Comedy Interlude

10 Signs you are at an Islamic talk

1. The speaker arrives even later than the audience, following this up with a lengthy monologue on the failings of British public transport.
2. The sisters are in a different room to the speaker, this can include a basement a few blocks away from the venue, just in case any ‘free-mixing’ could possibly occur.
3. There are 5 microphones and yet none of them work.  The first half an hour of the talk is spent handing the speaker various devices, each of which result in auditory explosions, microphone feedback and intermittent pulses of words.  ‘Bismil...inalh...assalam...the title...shirk....bidah’
4. The powerpoint is abandoned because the speaker has not figured out how to press F5 and the brothers in the front row are too busy sleeping to notice.
5. Because the sisters are invisible to the speaker, he insists on addressing the congregation repeatedly as ‘Brothers...’
6. Although this was an Islamic talk, about half of the air time is spent discussing middle east politics and berating the inactivity of the muslim community to do anything, ever (especially wear the hijab, or grow a beard).
7. Gags the speaker is likely to use include references to : Biryani, chapattis or people’s wives. 
8. The talk ends about an hour and half after the advertised finish time, forced to a close by the audibility of the adhan.
9. The brothers get about 10 questions into the speaker before someone finally realises that there are sisters present as well.
10. At this point a small child is dispatched from the sisters section having been stuffed full of scraps of folded up paper with a range of probing questions.  These most often include references to: Jinn, black magic and Bidah – irrespective of the title of the talk.