A Sense Of Humour

Why Not?

I saw a cartoon recently where the Optician was saying to the client 'You will be able to see Ann Widdecombe a half a mile away, and what's more she will look like Madonna'. I liked that. Then there was the story about the elephant which went in to a pub and ordered a pint of lager and the barmaid charged the elephant £4-50. 'We don't get many like you in here' said the barmaid, to which the elephant replied, 'At these prices I'm not surprised'. Yet another story is about the man who went in to a pub and said, 'I would like a 75p glass of Chardonnay' to which the barman said, 'We haven't got any.' Where upon the man said, 'Oh yes you have, you charge £2-50 for it'.

From what I am told, most jokes originate in pubs but I must confess that I am not a very good joke teller. I seem to be ok until I get to the punch line then I seem to mess it up. All of this reminds me of a person whose name I have mentioned before, the best joke teller of them all, Bob Hope. However, it's interesting to note that from what I've heard Bob gets most of his jokes from a army of script writers. One thing I like about Bob Hope is that at least his jokes are clean which is befitting a person who has been around sometime The trouble with so called comedians now a days is that they think in order to be funny you have to be crude, not in my book you don't. Thinking of old timers I can recall the likes of Jack Benny, Ted Ray, and Vic Oliver, and if my memory serves me well they would always appear with a violin, a few jokes, then a little play on the violin, then back again to the jokes, and so on. All three were always immaculately dressed, in other words they had one thing in abundance, Class!

So the lesson I could learn from all of this is that if I can't tell jokes maybe I could write them. I put this point of view to a friend of mine, yes you've guessed it, the other one is on holiday, and he suggested that I already write jokes. When I asked him for an explanation he told me that he reads all of my contributions to our Village Pump, and concludes that I must be some sort of a Comedian to boot. I lost no time in telling him that I would refer him to our Vicar, and if that didn't do any good he would be hearing from my Solicitor when he returns from holidaying with his Wife in Bermuda. Just a minute, he's not married!

Les Lawrence