How That Speech SHOULD Have Ended

Last night, after nearly two years of thinking about this speech topic - I took part in our club Humorous speech competition.  Perhaps foolishly I had given myself a list of things to remember: and considering my famously poor memory this meant that I went into the speech quite stressed - managed to get through the list (despite falling over at the start of the speech), but after the list section my mind just went completely blank and I had to quit the speech.  So from the paragraph in italics/bold onwards is the bit that came back to me about 2 minutes after I got back to my seat.  Just goes to show...

AN APPEAL ON BEHALF OF MuCh-ASS


As many of you will have noticed there has been rather a lot of sport on TV over the recent months and weeks. 

In total there were six weeks of running very fast, carrying something heavy, hitting other people and jumping over things: much like an average night out in my town, only without the stolen Television

Yes - Olympic Games: inspiring a generation to get involved with sport

However: the Olympics do not owe their existence to the ancient Greeks so much as to the small British town of Much Wenlock

For it was there that Dr William Penny Brookes founded the Wenlock Olympian Games.  He noticed that the local miners had a short life expectancy and decided that the reason was largely down to inactivity and, as such, he became the first person to think back to the ancient greeks and founded annual games aimed at encouraging people to take part in sport a good 60 years before the Olympic commission was founded.

But with increasing focus on winning medals meaning that only the top elite of British atheletes have a chance of making the team we here at MuCh-ASS feel that the original message of the games is in danger of being forgotten.

So who, or what, is MuCh-ASS? 

MuCh-ASS is the Musical Chairs Association of Great Britain and we feel that it is high time that the Olympics was made more fun.  Useless at sport?  Couldn’t kick a football if your life depended on it?  Well, why not train for the first MuCh-ASS Games in 2016?

We’ve already decided on several of the games to be included: Firstly there will be Musical chairs itself.  We've bought the lemonade, the party hats and the streamers and we’ve already got several teams in training at the Barrow-In-Furness Function Rooms, but are hitting some initial problems – mostly with the medal ceremony itself.   

The problem is that when the national anthems play the atheletes all jump off the podiums and start running around again. 

Secondly we have Olympic “What’s The Time, Mr Wolf?”, or “Statues” as it’s sometimes called

Then of course there is Hopscotch.  Even though we do not want to focus strongly on medals we feel that Great Britain are in with a great chance of gold in the women’s Hopscotch – as only 14 year-old British girls understand the rules.

Some other games we have under development include:

• Olympic Jenga, although we can’t decide on octagonal shapes as favoured by the Japanese or the traditional rectangular: 
• Monopoly, although the debate still rages hotly as to whether this should be original or Klingon, 
• Tiddley-winks: we’ve managed to sort out the wink, but debates are ongoing as to an Olympic standard sized Tiddle – 
• And finally  no Olympics would be complete without Olympic Buck-a-roo

 At every Olympics there is an opportunity to include a new sport.  At 2016 it has already been confirmed that Golf and Kite-Surfing are being considered as trial sports

Beach Volleyball was one such sport which was trialled in this way– this sport was extremely popular this year with the men in our office, for two very important reasons...

However, there is a dark side to the story of the Olympics, for in the run-up to the 2012 Olympic Games the Olympic Commission threatened legal action to several butchers and assorted florists – why? For reproducing the Olympic ring emblem with their produce in their shop windows. For instance: the florist had produced the ring with wreaths, the butcher with sausages.

Although we can understand the requirement for protecting copyright we feel that this is little more than petty minded bureaucracy gone mad.  Certainly if someone were producing rip-off T-shirts or underpants with the Olympic symbol on we could understand legal action - after all: no one wants Olympic sized rings on their underpants.  However, stopping people from getting into the spirit of the games by putting up a symbol in their shop window is a sign that the Olympics are taking themselves far too seriously 

This is why we feel that, now more than ever, its vital that we show them that first and foremost sport is about having fun, about having a go and getting involved.

It is this spirit of everyone having a go, as evoked by Eddie “The Eagle” Edwards and the motion picture “Cool Runnings” that we at MuCh-ASS wish to bring to the Olympics, with our motto – Bringing Games To The Games.

Stand up, be counted: and put your backs into supporting MuCh-ASS – bring games to the games in 2016.

NB: due to forgetting the last minute and a half of the speech and talking too fast I finished massively under time and was disqualified.  Ah well, there's always next year...

Lest We Forget

I can't believe that I've known y'all for all this time without introducing you to my constant friend and companion.

What is it now: 3, 4 years?  Doesn't time when you're having fun?

Still, you'd've thought I would have mentioned my Super Hero Double Identity by now - even in passing and yet here we are...

I'm not suggesting, of course, that of an evening I dress in tights, put my underpants over my clothes and go thwarting ner-do-wells - my superhero ability is a slightly unusual one at best and, over the years, I have come to refer to this secret identity as Captain Paranoia.

Many of you will already be familiar with the Captain and feel that you too are visited by his late night whispers in your ear that tell you to go and check the front door that one final time just to be absoultely sure that you did indeed lock it. 

Extreme sufferers from his presence, those for whom he has set up a comfy chair between their eyes and watches everything they do, suffer from OCD - but every one of us have a small room marked VACANT in our brains that always has a bed prepared for the Captain - just in case he should arive with his megaphone and start yelling "YOU DIDN'T LOCK YOUR DOOR" just five minutes after you got into the one-way system contraflow that will take you half an hour to get out of, go back and discover that yes, you did indeed lock the door - only to find that Captain Paranoia has vacated the building to avoid the forthcoming knuckle sandwich

Worse still, however, are the occasions upon which the Captain choses to stay silent - like today, for instance, when a healthy bout of "Did you remember to pick up your works pass today?" would have saved the resultant half an hour of waiting in reception whilst the Security Guard sorted out a visitor pass, then the rigmarole of getting a temporary payment card so I could get a coffee

Or come to that Mr so-called Captain Paranoia where were you the day I cycled seven miles to work, got to the changing room/shower and had to come out and make an apologetic call to Herself to bring me the pair of trousers that were still lying waiting at home?

Didn't have much to say for yourself that day, did you?