lost as I am. Nobody born in England lives in Deptford. Or even goes there.

A girl with a foreign accent thinks Lewisham is to the left. I get out my map. I ask where she's from. She's from Brazil!

Finally I see the pub. Luckily Joanne arrived in time to be put on stage.

But I didn't.

LOVELY LIVELY LIVE BAR

Arriving at the Live Bar, I stumble through the door to the ladies which is held open by a waist-high lightweight plastic dustbin which I collide with. I knock it over, falling half inside. I check the rubbish to see that I have lost nothing.

I've lost my main prop. The scary bright orange lady's jacket. It's on one of the last two trains I've taken, at one of two stations, or in the street.

The amplified stage act sounds louder in the toilets than when you are in the bar. I sneak back to the bar.

Sit-down comedy
Three bar stools between four of us. Joanne generously vacates her stool for me. She occasionally glances at me warily like a person on a tube train hoping that a bag lady won't get any closer. I'm sure the effect of watching out for a lurching bag lady is even more unnerving when the bag lady is a friend, or former friend.

The bar stools are high. A bit like trying to mount a horse. If you are not careful you sprawl across it. It tips over. You fall off the other side. Alarming.

I leap up. Fall back. Embarrassing. Make a second attempts. Still can't get up. Third time lucky. Two fellow comics, looking seriously worried, Tyson and George, are hauling either side. Joanne is saucer-eyed, anxiously holding my two bags. The tall bar stool, stable as a tripod, starts to tip. Stifled commotion.

Somehow I am aloft. Like sitting on the edge of a cliff. Don't lean sideways.

Two people have helped me onto the stool. Now I am up, I want to get down. I am scared of falling off. Imagine a large sack of potatoes in a zizag pattern orange dress poised precariously on a bar stool while something fidgets about inside swaying this way and that, trying to sip a drink through a straw, reaching forward to the table, and back.

It's only a matter of time before I fall off. Or grab somebody or something which I should not grab. What a nice thought.

Two of our three stools have backs. But not mine. I prefer the security of a back. You cannot fall off backwards. It's better for your back and neck. You sit proudly upright instead of hunchbacked.

One of the boys vacates his stool to go to the loo, stretch his legs, get a drink. Now's my chance. How to get off this stool? How do get onto the next?

The Live Bar venue was lovely, I spent a lot of time admiring the spotlit red panels behind the winebottles and carafes. I was wondering if I could get the bar's interior designer to change my living room decor. From oriental paintings and trompe l'oeuil greenhouse mural to Dead Bar.

LIVE BARS & DEAD BARS
The Live Bar is much smarter than the place where we rehearsed, the dusty Victoria pub at Mornington Crescent. To get to the latter you leapfrog along the narrow streets over the bin bags past basement kitchens.

The Victoria pub not only has a steep staircase - but also no lights. If 9000 people have accidents on well-lit London Underground escalators, surely somebody must fall down a steeper staircase in complete darkness? I used to wonder why the Victoria pub had not been sued by somebody who broke their leg. Then I realised that people who fall down their staircase won't survive.

The Enterprise Pub where we performed our debut Showcase has lights on an even steeper staircase. Not surprisingly upstairs is a wooden bench with broken arms and legs. If it didn't fall apart, like the cracked Victorian plaster ceiling, it looks like it fell over coming up the stairs and is afraid to go back down.

The Enterprise had sit-on-a-sixpence stools. Maybe they are normal size stools. But I have a twin-size rear end.

I used to take a cushion to sit on. Rob complimented me on my foresight. The cushion doubled as a pillow so I could snooze in the train on the way home after midnight.

At other venues such as the Enterprise, have only one toilet cubicle on the level with the venue. So, in the five minute interval, ten incontinent drunks race to one toilet cubicle. The last person gets no toilet paper.

But here Lloyd the compere cum comic was apparently unhelpful but not uncivil. Listen, I can cope with that. I've been trained by Hils! She is strict. No nonsense. She puts you on stage, but tells you off twice before you go on. She told me to stand back against the wall. And not to fan myself, because I was attracting attention.

According to Nick, when Martin left the stage instead of telling him he'd done well but try to keep to time next time as a courtesy to the others, she had a go at him. She completely spoiled his joy in having done his first ever gig. Discouraged him. Distressed his friends. Upset everybody for weeks after. But I reckon organisers have to be strict about time or the show would never start or end.

I am impressed with the diplomacy of my messages from fellow stand-up Tyson. One message of encouragement hoping I'll come back. A second upbeat note to everybody, praising other people's acts. Mentioning me - who didn't do anything - thanking me for supporting.

Most comedy evenings allow songs which they often put on early or after the interval. Like karaoke, except that you would have a higher chance of being put on and you'd be a novelty. So people like friend William, a karoake enthusiast, could do a song, better still a comic song.

Do you know an comic songs? If you do not know any, tell me. I shall do one. Pretend I teach singing and my puppet is singing. Then give a false grin and praise it for a good first effort.

Regarding props, William, who has the punching rabbi (shown at our showcase by our teacher) might be interested in this and have some useful suggestions.

PROPS
Lloyd had told me that other people were on stage ahead of me. He did not agree to put me on earlier. In a later interval he told me I would not be on at all. But when we left, he promised 'next time'.

However, I was perfectly happy. I loved his act with the animated baby doll. I realised that the doll was a great prop. Astonishing the way its little hands wave and feet kick about so realistically. I must look on line to get one.

But I didn't hear any punchlines. The mic was muzzy. I heard better when Lloyd was muttering with his back to the audience than when he was echoing and deafening on the mic.

Afterwards whilst at the station reviewing the evening with Joanne, I realised that I have the same trouble with my two pianos. Wonderful props. But not enough punchlines. Joanne suggests I should learn some funny songs, which I'd already thought of. She said she'd seen on the Internet a comedian with a full size piano doing a comedy turn. I could make a high and low note represent something to punctuate a story.

Maybe I could get the puppet to play the piano. If it makes a mistake, I can smile indulgently and give the audience a running commentary. Like a teacher. 'Like an American ski instructor. When you fall over, they enthuse, You're doing wonderfully well!'

I've cut my Deptford Tale into bite size chunks for you. This is the last.

HOMEWARD BOUND

I headed off early from The Live Bar was because I had get home. My journey takes about 40 minutes from Euston, arriving in a car park which can be deserted at night.

The later it gets the more likely I am to be sitting in a carriage with only one other man. Or nobody - except some character lurching along from carriage to carriage slamming doors. Or leaving them flapping and clanging with the menacing noise and mesmerising view of the passing track. I usually try to get to Hatch End by midnight.

Joanne walked me back to Deptford station, only 'five minutes' she had claimed. It is, if you can run a four-minute mile carrying a handbag and a bag of props. I puff along, my feet sliding about in plastic-lined shoes. Never mind vegetarianism. I need leather inserts.

She didn't tell me I was old. I mentioned a friend of mine was 29 tomorrow. She said that I obviously liked to hang around with young people. Ooh! Damning with faint praise.

I started off aged 29, but aged ten years on the journey to Deptford. Another ten on the journey back.

There was a twenty-minute wait for a train from Deptford to Charing Cross (new route). Joanne kindly found the transport helpline to find out the time for my last train from Euston.

I changed at Charing Cross onto the Jubilee. At Euston twenty-minute wait for a train. I phoned my son from Euston. I'd already phoned him from Deptford station saying the train wasn't leaving until gone 11 pm and I might end up stranded at Watford so could he collect me. That's twenty minutes for him to drive to Watford, twenty minutes to drive me home, ten minutes for him to drive home risking killing himself and others. He said he'd rather collect me, and be paid a fiver or a tenner. (We are so naughty. We say fiver and tenner, which granny Netta, who is dead, would never allow, since it was vulgar, and slang. Anyway, he'd rather I paid him than me call a dubious cab driven by an unlicensed foreigner on the wrong side of the road while I try not to blow the rape whistle.

I really don't like to call my son to collect me. I phone and he calls back ten minutes later. He's probably in bed with a girlfriend and it isn't much fun being in bed or even cuddled up hugging watching a DVD knowing your mother is going to ring at ten minute intervals and expect to be collected from a distant station at 1 a.m.

My journey was 'quick'. Got me back to Hatch End at a quarter to one. Station full of men in orange jackets, railway engineers, paid overtime, to do nothing. When I got home I called my son.

I was quite surprised to get home alive. My son was equally surprised
He said, 'So you're home - in one piece.'

One piece but not one peace. But I had managed to travel to deepest Deptford. I got back safely. I saw stage acts. I met my comedy friends. Quite an achievement. Considering that I had not been into London by train between 2000 when my mother died and 2004 when my father died.

Nor had I driven outside my home area for several years. I still don't. The girl I met on the bench at Euston, when I earlier travelled out south to London Bridge for the gig, had told me she had a friend aged about 49-50 who never drove far from home. She hadn't had a major road accident as I did when knocked down by a car in Corsica in1984. So I'm making lots of tiny bits of progress every day.

But I've no chance of finishing my 50,000 word novel in 50 or 100 days if I spend each day writing 1000 word emails. Or 1000 word blogs. I should re-write my novel and finish it. Not should. Shall.

But I must make use of this blog. In novel 4 of my five part series, the book called The Travellers, based on my life.

2006-06-27T13:10:00.000-07:00

Stand-Up Comedy Update - My first Show!
Comedy Performance
My day has ended brilliantly. I'll tell you the amusing story of my stand-up comedy shortly.
Yesterday my neighbours Alice and Loudon phoned to ask whether I had noticed that their garden contained a large marquee. I had to admit that I hadn't. I live several feet below my lofty neighbours, in a bungalow. I need a periscope to see over the next fence. They had invited 40 close members of the family from overseas, plus people who had been at their wedding, to celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary. My nimble neighbours must be in their eighties. A couple of guests had dropped out to attend a funeral, obviously more fun, so my neighbours were inviting me as a standby stand-in, or sit-in. (My aunt took the view that I should not have been invited late, but I'm not like that. I'm never too proud to accept a free meal and free drinks.)
We stood on the sloping lawn sipping Pimms and champagne whilst grabbing canapés and trying not to fall into the pond, tottered into the marquee, falling over the chairs, and flopped down at the table, only to lurch off again, holding dinner plates diagonally whilst sampling a buffet of couscous, chicken and various breads in strange shapes and enticing colours. I reflected that if you gave them to your GP as a Christmas present he would send you for every available test at the nearest psychiatric hospital. As soon as we were full, a waitress placed on the table lemon tart, strawberries and fruit salad, and cream, which, not having the nerve to ask for a doggy bag, since my neighbours know I have no dog, I dutifully ate. Managing to eat more than the deprived anorexic person on your right, but less than the conspicuously greedy person on your left, who is bound to have the heart attack they deserve, is as satisfying as scoring triple points at Scrabble. (I passed on the chocolate profiteroles in favour of the fruit, which was very virtuous of me. This decision was made easier by the fact that my plate was already overflowing. Inserting a spoon created a waterfall. This could easily be concealed behind an opaque fence of empty drinking glasses. Chopping cheese and trying not to snatch biscuits was the penultimate challenge, enlivened by chasing rolling grapes. Finally coffee filled up the cracks, and everybody pushed in a piece of superfluous sugary sponge cake. Just when we were ready to admit defeat and say no thanks, we were served more champagne, which we could not refuse, for toasts.)
Over the past 24 hours I'd been feeling a bit up and down with nerves about my forthcoming comedy showcase on Sunday night. I hadn't yet managed to order the essential silent vibrating timer to ensure that I finished neatly on time. Nor a video machine to film my finest hour, or, if I kept to time, my finest five minutes. A fellow Toastmaster, Warren, emailed me to say that I didn't need the timer, if I'd rehearsed my piece enough - but I hadn't! No - so I was pleased that I had an excuse to be skiving off, out with people.
There were four tables and I sat smugly on table one, the top table, opposite my neighbours, and I was telling them that tomorrow I'm doing stand-up comedy tomorrow when Alice asked me if I'd to do my comedy turn for them when they serve the coffee and cake.
I couldn't believe my luck. Number one I've a chance to rehearse before a real live audience. Number two before even doing my showcase I've got a real 'engagement' to perform - at a proper wedding-style do, catered in a marquee, to an audience of 45 guests, plus three serving staff, with no compere or warm-up or other supporting acts. Unfortunately a stand-up comedy performer is supposed to stay sober - I had already failed the first test. I rushed next door for my bag of props and returned to be waved into the centre to perform, drunk or sober.
I don't know how long I took, probably about 7 minutes, it didn't matter.
Everyone's had lots to drink and they are in a good mood, and the hostess is a sunny, laughing soul who cackles non-stop at anything even when she hasn't had anything to drink. It went something like this. I walk to the front where I can be seen, carrying my large shoulder bag and a bucket bag.

'I'm Angela Lansbury, not the actress who's famous, but the writer and I'm infamous. As most of you know by now I live next door. My husband's not here because we are sort of separated - we have separate bedrooms - mine is in London; his is in Singapore. (ROFL.)
'The first thing I must tell you is that I'm going to lift my blouse later and show you what's underneath (ROFL) - the men will be pleased. '
(ROFL. Lots of heckling along the lines of, 'George will like that'; a gentleman stands up and asks, 'Where's the exit? I'm getting so excited I'd better leave now!')
'But don't worry, ladies, you might enjoy it too!'
(Heckler shouts, 'What's in the bag?')
'Since you asked what's in the bag, I'll show you now. First I have a little duck like the one in the pond in the garden here.' (I get out my yellow toy duck and hold it up. Then I press it and it goes 'Quack quack quack.' )
'Yes, quack, quack, quack, to you too.'
(It repeats, 'Quack, quack, quack.')
'Yes, I love you too.' (I put it back in the bag.)
(For the third and last time it says, 'Quack, quack, quack.)
(I look down at the bag.) 'Okay, ducky, that's enough!'
(I grin at the audience.) 'As I was saying, my husband and I are separated, so, to keep myself amused, I do telephone sex.'
An elderly lady in audience demands, 'What's that?' (Hoo-ha as several members of the audience on her table and the next table try to explain to her.)
I grin. 'I'll tell you later, dear - actually I'll sort of explain now - and show you.' (Stunned silence as audience turns attention to me, all agog.)
'A gentleman phones up late at night and asks what I'm wearing. Actually I'm wearing a pink polycotton nightie from British Home Stores which I bought round the corner in Oxfam. I was about to take it back there.
(Lady in the audience shouts, 'You should!' )
'I can't tell him that. It's not really exciting or erotic. So I tell him I'm wearing a black G string, with the words "I'm no Angel" on it. I think I have it in my bag and if I can find it I'll show it to you. Yes, here it is!'
(I hold it up, and turn it upside down, looking puzzled -) 'Yes, here are the words, "I'm no angel."'
(I don't have to be funny and get laughs at the end of every sentence. This is not a comedy show. All I have to do is hold their attention and be entertaining.)
'He asks if I bought it at Victoria's Secret - but actually I bought it round the corner at Morrisons supermarket.'
(Doing this locally is good because everybody knows Oxfam and Morrisons are nearby.)
(I censor the act. I've decided to drop the line about holding a green butt plug in my hand because the audience includes a lady who wanted telephone sex explained and the host's 15-year-old nephew is also in the audience.
(I also leave out the joke about going on an erotic writing course and the girl who dropped out because she was asked to write about a love affair with an animal, written from the animal's point of view! My neighbours have heard that joke before.)
'I tell the man who's phoned that I'm going to tie on the G-string and I do so. (I tie the G-string around my left wrist). Then I tell him I'm going to take it off again - like this.' (I pull it off my wrist.)
(I'm getting laughs from half the audience - oddly enough, those furthest away - which is good enough, a whole lot better than no laughs, and smiles from the others which is good enough, though not as good as having the entire audience in hysterics.)
'Now, you've seen that I had a duck and a G-string in my bag. How many of you think I have a piano in my bag? Raise your right hand if you think I have a piano in my bag. One third of you think I do. (I grin as if this is a silly question and this time it's just a joke and I've played a trick on them. Hands go up and come down again.)
'How many of you don't think I have a piano in my bag?' (Two thirds don't think so.)
(I laugh and hunt in my bag.) 'I can't find it - yes, I can!' (I hold up my 8 inch wide piano to show it.)
'When I ordered it from a catalogue, I thought it was about three feet wide, not three inches wide. But it does play.
I'll show you how it works. I press this button here and it plays "O Susanna". Would you like to join in? (Limited attempts to join in the song so I move on. I think if you want people to sing, in the same way as you do practice clapping at the start of a toastmasters evening, you must start your act by asking everyone to sing or shout something.)
'It can also play "Happy Birthday". Does anybody have a birthday? No?
'Not a single birthday today! We'll have to celebrate everybody's birthday. In Japan they celebrate everybody's birthday the same day.
(A couple of people in the audience very interested in this idea start to explain things to their neighbours, so I raise my voice to recapture attention.)
'We'll have to sing Happy Birthday to me. Or how about happy birthday to Alice! (The hostess joins in.)
'Speaking of birthdays, when I moved into this street we had a birthday party for my son. But the people two doors along on the other side of Alice had another birthday and put out balloons. So one of our guests, a little Japanese girl, went to the wrong party. At the end of the party her mother collected her and discovered she was at the wrong party - and asked for the present back! (Laughter.)
'Then they came on to our party - which had just finished!' (Should I drop this line next time?)
'Now, I think I have another piano in my bag. How many people think I have a second piano in my bag?
'Not many? You should know me by now! Of course I have another piano in my bag. Here it is!' (I hold it up and unroll it.)

(Heckler shouts, 'Have you got a third piano?')
'No, sorry.'
(Heckler - 'You ought to have a third piano!' )
'Next time. I do have two more electric pianos next door. Too big to fit in my bag.'
'I'll show you how this one works. I press this button and it plays the Turkish dance. I can dance for you. (I gallop right and left.)
'I have just one more thing to tell you. I have wonderful neighbours and they used to have lovely cats, and they also have foxes, which cause no trouble though they do make a noise at night, doing, er, what foxes do at night! (Laughter.)
'I'm glad my neighbours didn't have dogs, not that I don't like dogs, I like dogs, but sometimes they get rather too friendly. They have a great sense of smell, and when I go round to friends, their dog puts his nose up my skirt and starts sniffing. And I say to the owner, "Please call your dog off." And he says, "But he likes you; he's only being friendly." And I say, "He's being much too friendly. I don't know what he wants, but he's not getting it!"
Thank you, good night.'
(I smiled and nodded and walked away but a heckler called, 'You said you were going to lift your blouse!'
(I turned back.) 'Oh, yes. I must show you. English people like this, but some Argentineans and foreigners don't. I can't think why.'
(I lift my blouse. From my bra straps, attached at the back by two safety pins, I have the George's Cross on the England flag with the word ENGLAND.)
'England! Thank you and goodnight.'
(Laughter and applause.)
(Later I realised that the England flag was upside down. Somebody told me that it didn't matter because everybody recognised it anyway. I'll have it right tomorrow, after my 'dress rehearsal'. And if I ever do that again I've had time to think about it, so maybe I can devise some funny comment about flags upside down being a distress signal. Any suggestions?)

Afterwards the son of the neighbours proposed a toast to his parents but he simply said their names. One of the guests said that wasn't enough and he was going to give an impromptu speech. (I could have done the same but I'd just done a comedy turn which exhausted my energy and I'd hogged the limelight enough.) He said that hosts were great and the caterers were great and the entertainer, Angela, was great - but don't give up the day job!'
He got a laugh from that and I was not thrilled. However, several people told me I did well. And when he left he said, 'Very good - super.'
Alice proposed a toast to the guests at her table and told us not to stand up (one person had a stick). But one of the guests said we should stand up. I said, ' Those who can stand, stand, and those who can't stand it, stay sitting.' That got a laugh.
The hosts' daughter Claire who lives in London told somebody who came to collect one of the guests that he missed my act and she asked me to bring out my pianos to show him. (She had assumed that the pianos were only capable of playing recorded tunes and didn't realise they are both playable.)
Having done a 'performance' before my showcase makes me feel much less stressed about tomorrow. And immensely satisfied and one-up on the world - like taking O levels a year early.
It's also good to have made my mark locally to people who live in my street. I have now established my reputation as a performer.
Good. Good. Good. Goody, goody, goody.
Angela

2006-06-16T07:28:00.000-07:00

SPEECHES

Angela's Advice

How to talk about a subject you know nothing about

If you are going to the AGM and you hold a post, you should have an account of what you have done - especially if you are an accountant, but those of use called to speak on a subject we know nothing about have to speak confidently. A politician may face such a challenge from hecklers. (Maybe that's why hecklers are sometimes ejected.)

In Toastmasters we practice at speaking confidently without notes, by being called up to speak after a subject is announced, usually with no indication of the subject. Sometimes we are told the theme of the evening in advance.

Let's suppose you are asked to speak about a subject you know nothing about, which in my case would be finance or football or skiing.

You are an outsider. Some of the audience may be outsiders. One trick is to talk about how outsiders cope. This could be serious. It could be funny. It could be both. And it often makes an orginal speech.

For example, what do Jews do at Christmas? Where do skiers go in summer? What do football fans do on World Cup night - and what do non football fans do?

Angela Lansbury Travels & Speeches

2006-03-19T10:00:00.000-08:00

Angela Lansbury Author, Travel Writer & Speaker
Profile:
Angela Lansbury
Author of ten books including: Wedding Speeches & Toasts; Unforgettable British Weekends.
Travel articles for many magazines and newspapers.
Radio and TV broadcasts worldwide.
English tutor.
Writer of 0n-line books and articles.
English teaching and speech mentor.

Travel Stories
High In Shanghai:
When I visited Shanghai in 2000 I stayed in the Grand Hyatt, then the highest hotel in the world. Was my rosy view of Shanghai due to the fact that I stayed in such a glamorous hotel?
No. Shanghai is still my favourite city and the Shanghai people, even the machines installed by unseen well-wishers, seem as concerned about my welfare as I am about theirs. I am glad my taxi driver in Shanghai, like taxi drivers in New York, is protected from robbers by a plastic screen. I am protected by a robot voice which reminds me to fasten my seatbelt. But there is no seatbelt.
We race along under the impressive monorail carrying the world's fastest train. Shanghai taxi drivers speak no English so you need a map or a handy bilingual business card showing your destination written in Chinese and English. The driver needs the Chinese. You need the translation into English to that when you have two or more cards in your pocket you know which one is the next exciting place you are visiting.
Your hotel concierge writes your destination on a card, like in Hong Kong. At the end of your taxi journey an efficient bilingual ticket machine noisily pushes out a bill. Everything is unnervingly, yet strangely exhilarating, maybe because everybody is so happy. Wouldn't you be happy if your city had progressed from a city of bicycles and Thirties architecture to a thriving city of 16 million, full of cars and skyscrapers covered in neon lights?
My best friend recalls how a taxi driver was annoyed at being cut up by another vehicle. The taxi driver waited until the next traffic light, then jumped out and beat up the other driver, shouting and hitting him on the nose. My friend wondered what to do, sneak off and look for another taxi driver, who would also speak no English. Impossible. She stayed. Her driver came back, said nothing, because she could not speak Mandarin, and drove her to her destination.
At the weekend we drove to the pretty lake district of Hangzhou. As we sped along the motorway, traffic overtook on both sides. Our driver decided to go faster, speeding along the slow lane's hard shoulder.
Hangzhou is another city of skyscrapers and traffic. The Western lake is thronged with Chinese weekenders cycling around the lake and walking along the causeway over the humpbacked bridge.
On a restaurant terrace overlooking the river we ate Beggar's Chicken, cooked in a lotus leaf from the lake. The sky was grey with pollution and the grey water did not suggest fresh lotus leaves, but the chicken was so succulent that I shall spend the rest of my life scanning Chinese menus searching for Beggar's chicken.
Back in Shanghai, being nearly thrown through the windscreen twice is a bit alarming, but each day watching traffic having near-misses from a distance is hugely entertaining. Every morning I sit watching the amazing traffic far below the window of our service apartment. From the 23rd floor of The Hong Kong Plaza skyscraper, I can watch the chaos at eleven intersections, more amusing than Nintendo. Cars in the fast lane decide at the last moment to turn left at the junction, diagonally across four lanes of traffic.
Drivers force their way through crowds of resistant pedestrians, six abreast. Pedestrians on zebra crossings are an easy target; the white makes them more visible. So, in order to avoid running them down, the cars speed up and screech their tires to frighten the walkers and hoot loudly.
Ten years ago Shanghai had six lanes of motorcycles. Now the cyclists are all driving cars and coaches. Like cyclists, buses weave in and out, only stopping if they meet mirror-image vehicles head-on in the middle of the intersection. When nobody can move, there is nothing you can do except hoot loudly, as loud as you can to be heard above the other twenty vehicles also hooting.
Pedestrians are unphased. If you worried about life expectancy, you would never cross a road.
I loved the former French quarter, which became the Jewish refuge in WWII. From the Jewish Museum I took a walking tour, guided by a Chinese man who had lived through that era. He led me out into the middle of the six-lane road and stopped, not to avoid the trams, trucks, coaches and cyclists, which dodged around us, or forced us to leap aside, but to point to various landmarks including the art deco cinema. What with traffic noise, my eyes being on an approaching bus, I was having trouble understanding the unfamiliar pronunciation of English, so I had difficulty concentrating. My guide said, "I watched John Rain. Do you know John Rain?" I nodded to show I was listening, even though I wasn't. Eventually I was able to assure him, "Yes, I know of John Wayne."
My guide was in his eighties, so he probably didn't have long to live anyway, but I was hoping to live at bit longer. I insisted on returning to the pavement prematurely.
We walked around the streets crowded with Chinese people, all black-haired. I was the only blonde, blue-eyed, pale-skinned Caucasian for miles. I lifted my camera to photograph lines of washing hung between the trees along the roadside, and local people, who obligingly looked towards me. I gradually became uncomfortably aware that the main tourist attraction in the area was me.
You don't tip taxis in China, nor waitresses, just like in the heyday of the Communist era, tipping is not done and suggests at best bribery, at worst corruption, and nobody wants to lose their job. When my American friend tried to tip, the waitress returned the money indignantly. Tipping is an insult. In Shanghai the only girls who are given tips are sexy go-go girl dancers.
A favourite winter food is snake. At a Toastmasters meeting we were told that there would be a ten-minute break for 'a drink and a snake'. It took a second to realise that we were being offered a drink and a snack.

Malaysia's Twin Towers
In Kuala Lumpur we visited the Petronas Towers. Such a thrill for me, as I'd seen them in the film starring Katherine Zeta-Jones.
The trip up to the viewing platform is so popular that you have to queue for timed tickets. While waiting, you can walk around the basement exhibition which explains how the towers were constructed. The base is a traditional eight-pointed shape, consisting of two squares at different angles.
The base of the towers is an ultra-modern shopping complex with glass-sided lifts. We stayed in the hotel next to the complex. This is Muslim Malaysia and at breakfast a Saudi woman with her face covered in a veil is attempting to eat breakfast and remove crumbs from her skirt. The hotel staff are mostly Chinese and waitresses slink around in erotic slit-sided skirts and cheongsams.

Singapore
In Singapore I went to meeting of Toastmasters, to practice public speaking, hear speeches, network and make friends.

Speeches
Speech in Shanghai
Training in Singapore
Advanced Toastmaster Silver.

Work in Progress
Speeches for Advanced Toastmaster Gold.

Novels
I am writing a set of five novels based on the history of my family. I have completed the draft of my first book, working title Heime's Escape, which begins in 1880 in London's East End.
I have just started the second book, based on the lives of my late parents.
My third novel, The Mad Musician, is based on my late uncle Arthur Gerard.
My speech about him begins: 'My beloved uncle Ronnie caused trouble from the day that he was born until the day that he died, trouble to his mother, trouble to his sister, who was my mother, and trouble to his niece, me.'

I am also preparing:
E-book on giving speeches.
E-book on writing CVs.
E-book encyclopaedia.
E-book on quotations.
See my webpages :
http://angela-lansbury.com (This has links through to my books on Amazon.)
http://annalondon8.googlepages.com (Pages on: Travel; Jewish travel and quotations. Short story; opening chapter of humorous historical novel Second Marriage, Second Chance.)
I am also in the section on about us in www.WriteCvs.co.uk

Comedy
We are doing improvisations, rehearsing for our Graduate Showcase. One of the guys on my course is gay. I'm wrong. Three of them.
One of our improvisations was 'introduce the speaker on your left as if you hate him'. I don't hate anybody and find rants difficult. One of my colleagues said, if you can't think of something you hate, just talk about what annoys you. I would never sabotage anybody deliberately as a compere. I think it is the height of bad manners and reflects badly on you and embarrasses the audience. However, the hate-filled compere scenario worked well, producing a couple of laughs.
The guy on my left was bisexual.
I said, 'This is my good friend, on a day when he's not feeling so good. He's gay, so half of you will like him.'
He stood up and said sourly, 'I'm not gay - I'm bisexual!' ROFL.

My comedy course is above the Enterprise pub beside Marine Ices opposite Chalk Farm station. My colleagues have their Graduate Showcase there on Monday night. I am listed for the following Sunday.
We used to meet weekly above the Victoria pub near Mornington Crescent on Tuesdays. I recommended the course, if only as a means of exploring how one feels about the first excercise, high status and low status. Do you want to pretend to be a king or a servant? Do you actually feel natural in that role or do you like sending it up?Very relevant to the dominant submissive, male female, boss employee roles in life too. The course costs £354.
My friends from Toastmasters were also on a similar course costing about £110 at the City Lit. That course had a waiting list of 16 people last time.

Publishing and Copyright
I'm about to start selling e-books. Publishers keep sending me contracts saying I'll indemnify them for any losses if we ever get sued. (Mainly for copyright.)
If I'm going to bear all the losses, I want a bigger share of the profits.

Sunday
The Wedding
I went to a brilliant Orthodox Jewish wedding on Sunday at the Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue in Notting Hill. Such a pretty little synagogue with stained glass windows and a blue dome in the centre of the ceiling. Although there was a women's gallery the women were seated downstairs on the right of the wedding canopy, called a chuppah, which had white flowers twined up the four posts and a silky canopy like a four-poster bed.
The ceremony started with the bride circling the bride seven times and ended with the seven blessings recited by six rabbis. Not the usual one of olden days, not the opulent three, but six.
At the reception at the Cafe Royal near Piccadilly and men and women sat together at the dinner tables seating up to 14. The women were given fans.
Between each course the band struck up with rousing music and the bride raced to her side of the potted plant barrier. We women are chased after her to join in the hora and other dances resembling the Gay Gordons. Men and women were dancing separately but the bride was lifted on a chair above the potted plants so she could wave at the groom who was lifted on a chair on his side and there was much hilarity. A traditional way of ensuring that absence makes the heart grow fonder. ROFL. All that vigorous dancing sets the dopamine running through your veins. The bride was ecstatic and so was everybody else. Such a delightful day.

Monday Breaking The Board
My son Anthony is helping launch a charity called Quest. When he was at school at Merchant Taylors a guest speaker caused a sensation by giving a talk on martial arts during which he demonstrated breaking a board with his bare hands and he got the boys to do the same.
So one of Anthony's contributions was to organize boards for people to break at the first Quest meeting. I went to the dress rehearsal last week when three of us listened to the talk and the two others broke the boards. I didn't and my son advised me not to.
However, on Monday night he had bought thinner boards and this time I attempted to break the board. You do a dry run first, lifting your arm and bringing your hand down on the board in the correct spot at half speed - you might be advised to bring your hand down flat, not sideways. To everybody's surprise and shock, mine as well as theirs, on the dry run I smashed the board straight through.

Boiler Check on a Boiling Hot Day - Thursday 15 June 2006
The gas boiler check was done today.
The inspector does a CO CO2 ratio check. He said it was.0001 parts per million, and compared with others of the same model at that age, about 25 years, it is very good. If the reading is above .004 you have to strip and clean the boiler.
He said the old boilers are more reliable than the new ones.
I commented, "The gas company keeps telling me I need a new one."
Though not necessarily as good as new boilers, the man said the old boilers were reliable.
But the new ones are half the size and fit on the (back) wall.
He explained that the black 'soot' at the top of the cupboard is not smoke but heated dust because the cupboard is overheating due to lack of ventilation. To prevent that we could simply leave the cupboard door open.
I asked, "How long will this boiler last?"
He shrugged, "Who can tell?"
I queried, "How will I know when it need replacing?"
He said, "It will leak, a puddle of water on the kitchen floor. And you'll have no heating."
(I quipped, "And then I ring the gas company - but they say they are busy!")
He checked the radiators for corrosion. He said you can see when they are going rusty. The radiator most likely to go first is the one in the bathroom. The radiators are all fine. The peeling paint on the bathroom radiator is merely cosmetic.
He said I should ask the insptectors to come back in winter to balance the radiators. You have to run radiators for two hours and he did not have time to hang around two hours today. (Couldn't he have done another job and come back?)
He said I wouldn't want the heat of the radiators on today anyway.
He turned the thermostat up and said the heat was coming through on all radiators.
He said there's a 'balance' on each radiator. The lounge radiator is probably the last on the circuit. If you leave all the radiators on full, the heat races around the first one and does not reach the end of the line; so that's why our lounge is cold. We have to block off the first one the most, then the next a bit less, and leave the last one on the circuit full on.
That's the most useful information I've had. I never knew that. Now I know I don't need to spend thousands on a new radiator. If I did it would make no difference.
I just need to phone the gas company to balance the radiators (free if I'm on the higher maintenance tariff). If not, we could probably do it ourselves.
I'm so glad I asked. If you chat to maintenance people you always learn something useful which you probably would not get if you rang the head office.
Love from Angela