We are a self-deprecating bunch I think – but when did that behaviour get us anywhere, eh? It’s time to part the fronds of the canopy and let in the rays of sunlight onto the forest floor. Rise up – bathe in the light and share your talent.
Me? Thanks for asking! Scrabble. Yesterday I got the much envied and long-hoped for combination of letters that allowed me to put down CAZIQUE – delivering a tumescent 170 points. Apart from when I play Mrs BC (who is better than me), I think I am very hard to beat.
There’s more where that came from. I can do an uncanny impression of a NZ broadcaster called John Campbell. I say his name “John Campbell” in his voice and this always gets a double-take and a laugh. It’s that good. In the same vein, I can also do “David Baddiel”. When he is mentioned I like to say “What? Dayy-vid Baddiel?” in his exact, sarcasm-flecked tone of voice.
So let’s see what you’ve got. My act does have its limitations I admit so it may need padding out with other people’s material.
Ok. I am an incredible songwriters drummer that has lain wasted for years due to fear. My fault. Nobody else’s.
I’m pretty good at impressions too!
Very true Bri.
Your impression of a stoned bloke from Canada is especially convincing.
😄
Long time,Gary!
Respect Bri!
I am pretty good at finding things and people. I was like that before the internet became affordable, so things just got quicker.
Are you Mike from Breaking Bad?
I haven’t watched this tv-show. I found (!) out that finding things and people that disapeared is a great antidote to boredom.
I had been working 14 years with people-searching for a french company, the first ten years without Internet, with good results.
When I moved to Sweden, I had to change job, so, I get my fix by finding the history behind an object or a work of art without having any information about it.
The last one was a serie of 1920’s caricatures of forgotten famous people, never published on Internet. It took me two days and I had a great time.
Cool! All power to your inquisitive elbow!
I have remarkably good eyesight, considering my age and how much I read. See that sign over there? No, that one. I can read it from here – “The white zone is for loading and unloading only”. Not bad, eh?
I can also do a good impression of Choo Choo off of Top Cat: “I’m with you, T.C.”
I’d love to hear that.
*clears throat, gets into character*
“I’m with you, T.C.”
The key is getting the comma right.
It’s like Choo Choo is in the room with me.
For me it’s my hearing – I was like Radar from Mash in my younger days. I still frequently overhear things that I shouldn’t because people think that I couldn’t possibly hear them from that distance, could I?
My superpower is my sense of smell. When I enter a room I will immediately detect and name strange and very specific odours that nobody else can smell, and after sniffing around like a bloodhound I’ll find the exact place and thing to blame; everyone else will need to stick their noses deep into the (to me) reeking object to catch the faintest whiff of the stink I identified as soon as I came within ten meters of it.
You’d think that this ability would be quite awful to have – but luckily I’m not very sensitive and very few odours are difficult for me to deal with. Instead I enjoy the extra dimension which all of the many layers of smells add to every environment I’m in, provoking memories and feelings as I walk through my very fragrant life.
The one smell I really can’t abide is the stink of hot, new asphalt – it sends me into panic mode and a feeling of being buried alive…!
@locust My wife is the same as you whereas my sense of smell is almost non-existant.
I love the smell of new ashphalt though…
And does she usually blame you for the smell? 😀
I know a girl, she likes the asphalt world…
I get blamed for most things…
Seeing, hearing and smelling .., no one mentions touching as a talent do they?
OK so Bri can do impressions and do a quick b’dm tish after each one.
Pizon-bros can find something far away and Hawkfall can effortlessly read it without glasses.
Shaping up nicely.
My drumming using two kitchen knives, a kettle and two saucepans is both expert and, frankly, amazing.
It is so good I am under strict orders to keep this fact secret from our friends & neighbours in fear of jealous retribution.
I can also play play the entire William Tell overture using only my fingers and (face) cheeks, another skill I am compelled to keep strictly to myself.
Modesty at all times…
Two drummers eh? Adam and the Ants and the Glitter Band have had long and lucrative careers on this premise. Your modesty re The William Tell Overture could be protected by Sia-style giant wig.
I started drawing comics when I was nine – turned 57 yesterday.
Having not drawn any for twenty years, I’ve joined a monthly comic art group – here’s the first effort (the idea was to draw without traditional panel borders).
Now that is impressive. My shallow pool of cultural influences leads me to A-ha and the Take on Me video. I watched it the other week and it’s still really good.
Great work @Sniffity. I’m well impressed!
That’s nicely done! Judging by the proportions of the character and that of the car, have you been inspired by Vaughn Bodé?
I was in the winning squad of the 1995 Stilton Cheese Rolling World Championships. We were on the teatime Anglia News and everything*.
Sadly, fame and fortune did not come our way. My natural ability to roll a cheese has yet to reveal its niche application in the rest of my life.
(*) Yes, even the Peterborough Evening Times!
An impromptu cheese-rolling arena is certainly within budget. If you roll it, they will come.
Helpfully, da Bizkit have already provided a theme tune for this event.
I’m the current reigning champion of HOTT Berkeley, the UK’s largest Hordes of the Things competition.
We could do with a celebrity to get some bums on seats, so thanks for making yourself available.
I was in a team that won 3 consecutive cricket national championships.
Care to elaborate on that? That’s either a really well-worded bit of deception or you are even more of a national celebrity than Baron Counterpane.
I’m not very good at cricket, but I was once caught out holding the batsman’s willy…
You will note that I didn’t name the country. It was Switzerland! (And my contribution was minimal). @Black-Celebration
It reminds me of someone I know who played cricket for Chile. He was working there and it was something to do with the NZ embassy – and all the players representing Chile were Brits, Kiwis and Australians. Apparently the Chileans were totally fine with it. I suspect the game is not recorded in Wisden.
I was the only white person in the team, the rest were mainly from Pakistan and Sri Lanka. We did have several very talented players who had played at a pretty high level in their homeland.
I was once invited to play for Switzerland in a European tournament that took place in England, a game at Lords was a possibility! However the main criteria was that I could pay my way and also could take time off work. I could have done the former, but not the latter, thus failing to become an international sportsperson …
I have a supernatural ability to empty a room in seconds, without the aid of flatulence as an accelerant.
Lightweight, I have a similar ability but that is natural. (And, yes, it does include flatulence, evident to at least 2 sensory interfaces.)
I have a wonderfully broad vocabulary of swearie words and euphemisms, pre-existing profanisaurus at that! I recall a psychosexual health training day when, to break the ice, as t’were, all those present had to think up as many words as they could for the various skin attachments and orifices potentially involved in innercourse.
As my General Practitioner knows, I am no lightweight. A deadweight, maybe.
Once Moose and retropath clear the auditorium with their ghostly and profane double act, I can get (tribute act) Thing Lizzy guitarist Neilly Moore to come on in a long naval trench coat and sing a moody rendition of “Empty Rooms”. I think that would be magical.
1990 – 1994 Gilbert Murray Hall ‘Star Force’ highest scorer.
I also have the dangerous skill of not paying attention to someone and yet being able to repeat back what they just said. I suspect this will be my epitaph.
That’s no mean feat. Even Dynamo and David Blaine need to listen to what people are saying and doing. You can see them doing it too. Rubbish.
I can make an impressively loud clunking noise with my tongue and the roof of my mouth. Hang on, and I’ll do it now.
THHUNKK
Told you it was good.
Me too! Let’s start a double act!
Ooh, that’s more my level: I can make the *pop!* sound of tennis ball on racket with my lips and often do, to the irritation of others…
That’s brilliant. I can do a 70s ‘trim phone’ ring.
Musical hall acts started with less.
*Leonard Sachs voice* Bunglie, Mini, Sewer and Grey. *thwack*
…Cuthbert, Dibble and Grubb.
I tried the 70s trimphone thing, but I can’t get the pitch right.
Sounds more like Red Rum or Shergar (there is a subtle difference in the accent)
Victor Borge (I think) used to replace punctuation with funny noises on stage. Even funnier than it sounds. Time for a reappraisal?
I’ve been fairly successful in my career over here (large U.S. beverage company). One of the reasons for this is I’m really good at getting people to get decisions made. My boss calls it ‘cutting through the clutter’. What he really means is ‘avoiding the politics and bullshit’. I’m good at my role (which is technical) but I manage the business politics/bullshit stuff quite well.
Hmm. Could work, given the right stage costume. How do you feel about sequins?
Fast tracking a project by getting key stakeholders to align their deliverables in a timely way is an an act worth seeing. My favourite bit is when the ducks are in a row.
We could have a problem – Lord Sugar is insisting on sequins. Could you have your people talk to my people? I’m thinking crushed velvet, spandex and diamante furbelows…
I’m pretty sure seaweed isn’t a good look. And what about the smell?….
I don’t like to boast, but I am the reigning blindfold Land Rover driving champion of my best mate’s stag do 20 odd years ago. And with no sign of divorce, let alone remarriage on the horizon, I may even go to my grave undefeated!
Don’t take this the wrong way…but It sounds like you *do* like to boast – quietly modest people don’t use words like “reigning champion” . But that’s what this is all about! Brag, boast and skite away!
Ha! Let me boast then. It remains the only prize, bauble, jewjaw or mark of competence I have yet received in my time on your planet!
I can make a perfect Yorkshire Pudding without weighing or measuring any ingredients
You need to refrigerate the batter for a couple of hours, so the show could perhaps start with you putting it all together theatrically not noticing how much dripping is being used. There’s really no need to sieve the flour but a showbiz tip is that using a sieve on stage adds a bit of flair.
The other night… I made love to this woman, and it was so incredible – I took her to a place that wasn’t human. She actually miaowed.
Are you sure it was a woman? I noticed Mittens was walking funny…
I’ll have what she’s having…
What, Felix turkey with jelly?
With a side order of the Friskies from Bingo.
The Friskies From Bingo… weren’t they on Postcard Records?
TMFTL…
Making love to a woman until she miaows is quite an act. Certainly more racy than sawing her in half. Debbie McGee has experience in both disciplines and she owes me a favour.
Making love to a woman is like making a cup of coffee. It’s got to be hot. You’ve got to take your time. You’ve got to stir… gently and firmly. You’ve got to grind your beans until they squeak. And then you put in the milk.
And if you’re not careful you end up with a big sticky mess on the floor.
I can not focus on important things no matter how critical they apparently are. My ability to not be interested in things someone else thinks are important, but the “Nah” bit of my brain thinks aren’t, is world class.
Sorry, I started reading that and lost interest half-way through. Do you want to tell me again?
*looks absently out of window at absolutely nothing*
I think he was saying something about his glorious slide playing. Well he should be anyway…
Feel free Bart!
I think I just did!
I don’t know I lost interest half way through the po
I think there’s a place for redundant disinterested banter with the audience. Julian Clary did this on a Saturday evening show presented by the unpunctual Mike Smith – in between the Generation Game-type challenges, he would “throw” to Julian, dressed as a mermaid, mingling with crowd.
“Where do you live?”
“Luton”
“Oh…”
I have a first-class sense of direction. Can always find my way around a place, even if all I’ve done is glance at a map for a few seconds. Proved it at the weekend by leading the other ladies in the hen weekend party back to the hotel from the other side of Manchester city centre after brunch.
I can also lay claim to that old classic of tying a cherry stalk in a knot with my tongue.
How? I genuinely don’t understand how.
Well opinions are divided but I think it’s a combination of observational skill, map interpretation, memory and good properception.
How that act can be recreated on stage is a real head-scratcher. The cherry stalk knot trick might be a show-stopper though. Let’s face it – you don’t *need* that bunch of drunks. Concentrate on going solo. Give them the elbow. I would do it, but I don’t like confrontation.
I ditched them after the weekend.
They were just holding me back.
Now I can focus on the jazz version of the act.
I can tell a blacksmith from an ironmonger by scent alone.
Gary the human bloodhound? I have a costume somewhere*
*I know exactly where it is. I wear it every day.
Special talent(s):
Downing a pint in less than 10 seconds
Armpit farts
FA Cup Final scores from 1971
and boring people to tears with monotone histories of Punk and Heavy Metal (or indeed any subject).
I know the FA Cup Final score from 1971. It was 2-1.
Spoilers! I was going to watch that later and now there’s no point. Actually I still can because you didn’t say who won. Phew.
@rigid digit – doing all of those simultaneously might just get you the big prize.
i can flap my ears….and if I REALLY try hard, just the tips.
in a crowded room, this is my “code” to the wife……it means “i’m bored and would like sex”.
in thirty years this has worked at least five times.
I can also repair and set up turntables……but not directdrive models with the speed sensor builtin to the platter….after a while the oxide paint falls off and they are junk.
You say ‘ears’ but you actually mean ‘fins’.
I can waggle my ears too. Funny, the code doesn’t work when you waggle yer lugs with a hopeful expression to someone you’ve just met. I thought it was a universal come-on.
My ability to mimic the regional accents of cows mooing is something to behold. I just haven’t worked out how to make it into an act yet. “Moo” that was the Cornish one, I know it’s like we were in that field in Truro
French cows go “Le Moo”. Apparently.
I think you’ll find it’s more of a meu!
Quelle vaches folles!
Nononononon!! Quelle erreur incroyable! I know for a fact that The Magic Roundabout is a production of the stripy-jumpered croissant chompers and Ermintrude sounds exactly like a Emma Thompson’s Dad, so there…
Having an act like that wouldn’t be fair on the udders.
Talent? I have none. But may I relate the extraordinary talent of a friend?
In my younger middle aged years, when we were all ‘settling down’, I played football in Finchley amateur team. As we all paired off with our future wife’s, etc, we also started doing ‘grown up’ things – like taking our partners to vastly overpriced London restaurants.
So, to a well known high brow eaterie with another football couple. During the extravagantly overpriced meal I became aware of a hush in the clatter of conversation which over a few minutes became silent.
Everyone was straining to hear, not to mention amazed at the sound of a single water droplet falling off the end of a stalactite before landing on the floor of a cavernous space. This was repeated every 20 seconds or so.
The room was silent with diners, waiters and the Maitre D looking around in genguine amazement and disbelief. The sound subsided and eventually disappeared and diners, including us returned to our meals.
In the taxi on the way home over the throb of the deisel engine the sound returned. Our left winger blinked at me and said ‘and that is my party trick’.
That is extraordinary. Stalac-Mike ? Might work with the Victor Borge act mentioned above.
My Hannibal Lecter impersonation “Well Clarice, have the lambs stopped screaming?” could clear my ex out of a room in 10 seconds flat.
But then again, so could my music, my cooking, my t-shirt, my breathing etc etc etc
I wonder what effect my Roger Chapman impression will have…
Cue Neilly Moore again, singing Empty Rooms again. The show’s falling apart.
When My choir leader plays the Goldberg-variations, I always wonder if she plans to get one of us eaten by the rest of the choir under a fancy dinner, your impersonation might be a help…
I can tell 253 people, individually to `fuck off` in one minute. If you don`t believe me go fuck yourself ; ))
No thank you. It’s a family show. And Roy “Chubby!” Brown already has that act.
I can crack my knuckles and ankles very loudly on demand. I can make my tongue go extremely thick and entirely rigid (“””””) such that it’s entirely hard to the touch (settle down, Moosey). Oh and I’m pretty good at accents, both doing and identifying. (I once got off with a barmaid thanks to this skill: earlier in the evening I’d bought a drink and correctly identified her accent as being from Newry. She was so amazed anyone English had heard of Newry, much less been able to identify its accent, that she decided I was quite the thing and snogged me later. Bless her.)
There’s a lot of tongue-work on this thread.
Here’s mine, though the teeth melt now if I attempt it.
I can:
1. Roll my tongue into a tube shape. Looks a bit rude, I think.
2. Do an impression of the Spitting Image version of Melvyn Bragg. ‘Gurd ebening. And on the South Bank sherr tonaght…’
3. Do an impression of The Kurgan out of Highlander. But only one line’s worth of dialogue because the rasp I have to do in my throat sometimes makes some sick come up. ‘ Rammiirrezzz. So… that was not your woman?’
That’s it and, frankly, what the fuck more do you want?
2. “Guess That Funeral, Missus”
Things you try not to do too much cos it “makes some sick come up”
– sounds like Jerry Hall’s wedding night..
Impressions is it?
These we have loved…
http://web.archive.org/web/20130807233149/https://theafterword.co.uk/content/stars-their-eyes-afterword-impressions-thread
OMG was that four years ago? Where does the time go people, where does it go?
*gazes wistfully out of window*
I discovered yesterday that I can sit for seven hours for a tattoo. One sore arm this morning.
Seven hours! What did you get (apart from a sore arm, and probably arse as well)?
It’s a blossoming cherry tree branch down my arm. Very happy with it, well worth spending the day in a basement in Exeter.
Can we see a picture?
No chance.
In reality KD got the one of the cat where your navel is its arsehole (it takes seven hours to get the whiskers right on the coquettish Natassja-Kinski-on-the-Paris-Texas-poster head turn) and (s)he’s made up the cherry tree to sound classy…
miaow
(photo is a bit blurry, but you get the idea)
Wow!
What does it mean?
Hey, what does anything mean, man?
(please see what I said to Dave below)
A reminder of your time in Japan?
Mostly yes, with a slightly more pretentious side order of the fleeting nature of cherry blossom reminding us of the transience of life and beauty and that we should enjoy it while it’s here (which is also part of the reason the blossom is such a cultural touchstone over there, so basically yes, down to Japan).
Respect.
Whoa! I bet that smarted a bit.
Isn’t that kind of the point…?
…sorry
(returns from applying nappy ointment)
It’s still smarting a bit now, tbh!
and Moose, I have squinted, tilted my head and screwed up my forehead, but I still can’t see a double entendre in that comment. Am I dumb, or just too innocent?
Unusually for me, it wasn’t about doubleing.
I once heard Beckham say that he was kind of addicted to the pain of getting tattooed. Some people enjoy that part of it, or enjoy the fact that the tatt’ represents the fact that they’ve gone through it, like a duelling scar.
Just sayin 😉
Got it. I myself am a colossal lightweight when it comes to pain, but having a tattoo isn’t that bad. It’s not like it’s orders of magnitude worse than going to the dentist. The itchiness as it heals is probably worse.
I have thought of a special skill: to impose arbitrary timetables or schedules onto family activities thus sucking all the spontaneity and joy out of them in favour of a death march to somewhere. Catchphrase : ‘We need to leave now!’
Ah, what it is to be British.
*grows misty-eyed with patriotism”
Alternative catchphrase: ‘They won’t wait for us, you know’