Choke Violently On Your Dentures
Jeff Zycinski
There I was in a borrowed, brass-buttoned blazer, listening to the Lord Provosts words of welcome and waiting for my turn to speak. I wanted everyone to laugh at me. Or with me. I wasnt fussy. Id take any laughs that were going. Just a giggle or a snigger. Oh come on, would it hurt any of you to crack a smile? My speech, after all, was meant to be funny, but that night in Glasgow City Chambers everything began to feel far too serious. Perhaps it was the dark mahogany of the Victorian debating chamber, or the rain lashing against the stained glass windows, but the demon of self-doubt was sitting on my shoulder and he was rasping in my ear.
This is a huge mistake, Jeff. You should have played it straight. Thats what everyone else has done. Thats what the judges are expecting. The audience is going to boo you off that lectern. Audience? No, its more like a lynch mob. Look at that guy in the front row. Never mind that hes your Dad hes ex-navy. I bet he could handle a rope.
I was nineteen but this was only my third stab at public speaking. It wasnt something they had encouraged in my school in Easterhouse. It wasnt part of our playground survival techniques. The bully intent on inserting you head-first into the toilet bowl could not be dissuaded by sheer force of logical argument. Running Away was always the preferred strategy.
College was different. At Central College of Commerce, I had enrolled on a course in Public Administration. The syllabus included a module on Communication and that involved speech-writing and performing. The tutors had recognised a certain latent talent and within weeks had entered me for an inter-college competition sponsored by the Junior Chamber of Commerce. Thats how I came to be there in the City Chambers on that wet winter night. I was up against finalists from four other city colleges. Each of us had ten minutes to speak and had been given a list of topics to choose from.
Kissing dont last, cookery do...
Thats what I had chosen and those were my opening words. The audience nodded politely, some shifted in their seats. I spotted my parents, fellow students, college lecturers but, when you thought about the arithmetic, you realised that most of them were there to support someone else. The demon was good at sums.
- it was the nineteenth century novelist, George Meredith who coined that particular phrase -
More fidgeting. Some prepared themselves for a history lesson. But I had given them a bum steer.
Yes George Meredith. That fact might cause some of you to reel back in shock and choke violently on your dentures.
Thats when it happened. A wave of laughter. I enjoyed the moment and then, for the next ten minutes, I took the audience on a lateral journey involving my hapless teenage adventures in cookery and kissing. I was in complete control and somehow every gag, no matter how feeble, got a laugh. Two hours later some men in suits handed me a big silver cup and everyone was shaking my hand. If the school bully had appeared at that moment, Im sure he would have apologised for his actions.
The demon was gone.
