Posts by Duncan

) who never speaks but has managed to turn himself, over the last 50 years or so, into a british national institution.. sooty has a couple of friends sweep the dog (always my favourite) and soo and various others who appear in his show.

Duncan

Hilary

Yep Watford Rep is still there - Watford Palace Theatre, it's where we took my little girl to see Sooty.

Actually we bought a season ticket this year, saw a load of things, including plays I would never have thought of going to, only we went because it was part of the season ticket.

A bit a culcher, innit?

Duncan

15

Sooty and Jehovah

by Duncan in

jw
friends

a couple of years ago we took our youngest to see sooty.

anyone from the uk will instantly know who i mean sooty is a little glove-puppet bear (?

) who never speaks but has managed to turn himself, over the last 50 years or so, into a british national institution.. sooty has a couple of friends sweep the dog (always my favourite) and soo and various others who appear in his show.

Duncan

Thanks to all who replied. Sorry it's taken me a while to respond back to you, but I'm travelling on business at the moment (Sydney, Australia) and couldn't get the internet access from my hotel room to work (I posted the first post from the office)

Anyway, I'm sitting here in an internet cafe on George street Sydney, just finished climbing the Harbour Bridge (latest tourist sensation here, apparently).

Thirdson, I live in Watford (mathematically proved to be the exact centre of ther observable universe, as it happens)

Alan, I enjoyed your comments, but I do have a hard time believing that ALL of them are sincere but misguided. I reckon after all these years, there's a lot more cynicism than that.

Nathan, Sooty a SOCK? My God, man! Never!

Duncan.

15

Sooty and Jehovah

by Duncan in

jw
friends

a couple of years ago we took our youngest to see sooty.

anyone from the uk will instantly know who i mean sooty is a little glove-puppet bear (?

) who never speaks but has managed to turn himself, over the last 50 years or so, into a british national institution.. sooty has a couple of friends sweep the dog (always my favourite) and soo and various others who appear in his show.

Duncan

A couple of years ago we took our youngest to see Sooty. Anyone from the UK will instantly know who I mean – Sooty is a little glove-puppet bear (?) who never speaks but has managed to turn himself, over the last 50 years or so, into a British national institution.

Sooty has a couple of friends – Sweep the dog (always my favourite) and Soo – and various others who appear in his show. The host/puppeteer had changed over the years. Harry Corbett started the Sooty show in the 1950’s, his son Matthew took up the reins in 1980 or so, and these days he’s retired also, so it’s now someone else.

The format of the show has remained unchanged over the decades.

“What’s that you say, Sooty?” [glove puppet “whispers” in hosts ear]

“You want the children to sing a song?” [whispers again]

“Then you’ll do some magic with your magic wand?”

“Okay boys and girls, altogether now…”

This simple and timeless act has sustained a decades-long career on TV, radio, comic books, and live theatre shows, with all the spin-off merchandising that goes with it.

Anyway, we recently took our little girl to see The Sooty Show at the local Palace Theatre. Like me at her age, she was entranced with Sooty. Four-year-old kids really enter into the spirit of the thing: she sang along, she laughed at the funny bits, she called out “look behind you!” at all the appropriate times, it was great.

Driving home, she was still excitedly talking about all the funny stuff Sooty had done. It was clear that to her Sooty, while on our objective adult level simply a few inanimate bits of furry cloth sewn together, was a real personality

I know, I know – it’s not much of a penetrating insight, this. The fact is, little kids are wholly taken in by the glove-puppet illusion; the character looks real to them, every bit as real as the performer. More real, even. The star of the show for my daughter had been Sooty, not Matthew the performer.

---oooOOOooo---

Now, consider your typical dub. (Me, I’m thinking of my utterly faithful, 40-years-in mother).

You have these “performers” who get up in front of them and say:

“Devote your life to selling our books!” - who would ever fall for such a thing?

Aaah! But here’s the trick. THEY don’t say it. It’s their “Jehovah” glove-puppet who says it.

“Go out in service – it’s what JEHOVAH wants”

“Be at every day of the assembly – that's what JEHOVAH requires!”

“Don’t celebrate Christmas – JEHOVAH wouldn’t like it!”

Anytime the WTS wants to compel a specific behaviour, or compliance, they just wiggle their glove-puppet, and the faithful dub is instantly entranced. They have no idea that they are doing the bidding of men, they believe they’re pleasing God. And who wouldn’t want to do that?

I have tried talking to my mum about things. Stuff I have learned over the last couple of years about how badly the Watchtower’s leadership have behaved over the years.

“Mum, look at the 1975 fiasco, look at the failed prophecy, the UN scandal. Look at…”

“Oh, Duncan. I don’t care what you say. I am going to remain FAITHFUL TO JEHOVAH!”

You know how in bullfights, they say the bull doesn’t gore the matador because it is wholly distracted by and enraged by the cape, and spends its entire energy going after that, rather than the cape’s wielder? It’s like that.

I’m not for a minute here saying that the general idea of God is an illusion. I’m pretty much agnostic on that – I don’t know.

But I do know for sure that this Jehovah character, with all his “requirements” and “standards” and “commands” IS - absolutely and completely – a cynically-contrived, utterly useful, wholly artificial glove-puppet creation of Brooklyn.

It’s waking up from the glove-puppet illusion that causes so much post-Watchtower rage.

“How could I have been so stupid as to give up my job? Waste my life? Let my child
die?”

Izzy-wizzy. That old Sooty magic is powerful stuff.

Duncan.

11

The Fear Of Being Satan

by Englishman in

jw
friends

we had a chap in our local congregation known to everyone as jack.

he was an amiable helpful fellow until he paid a visit to the dentist.. he'd gone to a local dental surgery to have a wisdom tooth extracted and had been offered 3 choices of pain prevention.

out of a choice of novocaine locally, knock-out by injection or sleeping gas, he had opted for the sleeping gas.. as he began to come round after the extraction, jack suddenly bounded to his feet and started to wail in some deep anguish.

Duncan

Mike

I think I knew that dental surgery - the one Jack went to.

You see, in addition to his regular equipment, the dentist there used to use an old, out-of-shape drill that he leased from a colleague in China, which rumour had it, was demonised.

So what happened to Jack was that the supplemental oriental rental dental bent-tool sent Jack mental.

Duncan
(who should really get on with some proper work, this slow Friday afternoon)

ps I just re-read it and obviously "bent-tool" only rhymes if you say it with my London Accent.

30

Wow, Was This Really 28 Years Ago?

by Englishman in

jw
friends

this friday, december 7th., is our 28th wedding anniversary.

her ladyship and i intend to visit our favourite restaurant, dimitri's, for a slap-up greek meal plus a considerable quantity of excellent wine.. its a time when we like to reflect on our life together, the lows as well as the highs that we have experienced over the years.

mainly, our life has been one of laughter and fun.

Duncan

Happy Anniversary Mike, have a great day on Friday.

Best wishes to both you and HL

Duncan.

33

Our Last Words.....?

by hillary_step in

jw
friends

the reality of impending death is our one certainty.

if we are fortunate enough to live for 70 years, we will have lived for 840 brief months.. the womb to the tomb is a rapid journey.

i once wandered through a cemetery in a town called rochester in the uk and always having a fascination for last words, i happened upon the c19th tombstone of a man who had been fatally struck while playing cricket!

Duncan

Fee Fi Fo Fum
Here lie the Bones of an Englishman
No more with us, our Saloon bar mate’s
Now getting ‘em in at The Pearly Gates.

Do not think to mock or pillory
Mrs Step’s son, her youngest, Hillary
Who lies – not at rest - beneath your feet
He’s Jazzin’ to a heavenly beat

Here lies Farkle
His wit would sparkle
Truly a star postwriter!
He’s now chucklin’
and haunting Brooklyn
as a Watchtower ghost writer.

41

OK, OK, 10 reasons Why..You Know The Rest..

by Englishman in

jw
friends

1. we got pubs.

1000's and 1000's of pubs.. 2. liz hurley.. 3. manchester united.. 4. the harrier / concorde / a380xxx.

5. we got more overseas territories than anyone.it is still true, even now.. 6. the s.a.s.. 7. lots and lots of steam railways!.

Duncan

Radio Four

David Beckham

The NHS (well, the idea, if not the execution)

The local Curry House

The Hokey Cokey

Village Cricket

Eddie Izzard

Queueing

Royal Weddings

Cup Final Day

Mornington Crescent

Duncan (er.. I mean, signed by Duncan, not - you know - "Duncan")

5

This Way To The 'Lash And Spittle'

by hillary_step in

one or two wts fredian slips :.

seek those rightly disposed for everlasting life.

- any topic of conversation used in the house-to-house ministry should be introduced in a positive, pleasant way.

Duncan

HS

I especially liked the line about the familylike.

Great stuff

D.

20

Attending WT meetings/functions

by Lee Elder in

jw
friends

i've been inactive for over 4 years now but i'm still attached though - loosely.. i will occassionally attend a meeting or portion of an assembly or convention.. i get a mixed reception at these gatherings.

generally my experience has.

been that the larger the group, the more inclined i am to run into some who.

Duncan

Hilary, my old friend, you said

I gave two examples of persons who had greatly benefited from having the WTS in their lives. One would probably have been dead by now due to drugs and prostitution, the other will be dead shortly due to old age

Undoubtedly you're right - there ARE people who are probably better left alone. My own frail parents, now in their late-seventies, are just such a case - I wouldn't attempt to upset them now, at this stage of their lives, by stripping away their entire belief structure and worldview.

But while numerous, people like that can't possibly constitute the majority of Witness suppport. I have to believe that MOST current Witnesses (other younger members of my family, for example) are, in principle, saveable- even if a majority of them, through diverse reasons of their own, don't actually want to be saved.

It just sounds too complacent to say "Oh well - there's good and bad in everything, leave 'em alone."

The Watchtower IS - weighed in the Great Scales of Life - a Bad Thing, and is to be resisted by whatever means we have at our disposal. Subject only to us being sensible about who we inflict our resisting on, I suppose.

Duncan.