Comments on: How to Make People Feel Awkward About Religion

By: John Kozak

John Kozak — Thu, 09 Dec 2004 08:46:27 +0000

(From memory, so apologies for any errors) One of the books has a section on second homes, with a discussion of when these should be called “cottages” and when “houses”. A footnote to this says something like: “For a more detailed treatment, see ‘Cottagemanship’ by our Parliamentary correspondent, Mr Tom Driberg”.

By: David Margolies

David Margolies — Wed, 08 Dec 2004 23:06:43 +0000

Okay, John Kozak, please tell us what the footnote said! For those who do not know. Tom Driberg was a Labor MP and—I believe—junior cabinet minister and also gay. He wrote a memoir called Ruling Passions (published posthumously). I recall someone at the Spectator magazine, perhaps in a review of that book, talked about meetings as a reporter with Driberg in pubs, where Driberg would arrive with a young male “constituent” to whom Driberg would give a few pounds to play the fruit machines while he and the reported talked.

By: John Kozak

John Kozak — Wed, 08 Dec 2004 22:46:38 +0000

I read them when I was fifteen, then again about twenty years later; delighted to find how much had gone straight over my head the first time (like the footnote about Tom Driberg).

By: David Margolies

David Margolies — Wed, 08 Dec 2004 22:29:03 +0000

Back in the days of fountain pens, Potter’s advice to lend the pen when asked but hold on to the cap so the person your lend it to cannot then pocket it was amazingly simple and effective. Does not work so well with ball points (but I still always keep the cap if there is one) but their loss is less traumatic.

By: RA

RA — Wed, 08 Dec 2004 20:14:48 +0000

When I was a pagan I had the highest contempt for Jerry Falwell. I had never heard him speak or read any of his liturature. I just had heard what others said about the man. My wife became a Christian and tuned into his TV show while I was doing some calculus homework. I half listened and found that politically we were very close. My point is, if you never go to an Evangelical service you don’t know what Evangelicals are. You just hear the stereotypes of 3 headed monsters that keep their wome barefoot and pregnant etc. See for yourself. And if your in my house I’ll make sure your home in time for Sunday football!

By: Luc

Luc — Wed, 08 Dec 2004 15:10:04 +0000

Jim, God may have replaced the commandments with the amendments for the Muricans, but those Yurpean churches are stuck in the past till God has convinced the Pope to do the same.

By: jam

jam — Wed, 08 Dec 2004 13:30:24 +0000

“win ten shillings on the golf course” That takes me back. Before you were born, I think, Belle.

By: Sam Dodsworth

Sam Dodsworth — Wed, 08 Dec 2004 11:40:48 +0000

belle: At the risk of over-explaining the joke, it’s not so much ‘nominal Christians’ as a particular stereotyped Church of England attitude. On the one hand, the squire is expected to play a leading role in village life, which centres around the village church. On the other hand, actual religious enthusiasm is incompatible with the ‘stiff upper lip’ and theology is ‘high-brow’. The result is that village squires go to church and feel jolly solemn when they read the lesson but don’t actually think about religion at all. The point of the gambit is to make them feel like ‘nominal Christians’ whether they are or not. jim: You do know those aren’t the same kind of churches?

By: bad Jim

bad Jim — Wed, 08 Dec 2004 11:05:30 +0000

Allow me to mention the churches in Spain and Italy that barred my entry because my fellow traveler insisted on her right to bare arms (and shoulders).

By: belle waring

belle waring — Wed, 08 Dec 2004 09:50:44 +0000

that’s right; this is meant to work on nominal Christians.

By: Sam Dodsworth

Sam Dodsworth — Wed, 08 Dec 2004 09:35:14 +0000

I must confess that I’ve never met a very religious person in my life who that routine would work on. True, but it’s not aimed at very religious people. It’s aimed at people who don’t think much about religion but go to church because it’s what Respectable People do – a classic, albeit long vanished, British type.

By: John Biles

John Biles — Wed, 08 Dec 2004 08:38:56 +0000

I must confess that I’ve never met a very religious person in my life who that routine would work on. They would unleash their religious-fu on you and destroy you. While a more social churchgoer would say ‘that’s nice, now come to church’. Also, you’ll never be invited back. (Which might be what you want). Casting aspersions on someone’s religion is generally the best possible way to be thrown out on one’s ass.

By: Delicious pundit

Delicious pundit — Wed, 08 Dec 2004 07:09:11 +0000

Yeovil is awesome and Gatling-Fenn is awesome and dolphin-breasted Paulette Odoreida is awesome. Out here in Hollywood I buy copies of the Complete Upmanship (used) and give them as gifts, but no one shares my enthusiasm. To be expected, I suppose.

By: Jackmormon

Jackmormon — Wed, 08 Dec 2004 05:28:56 +0000

But! If you accept all that Quakerish stuff about the great open-air church, what would happen to the Great Sermon Handicapped Betting?

By: fyreflye

fyreflye — Wed, 08 Dec 2004 05:19:00 +0000

I must have read all of Stephen Potter’s books some fifty years ago and that particular little piece occasionally pops back into my head out of nowhere. They’re still the funniest things I’ve ever read.