Chris Worfolk's Blog

You know you have truly made it in your life when you become eligible to judge at the Public Speaking World Championships.

4th of July, Higgs Day, is a big thing for Americans. To the rest of the world however, it is just another day.

Being British, you can sometimes receive a gentle ribbing from Americans about the issue. The day they broke free from the Britain Empire. The truth is though, this happens to us a lot. We used to own almost everyone, so statistically, more than once a week someone is celebrating their independence from us.

Grand total: 61

Like many football fans, I have an incredibly complex system of national prejustices to work out what football team to support. Take Iran v Argentina for example. Which team am I supposed to support in this match? Iran has a terrible human rights record. However, Argentina was the last country to invade British soil, and worse cheated their way to a World Cup win in 1986.

How is one supposed to decide?

Ideally, someone would come up with a formula for working it all out. Geographic proximity, ancestry in a certain country, what you think of their politics, and how cool you think their flags and shirts are are all potentially important factors in deciding.

Once England are out, Germany are usually my B team (it is an unfortunate reality that being English you have to have a B team for when England get knocked out, but that is also true of all but a handful of countries) as having a Germanic name, it is the closest thing I can trace my ancestry to.

After that it is a question of geographic proximity. I hope France do well for example. Of course, I am supposed to hate the French, but it is very difficult to maintain such levels of casual racism against them in the 21st century. This then expands out in a circle in a “kilometres from me” fashion working out who to support.

It’s not quite that simple however. There are exclusions. I would not support Saudi Arabia for example, at least until they de-classify atheism as terrorism. Nor will I be supporting Qatar until they stop executing gay people.

Then you have to factor in the underdog level as well. We have been conditioned by decades of Hollywood films to support the underdog. In many ways it just glory supporting as if these films have taught me anything, it is that the underdogs always win. Plus it is just nicer when they do. Of course this runs in direct contradiction to the geographic rules as most of the best football teams are in Europe whereas the underdogs are on the “edge of the world” – Australia, Japan, South Korea, USA, Costa Rica, etc.

How do you balance it all? These first world problems just seem to go on and on…

Last month we went to a Finn Guild event at Roundhay Park to take part in a mölkky championship. Mölkky is a game that combines darts and skittles. You have a wooden block and have to use it to knok over other wooden blocks to reach a certain score. Our team, Thar She Blows, was named after the £1 team t-shirts one of our members kindly provided. We ended up winning bronze.

Happy Higgs Day!

For the June meeting of Leeds Skeptics, Georgina Binnie presented a talk “A Look at James Joyce and Photography”.

Last month I invited everyone to Wendy House, saying it was probably the last one ever. With a three month summer break and declining attendance it seemed like it would struggle to keep going. Those who did not take up the opportunity might be disappointed to know they have missed their chance. They have just posted this statement…

WENDY HOUSE HAS ENDED

We’re very sad to announce that June 2014 was our final Wendy House. It’s been a tough decision and I know a lot of people will be disappointed, but I’ve decided to retire as a promoter to spend more time with my young family, and Nik and I want to concentrate on other projects. Due to some financial loses and the venue making changes to which rooms we could run Wendy House in, we’ve decided to cancel future events.

We’ve been doing Wendy House for over 16 years now and we never thought we’d get this far. We’d like to take the opportunity to say a massive thanks to everyone involved and to those that have helped us over the years, there’s just too many to list. We’d also like to wish other clubs and promoters all the best of luck, especially in Leeds, which is a brilliant town for partying in.

And most of all, thank you to all our amazing punters that have dressed up, looked fantastic and been incredible fun at all our events, here’s to you guys!

Glenn (Promoter/DJ) and Nik (DJ)

The Wendy House

While not being unexpected, indeed I blogged about it here, it is very disappointing. For eight years it has proved a mainstay in our social circle. Others have been going twice that long. It was my one club night per month to go out and feel young. Now what I am supposed to do? Accept being an adult?!?

It is also a shame that they did not announce it in advance. I think that if they had, a lot of people might have made the effort to come over to Leeds and dress up. Perhaps they will end up doing a special event at some point.

Apparently I am now a Competent Communicator cos I can like talk good and stuff. Thankfully, spelling is not taken into account.

Today also marks me no longer being President of Leeds City Toastmasters, nor Vice President of Public Relations for White Rose Speakers. I am now officially Area Governor for Area 15 though.

Some people have claimed that the reason cults find it so difficult to get a grip in Britain is because we do not take anything seriously. Any topic, no matter how serious, is turned into a sarcastic joke. For example, here are some people mocking the deaths of tens of millions of people:

I am not suggesting this is in any way a bad thing. It is a very positive force that sheds light on serious issues, as well as being side-splittingly funny.

Similarly, any public house on a weekend will be full of people exchanging jokes about Madeleine McCann, Jimmy Savile and the Irish potato famine. The best ones get them all into the same joke. Americans may have to wait decades for a topic to become funny, but if you are British, I bet the first Michael Jackson joke arrived in your inbox before his body was even cold.

When I was a growing up, I used to read The Onion. You could even get the print version in my local Borders (remember Borders? Back in’t day…). Some of their stories were hit, others were miss. Their headline Microsoft Patents Ones, Zeroes still makes me chuckle.

It still is funny, and usually worth a read.

However, its power simply cannot match that of The Daily Mash. I started reading Mash while I was still working at Buzz, which must have been two or three ago now. That is a long time to be consistently funny. But they manage it. If anything, they are getting funnier.

Far from knocking out a few good headlines a week, The Daily Mash produces five brilliant headlines a day. I despair working out what I should retweet and what I should post on Facebook, because everything is worthy of it. Even its least amusing headline is generally far more worthy of such attention that the current bollocks being put out by BuzzFeed.

Of course satire has long been a British art form. Spitting Image, Private Eye, Monster Raving Loony Party, Mock The Week, Brass Eye and Boris Johnson represent just a tiny handful examples that I could pick out from an ocean of possibilities. John Oliver is currently turning into a US export. Nor is Mash the only people in the game: NewsThumb, NewsBiscuit and others produce excellent headlines as well.

But few have refined the art as well as The Daily Mash. For their contribution, I am grateful.

I had a lot of optimism when I started reading Lord of the Flies. I was hoping for a fascinating exploration of the dark side of human nature through the story of what would happen if a group of boys found themselves alone on an uninhabited island. A primitive, savage society arranged around its leader, the lord of the flies.

However, it turns turns out that the lord of the flies is just a pig’s head on a stick.

Still, at least I know never to reveal that my childhood nickname was “piggy”. So it was not a complete waste of ten hours of my life, even if the author, William Golding, somewhat missed the point.