By the way, what if one day soon we suddenly notice this thread has popped into the “Most Read Today” because of all our posts!!!! Maybe soon we’re going to have to find another quite thread to transfer to!

Loved all your posts above. Read them yesterday morning but was to busy to reply properly. I don’t think the title Windbagge’s Saga is appropriate. You ain’t no old Windbagge, Keith baby!

Let me tell you that I had ‘em fooled like you did, at one point. I evesdropped on the Abbott telling my ma and pa that he was puzzled by me, that I was behaving in a way that bore a startling resemblance to that of the young St. Theresa, (your “Little Flower”), either her or the Avila one, I can’t remember which he meant. I stood outside thinking, “Fuc*! I’ve really got ‘em all fooled, haven’t I!”

Yep, I have to admit I love rich fabrics and cloths, Keith. Went on a special trip to India once expressly to buy as many gorgeous things as I could to decorate the new flat back in Blighty! Friends who subsequently visited thought the place looked like a Turkish Harem! I was hurt. “Fuc*ing British racists!” I thought. Anything foreign and sparkly, they can’t deal with!

So, your story is sort of “Rags to Riches” in reverse? Absolutely fascinating! And what has always come through your posts, Keith, to me is that you are content. I love your inventive humour.

Now you are JUST the person to come up with the VERY BEST ideas of pantomime with which to embarrass his holey-ness and catch the attention of the cameras while he’s here. And your French friend who loves the sparkles! What he could do with his treadle sewing-machine, eh?????

When’s the old bugger due, anyway? In all the melee I haven’t noticed! Just so worked up that he is and that all the foolish Catholics up and down this land will be on their faces before him.

My arse was like a cartoon character’s doing a runner; yeah, that’s it..!; the Road Runner…the sound of a bullet, a big, grey,
WHOOOOOOSH-cloud at my arse and GONE as in “I’m outta here..!
Outta da Kafflik Choitch..!
Vamooos..!
Vamonos, muchachos.!

This is why I get so het up about all that flummery that the pope wears; such multi-coloured vestments; adorned with huge St. James shells, one chasuble was; obscene.
Totally the opposite of the meekness and humility of the Master.
And there’s me; looks like a tramp and not a religious thought in me ‘ead.
I actually would listen to him if he were to dress like Mahatma Ghandi; but for the life of me, I cannot get past counting the sequins and gold threads or the shells or the number of twiddly-bits in the latest creation.

Not without £ but it means nothing to me; it really does not; you can only wear one thing at a time; one pair of shooz; one pie at a time (well, 6 then); bay-sick like I sedd.

But as for “dazzly fabrics” – as you call them ? …

Well that all evaporated when the hormones kicked in and the door of the Catholic Church, in my case, was breached and I left all that, Church, vestments and nonsensical ideas…all dumped in the toy box with my Muffin the Mule marionette and my Spacer Rev-o-Jet.

I grew up in 5 minutes.
I grew up the moment the priest told me I was sick (homosexuality) and needed ‘electric’ treatment.
I was dumbfounded that I was being spoken to so disparagingly, so dismissively, compounded by the fact that I had done nothing wrong..

[..It will not take Part 3; will try later with that part...]

I came from moneyed people so I have never had any axe to grind; never had any reason to miss what I thought I never had; always very content with nowt in later life because I know what it is to have; the original silver-spoon-gobbed kid, I was, which makes why I was sent to Catholicism all the more strange; we had money; why was I sent to ‘Jam-Tomorrow-Land’..?

Now that I have nothing I want for nothing and want nothing; I have had, so I do not miss.
I had Rollses and servants as a kid.
Now I have a bus pass and sandals.
I could set to now and make a million within 7 years but I lack the impetus; not interested; not at 70 anyway.
If I had a partner and was madly “in lurve” and he wanted – then I could and I would.
But I have always eschewed closeness and relationships so the drive is not there; never was; solitary; loner; tramp….suits me fine.

So, you are a fabric queen, eh, Eddy..?

I have a friend like that; a gypsy boy.
He appliques (sorry I have no French accents on my keyboard)… he ‘appliq-ays’ everything.. with little gold and silver butterflies and God-knows-whatever-else; he “zhooshes” things up… I do not know any women who could equal him…but that said, I do not know any women.
He doesn’t wrap a parcel; he makes a hundred little bows with tails … and plasters the whole parcel with them.

And his bedspreads are to die for, so I am told..

His place is full of gold-and-glitzy Royal Crown Derby china.

No, it is not that they thought of me then as ‘just that boy.’
It is that they thought I was so saintly and that it would one day be up for canonisation.

Today it would be seen as “Oh! There’s another one!”
Then, it was “Oh.. look at the little saint…!”

Little did they know that they had “AN ABOMINATION BEFORE THE LORD..!” on their hands, in the shape of a full-blown pansy …only 8/9/10 but a right little nancy in the making…!
Hahaha…

No, Eddy, I did not hear DESERT ISLAND DICKS… but I shall listen later, on the “LISTEN AGAIN” facility.

Someone should have stopped you and Pete on the street and whipped you off to the world of panto and the costume-mistress’s room and shown you the ropes! Damn sight more healthy than “fabric and lies” in some church sanctuary.

Anywhere, have just come across the following. You may enjoy!

Religion’s (other) Ten Commandments:

Thou shalt not question us. Ever.

Thou shalt respect, obey and, for ye highest amongst us, dutifully facilitate depraved, child-abusing clerics who after all are god’s appointed ones.

Thou shalt, at our will, mutilate babies and children to appease our..ahem..child-loving god.

Thou shalt only apply thy troublesome Earthly laws to us when we say so.

Thou shalt not dare be born of a sexuality that will inhibit our congregation-building baby farming, nor protect thyself against spreading deadly disease should it have the same effect on our farming targets.

Thou shalt ignore our own god’s bizarre concept of all people being equal in his eyes. Ha!

Thou shalt prolong the agony of dying loved ones for as long as is inhumanly possible.

Thou shalt not believe anything as inconvenient to us as that Jesus fellows so called ‘Sermon on the Mount’. As if he’d have anything useful to inspire the likes of us!

Thou shalt fund our lovely, privileged lives whether you are one of our unthinking slaves or an eternally damned self-thinker.

Thou shalt accept as unquestionable truth whatever inhuman, illogical, barbaric, divisive, discriminatory or plainly ludicrous pronouncements we happen to utter.

“Do you think that not having a Mass-going mum, and perhaps a secular homelife, made you more susceptible to all the “magic” of the nuns’ and brothers’ abracadabra?”

Do you know, I have absolutely no idea why they sent me to the “Christian” (haha my arsehole) Bros.
Not a clue.
They were the least religious people in the world; I never once went into a church with mum, dad, grandad, or grandma….not once.

I, on the other hand, was absolutely entranced with the whole Mass (in Latin) business and the candles and the incense and the flowers and the vestments….especially the vestments..hahaha..!

I remember that we ‘Peter’ and me (my friend who is now a priest) had offered to stay behind one Sunday evening after Benediction to help the priest sort out some old, and VERY moth-eaten vestments and clerical garb.

There were old chasubles, birettas (hats) and 2/3 very large wrap-around black cloaks.
Didn’t we just put them all by the back door just as we were finishing, insead of in the dustbins!
Didn’t we just don the lot and WALK HOME IN THEM 3 miles along the streets..!!…blessing everything ‘Urbi et Orbi’ along the way…practising for our own instalation as pope(s)

“Et benedicat vos ….
……………………Pater et Filius et..
……..Sainsbury’s-opens-at-seeeevennnn…Ay….Emm..!”

Hahaha.

Today we would know immediately that there was “something wrong with THAT boy..”

Not so then; all you got then was “He will be canonised, the little saint…so devout…a saint, a saint in the making!

Then of course puberty sets in and ckuffs the lot up…I could no longer hit high ‘E’…so, no longer was the apple of the choirmaster’s eye…no longer sought after by the Vienna Boys’ or the Obernkirschen childrens’ choirs (The Happy Wanderer)

Just so much pubescent scrap now..

Hahahaha

K

Do you think that not having a Mass-going mum, and perhaps a secular homelife, made you more susceptible to all the “magic” of the nuns’ and brothers’ abracadabra?

Quite the opposite from yours, my mum and dad were up to their effing eyeballs in the local church, on their bellies before anything in a dog-collar or veil, carrying out their slightest suggestions to the T. So I had it all stuffed inside my little skull by the Sisters of Cruelty and the “Christian” Brothers. Then at 14 I rebelled and said I wanted to go to an ornery old state school. I was amazed my parents immediately said Yes! I reckon it suited their pockets. The private school was expensive, the state school was free!

Anyway, was I then a fish out water, or what?!!!!

There were guys in my class sneaking girls in my class home at lunch-time for much more than just sandwiches! I had thrown myself into the real world and I sank! It took maybe ten years before I really had myself fairly confidently up on the surface.

But I look back and wonder how all those boys who continue on with the Brothers fared. Well, I know actually. They moved on into very very dull little lives – largely because they had been indoctrinated to be always humble, never object, never say no, never talk back, never rock the cfuking boat!

My grandad was a Jew so that may be why.
Old knocked-in things die hard.

But he married an Irish Catholic, so it (his Orthodoxy) cannot have been all that ingrained or ‘knocked in; it did get him thrown out of his tribe, however; his father, an Orthodox Rabbit, would have nothing to do with him for marrying ‘out’..

But neither he, nor my grandmother or their daughter (which was my mum) EVER went to Mass….so it has always remained a mystery to me why I was sent to the nuns and brothers for schooling.

And now, of course, they are all gone, so I can’t ask..
I would love to ask them, scold them actually, “What the ckuffing hell did you send me there for, when I could just as easily have gone to Palatine or Baines Grammar (non-denominational secondary schools)…?
I’ll never know.

A big dis-service that, looking back.

Keith.

Well, “riveting” perhaps not to 99% of people, but I’m not in that 99%. “Riveting” because what floats out from your account is that you have been left with a conviction re. Catholicism/Church/religion which is as powerful as mine, and I know that is rare. I am delighted to find you!!!!!

I would say that the only people who manifest a similar depth of feeling, re my loathing of the Catholic church and all religion, are a few exceptional non-believers like Dawkins, Grayling, and Hitchens and those who utterly believe (i.e. the extremely devoted of all religions). The vast majority of others just sit on the bloody fence or just can’t be ars*d!

You’ve had the put-downs, just like me. I bet you’ve even had the “Oh, the pendulum will swing back one day and then you’ll assume a more reasonable position!” No, it effing won’t! It never will! What they suggest is that I will lose my conviction, let go of my integrity. They want us to, of course, because our strong feeling threatens their comfy nonsensical little game!

The other night I asked the doctor talking to the Humanist meeting what we can all DO to fight the bastar*s. He replied to the hall: “Never fail to speak out when you feel the tips of the wings of any religion are fluttering over the edge of your world!” He went on to remind us how religionists are constantly saying their rights are being curtailed, but there is never absolutely any thought of ours!

One of the most amazing things he brought me to understand in the course of his address is how my foreskin got ripped off when I was only a day or two old! Why did it happen? Because of beliefs rooted in religion. He proved to us that it’s actually violent enforced genital mutilation. My foreskin got whipped away and with it, says this expert humanist doctor, four of the most erogenous zones of the dick, leaving me with just one! (Don’t worry, I’ve still managed to get quite a lot of fun out of the thing!) He said they seek to justify it on the grounds of cleanliness – though they don’t advocate removing a child’s arms at birth so that the child will never suffer underarm odour – but the truth is that it all stems from a desire to deprive the person of sexual pleasure. Sexual pleasure is to be fought, conquered, kept under control. Whip their foreskins off at birth so they’ll grow up good honest hard-working men forever on the straight narrow . . . and dull!

Back to work.

Imagine him getting the top job..??

There he is on the balcony in St. Peter’s Sq.

HABEMUS PAPAM…ET MAMAM EIUS QUOQUE..!
HABEMUS… ‘B.O.G.O.F’ !!!
GRATIAS AGIMUS TIBI, DOMINE..!

“There’s No Business Like Show-Business”

Strike me PINK..!

K
x

The partner insists we go out hunting for necessary provisions, so will come back later to respond . . . but just had to read all the above before rushing off! Riveting!