Angela Lansbury Speeches and Making Speeches

I returned to Oddfellows to repeat my session on Quotations. It was easier to give the speech a second time. I already had the props.

Quiz on Quotations
I had the quiz on quotations from the previous occasion. I reckoned that a year later, if anybody had done the quiz previously, they might have the satisfaction of getting more of the answers right. However, I suspected that most people would have forgotten the questions, so the quiz would still strike them as new.

I was right. Even I had forgotten the questions - and the answers! This time, not having the answers to hand, I was not sure of a couple of the answers and had to check on the internet.

Angela Lansbury, CL, ACG.

I was invited to the wedding of good friends Andrew and Sharon and just in case I was called on to speak, I had looked up a couple of suitable quotations.

My favourite is:

To keep you love brimming in the loving cup
Whenever you're wrong, admit it
Whenever you're right - shut up!
Ogden Nash

I had prepared to give a wedding speech but I had neglected to prepare to be the MC or officiant. If you ever go to an event such as a wedding, observe the order of events and the phrases that the speakers use:

Checklist
1 Welcome:
To welcome guests (in general and by name).

2 Names:
To correctly name the hosts, such as the wedding couple and their parents and other other sponsors. Read the menu or wedding table plan or your wedding invitation.

3 Order of ceremony:
To get events in the correct order such as marriage service; then food, then drinks in hand, speeches and toasts.

4 Soothing Phrases:
Phrases to encourage the reluctant or confused hosts and guests to stand up, walk to the microphone, speak and speak up (in correct order). 'Please join me ...,"; I know the groom wants to say a few brief words ..."; "If you could just stand up for a photograph ...".

5 Cover-ups.
To cover up or make humour of any mishaps. For example, 'while we're waiting,'; 'the groom/officiant is on his way'.

6 Farewell.
To close proceedings.

7 Transport.
To ensure guests get home safely (especially if in remote location, late at night, no transport, and guests are sleepy or not sober).

8 Announce Later Events.
To inform guests of any follow up event (how to get from wedding ceremony to reception) and whether it's family only or all are invited and welcome.

9 Time-filling Talk
To find something to say to keep audience's attention whilst waiting for latecomers or for speakers to walk to the microphone, so that the audience don't start talking to each other but pay attention. "Would anybody like to tell us where they first met the bride and groom?" "Does anybody have any advice on how to stay happily married?"

10 Drinks, Flowers and Property
"Please fill your glasses." If there's any drink left in the bottle, please cork it up and take it home. You are welcome to divide the flowers up and take them home. Perhaps a rose for each lady." To ensure that the hosts and guests go home with their own property and know whether to take or leave leftovers such as the table flowers. Please collect your coats from the cloakroom. Please check your chairs and tables and under the table that nothing is left behind. Lost property: a lady is looking for a white handbag; the groom has lost a pair of spectacles in a black case; a fur coat has been found; a small lady's pendant with a pearl ... "Please will all the young ladies gather around the band because the bride is about to throw her bouquet over her shoulder. The bouquet is supposedly to bring luck in love to whoever catches it."

11 Thanks.
To thank all the helpers, bridesmaids, friends, relatives, gifts, donation, makers of cake, cooks, decorations, caterers, staff, dress designer, guests for gifts.

12 Compliments.
To compliment bride and groom (ushers and bridesmaids and guests) on their appearance (if appropriate) and/or the flowers /decor.

13 Location Facilities
To point out interior and exterior facilities: fire exits, toilets, cloakrooms for coats, areas for smoking, other rooms for dancing or quiet talking, gardens for photos, landmarks.

14 To call for silence.
Tap a glass. Bang a gong. Ring a bell. If all else fails, dim the lights or flash them on and off. "Please stand to welcome the bride and groom / MR AND MRS !
Please be seated. Please raise your glasses. The best man will  ...

15 Timing
To draw attention to timing - end of buffet, start of dancing, end of dancing, first dance for bride and groom only, or all, last dance.

16 Proper ending
 Song, applause, toast, compliments, cheers, happy thought or wishing everybody safe journey home.

17 Follow-up Photos, Thanks and More information
 Say whether bride and groom are receiving visitors in new home, going away on honeymoon, will be writing to thank you next weekend or on return, how to see or order photos of the event, if pictures will be in newspapers or on Facebook or media.

ANGELA LANSBURY, author and travel photographer, speaker.
Author of Quick Quotations.

One more drink and I'll be under the host. (Dorothy Parker)

A longer version which casts more light is this account of a conversation:

Enjoy? One more drink and I'd have been under the host!
Dorothy Parker

Angela Lansbury
Author of
Quick Quotations (Paperback Lulu.com)
Who Said What When? (Paperback Lulu.com)

Author Eric Webster started every chapter of his books with quotations. I remember typing them out for him when I was his PA in the last year of his life at Pembertons Advertising Agency which became Colman Prentis and Varley. I sat typing in an office overlooking Baker Street station and the spot where a statue of Sherlock Holmes now stands.

Sherlock Holmes was a fictional character but based on a real person. Why do we quote him? What does quotation do for us?

'Elementary, dear Watson,' we would have said, laughing, if we had seen the statue. Eric was the author of a best-selling practical book, How To Win The Business Battle, which is alliterative.

What does this quotation do for us? It is short, succinct, easy to remember. It makes us feel confident, superior, successful. The detective has been faced with a problem and he has solved it, for himself and others. He has established his credentials.

By quoting another expert, we appeal to a higher authority, somebody more famous. We can quote an unknown person, somebody we value, such as our mother, somebody older and wiser, our grandmother who taught us a memorable lesson when we were a child.

What have other famous people said about quotations?

I often quote myself. It adds spice to my conversation.
George Bernard Shaw.

Angela Lansbury
Author of
Quick Quotations (Lulu.com)
Who Said What When? (Lulu.com)

• A glass of wine and thou.
• At my age, I need glasses.
• A que vino si no toma vino! (Why did you come if you don’t drink wine. The word vino in Spanish means both wine and came.)
• Candy is dandy but liquor is quicker.
• Champagne and orange juice is a great drink. The orange juice improves the Champagne and the Champagne definitely improves the orange juice. (Duke of Edinburgh.)
• Champagne gives me zest when I feel tired. (Brigitte Bardot.)
• Come quickly, I am tasting the stars. (Dom Perignon, when he discovered Champagne. But wiki says bubbles were originally viewed as a fault.)
• Don’t drink and drive. (Xmas road safety ad.)
• Five reasons why we should drink, ‘Good friends, good times, or being dry, or lest we should be by and by, or any other reason why. (Thomas Jefferson.)
• God made water, man made wine. (Victor Hugo.)
• Good wine needs no bush.
• I cook with wine, and sometimes I even add it to the food. (W C Fields.)
• I drink it when I am happy and when I’m sad. Sometimes I drink it when I am alone. When I have company I consider it obligatory. I trifle with it if I’m not hungry and drink it when I am. Otherwise I never touch it - unless I’m thirsty. (Madam Lily Bollinger, in London to launch the first vintage of Bollinger RD Champagne, to the Daily Mail, Oct 17, 1961.)
• I’m only a beer teetotaller, not a Champagne teetotaller. (George Bernard Shaw)
• It you drink, don’t drive. Don’t even put. (Dean Martin.)
• In vino veritas. (In wine there is truth. Pliny the Elder, 23-79 A.D.)
• My only regret is that I did not drink more Champagne.
  (Lord Maynard Keynes, on his deathbed. Milton Keynes is named after him.) 
• Look, it’s wine o’clock.
• Remember, gentlemen, it’s not just France we are fighting for, it’s champagne. (WWI Winston Churchill., 30 Nov 1874-Jan 24 1965)
• Save water. Drink wine.
• The best use of bad wine is to drive away poor relations. (French proverb.)
• The rich want good wine. The poor want plenty of wine. (German poet Johann Wolfgang Goethe, 28 August 1749 – 22 March 1832)
• There are five reasons for drinking wine, the arrival of a friend, feeling thirsty, a good wine, any other reason.  (Latin saying.)
• There is a devil in every berry of the grape. (Koran.)
• Which three things would you take to a desert island? (To Goethe, writer of poetry, drama, novels and more.) ‘Poetry, a beautiful women and bottles of wine.’  And if you had to choose only two? ‘Depends on the vintage.’
• Whisky is a slap on the back. Wine is a mist before the eyes. (Jimmy Stewart in the movie Philadelphia Story)
• When I read about the evils of drinking, I gave up reading. (Henry Youngman.)
• Wine improves with age. I improve with wine.
• Wine is bottled poetry. (Robert Louis Stevenson.)
• Wine is (constant) proof that God loves us and wants to see us (to be) happy. (Benjamin Franklin 17 Jan 1706-17 Apr 1790.)
• Wine is the most healthful and hygienic of beverages. (Pasteur.)
• Wine makes a man mistake words for thoughts. (Samuel Jonson.)
• Wine, women and song.