I see that old time comedian Frank Carson is recovering from a cancer operation, God bless him.
I don’t know how old you have to be before people add “God bless him” after your name but, whatever it is, Carson seems to have passed that about two hundred years ago. Yet the old codger still does over two hundred gigs a year so good on him.
You’ve got to admire his enduring love for the sounds of laughter, or, to be more realistic, the sound of sweeties being sucked, dentures being put back in, and woollen gloves softly meeting in arthritic applause .
Anyway, last week he wrote an article for a national newspaper and the message was that all modern comedians have simply stolen his stuff and are rubbish - or at least not as good as he is - and he also got in a mention that he does lots of charity work. I found it a bit sad that he spent hundreds of words in self praise and that he couldn’t be more gracious. He even found time to slag off the winning joke from the Edinburgh Festival this year by saying that he had to have it explained to him and even then it just wasn’t funny. Actually Frank, it was clever AND funny.
The winning punchline came from comedian Nick Hemp who said “My computer asked for a password with eight characters, so I chose Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.”
Now come on, that’s a good joke isn’t it? The runner up was also great. It came from last year’s winner Tim Vine who said “Crime in multi storey car parks. Wrong on so many levels.” Frank˒ God bless him˒ didn’t like Tim’s winner last year “I went on a once in a lifetime holiday. Never again,” saying it was stolen from a joke he told years ago about an Irishman losing his teeth.
My advice Frank is to relax. You have nothing to prove. Let this generation get on with it. Being so critical makes you look like a deformed lemon - bitter and twisted. He wouldn't like that gag either.
Despite Frank it’s been a great week for jokes though. My favourite came on an email I received. I think I’ve mentioned before here that I am colour blind, so with that in mind, you might see why I loved this one so much. The joke goes “I’ve just discovered I’m colour blind. It hit me like a bolt out of the green.” You can’t beat a bit of self mockery.
Another good one I heard this week was also on the short list from Edinburgh. Comedian Alan Sharp came up with “I used to be in a band. We called ourselves The Prevention, because we wanted people to say we were better than The Cure”. And I also liked DeAnne Jones’ gag, “my friend died doing what he loves. Heroin.”
Some funnies have to be said in a certain accent. A Glaswegian guy takes home his new rather tall girlfriend. “This is Amanda” he says to his dad who replies “It’s a WHAT?”.
Of course I realise that humour is a personal thing and you may read these gags and not even smile. So let me finish by telling you of something that everyone in the world should find hilarious, as well as totally absurd. And it’s all true!
A guy sent me a request this week asking if he could be my “friend” on Facebook. No problem there except his profile photo, for the whole world to see, was not the traditional passport photo but an image of the outlawed terrorist organisation The Ulster Volunteer Force.
I laughed for ages at the absurdity of this man before, of course, refusing his request and then feeling sorry for him. I’m sure he would be offended at me laughing, and I’m not sure he realises how silly he looks, but surely even Frank would have laughed. God bless him.
Monday, August 29, 2011
Sunday, August 21, 2011
Another One Bites The Dust
I lost my crown this week.
In case you think I have delusions of royal grandeur, I’m referring to my fake front tooth which fell out with a splash as I ploughed my way through the biggest bowl of soup since Desperate Dan came off a diet.
I had gone off on holiday weeks ago knowing that my tooth was slack but I had eaten cautiously just in case I was stranded, toothless, thousands of miles from home. Now at home I wanted it to come out so that I could get it properly fixed, and I have been gnawing on apples and corn on the cob since my flight back. I would even have moved up to chomping broken glass and concrete had they not had calories.
But nothing seemed to work at all until, down at the gym canteen, I slurped an innocuous bowl of mushroom soup that shouldn’t have troubled a pensioner wearing someone else’s dentures. I’ve always been a bit of a soup dragon and my mum reckons it’s because I haven’t grown up yet, so I guess it serves me right. The tooth came out while I was speaking with my mouth full and it soiled the lady sitting next to me as it splashed in to the plate with a huge “kerplunk”.
After apologising, I fished the thing out of my bowl, excused myself from the table sounding like Sylvester the cartoon cat, and headed to the gents toilets to find a mirror and put it back. Trust me, no matter how ugly you may think you are, seeing yourself with a front tooth missing does nothing for your self esteem. If I thought I might look like a cute kid, or Dennis The Menace, or a macho cage fighter, I was soon to be disappointed. Staring back from the mirror was what looked like a seedy toothpaste dodger who had been sleeping rough for years. I apologise to any seedy toothpaste dodgers who have been sleeping rough and may be reading this.
Looking at your teeth outside of your mouth, incidentally, is a big surprise as you are immediately struck by the fact that they are as far from white as Dracula’s wardrobe. If you don’t believe me then take a pair of pliers and pull one of your gnashers out. I highly recommend it.
So, anxious to get rid of this off colour gemstone, and with vanity screaming at me to lose the horrible image in the mirror as soon as possible, I hurried and washed excess mushroom off the crown by running it under a tap. You can see what’s coming can’t you? It slipped from my fingers and spun round the sink like one of those charity pennies put in a Perspex collecting bowl. I chased it round and round but couldn’t catch it and the thing disappeared down the plug hole and in to oblivion.
That’s four hundred pounds Sterling worth of oblivion to you and me. Ever met a poor dentist?
I was frantic. I’d lost a good tooth, good money, and my less than good looks in one accidental slip up and, after a moment’s panic, I ran to find the maintenance man to ask him to unscrew the U bend under the sink. Five minutes later I was reunited with the crown, covered in slime, soap, hair and goodness knows what else.
So, here’s the question. Would you then wash the germs off and put the tooth back in your mouth to save your vanity, or would you place it carefully in your pocket and walk around looking like a pirate till a dental appointment could be made? With me I have to confess I agonised for minutes, watching the race in my head between those two thoroughbreds Vanity and Sanitary, and I’d like to say it was a close run thing, but it wasn’t. Vanity won by a few laps.
So now I’ve been to the dentist, a new crown has been ordered, and things will soon be back to normal. I briefly enjoyed the feeling of being toothless, a sensation I hadn’t felt since childhood. But I remember way back then the obvious excitement of feeling almost heroic and manly as it seemed a big part of growing up.
This time I just felt vain, so maybe my mum’s right and I still haven’t grown up after all.
In case you think I have delusions of royal grandeur, I’m referring to my fake front tooth which fell out with a splash as I ploughed my way through the biggest bowl of soup since Desperate Dan came off a diet.
I had gone off on holiday weeks ago knowing that my tooth was slack but I had eaten cautiously just in case I was stranded, toothless, thousands of miles from home. Now at home I wanted it to come out so that I could get it properly fixed, and I have been gnawing on apples and corn on the cob since my flight back. I would even have moved up to chomping broken glass and concrete had they not had calories.
But nothing seemed to work at all until, down at the gym canteen, I slurped an innocuous bowl of mushroom soup that shouldn’t have troubled a pensioner wearing someone else’s dentures. I’ve always been a bit of a soup dragon and my mum reckons it’s because I haven’t grown up yet, so I guess it serves me right. The tooth came out while I was speaking with my mouth full and it soiled the lady sitting next to me as it splashed in to the plate with a huge “kerplunk”.
After apologising, I fished the thing out of my bowl, excused myself from the table sounding like Sylvester the cartoon cat, and headed to the gents toilets to find a mirror and put it back. Trust me, no matter how ugly you may think you are, seeing yourself with a front tooth missing does nothing for your self esteem. If I thought I might look like a cute kid, or Dennis The Menace, or a macho cage fighter, I was soon to be disappointed. Staring back from the mirror was what looked like a seedy toothpaste dodger who had been sleeping rough for years. I apologise to any seedy toothpaste dodgers who have been sleeping rough and may be reading this.
Looking at your teeth outside of your mouth, incidentally, is a big surprise as you are immediately struck by the fact that they are as far from white as Dracula’s wardrobe. If you don’t believe me then take a pair of pliers and pull one of your gnashers out. I highly recommend it.
So, anxious to get rid of this off colour gemstone, and with vanity screaming at me to lose the horrible image in the mirror as soon as possible, I hurried and washed excess mushroom off the crown by running it under a tap. You can see what’s coming can’t you? It slipped from my fingers and spun round the sink like one of those charity pennies put in a Perspex collecting bowl. I chased it round and round but couldn’t catch it and the thing disappeared down the plug hole and in to oblivion.
That’s four hundred pounds Sterling worth of oblivion to you and me. Ever met a poor dentist?
I was frantic. I’d lost a good tooth, good money, and my less than good looks in one accidental slip up and, after a moment’s panic, I ran to find the maintenance man to ask him to unscrew the U bend under the sink. Five minutes later I was reunited with the crown, covered in slime, soap, hair and goodness knows what else.
So, here’s the question. Would you then wash the germs off and put the tooth back in your mouth to save your vanity, or would you place it carefully in your pocket and walk around looking like a pirate till a dental appointment could be made? With me I have to confess I agonised for minutes, watching the race in my head between those two thoroughbreds Vanity and Sanitary, and I’d like to say it was a close run thing, but it wasn’t. Vanity won by a few laps.
So now I’ve been to the dentist, a new crown has been ordered, and things will soon be back to normal. I briefly enjoyed the feeling of being toothless, a sensation I hadn’t felt since childhood. But I remember way back then the obvious excitement of feeling almost heroic and manly as it seemed a big part of growing up.
This time I just felt vain, so maybe my mum’s right and I still haven’t grown up after all.
Monday, August 15, 2011
A Horse With No Name
I’ve just spent three, very enjoyable weeks in the USA which, as you may not know, stands for Ubiquitous Singing from Adele .
Everywhere I went in Florida the London singer was exercising her lungs on radio, TV shows, commercials, bars and restaurants. They have gone lady gaga for her and will probably now trace her roots back to Calamity Jane, qualifying her to sing the Star Spangled Banner at the Superbowl next year in a cowboy hat.
I love visiting America where the “great service” in retail is all a myth as supermarket check out staff find new ways to ignore you while waiters fake their bonhomie and politeness, a fakeness that’s at least sincere as they sincerely want a big tip. No one waits for you in America or says “you first” as you stand in line, and it’s such a change from our polite culture shown last week as we Brits queued up to be charged in court for rioting.
While Brit lawyers were tied up in court defending the undefensible, American lawyers were advertising at the side of the road. They are the usual, ambulance chasing, chancers we get here, but they’re more inventive. They take out huge road side adverts inviting us to dial 1-400-I-AM HURT, or 1-400-ITS-SORE. I even saw one that read 1-800-OUCH-MAD.
The natives, for some reason, are obsessed with where every other American they meet was born and the second sentence uttered is always “where are you from?”. They then get the answer Tulsa or New Jersey and, no matter what they’ve heard, always answer with “Oh, OK.” Are they all secretly conducting a cost saving census for the government?
As well as Adele, Brits seem everywhere in the American media just now, voicing adverts or appearing on shows. I watched America’s Got Talent with Brit Sharon Osborne showing off her new face and, surprisingly, her new voice too as she currently sounds like an extra from The Exorcist. Piers Morgan was another judge, praising a man for belly flopping off a diving board then later talking politics on CNN. Or maybe it was the other way round. With Piers I never hear what he says above my cries of “how does he get away with this rubbish?”.
TV adverts are dominated by food and medicine. With drug laws the Americans have to put all the side effects on screen too, so a cream for flaky skin will have a voice over that says “can also cause cancer, leukaemia and death, check with your doctor” over happy pictures of people having a picnic in a boat.
As they’re very religious I was not surprised to see a commercial that was shown in almost every TV break for an agency called ChristianMingle.com, a dating site for the religious which had a message that “it’s what God would want”. The Lutheran church along the road from where I was staying had an electronic message board with inspirational messages like “Chew on the bible. It stops truth decay,” and my own favourite “Dusty bibles lead to dirty lives.”
But the religious majority won’t be happy with me as I discovered a great new vice. It’s called Nestle’s Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough and comes in a tube shape ready to be cut up and placed in a baking tray. For those who remember scraping the cooking bowl when mum was making cakes, this is incredibly evocative stuff. I bought a tube and ate the whole thing raw. It’s brilliant. Can we get it here soon please?
My daughters, of course, just wanted to go to McDonalds all the time for hot fudge sundaes but I’m a bit worried about what my youngest has been reading as she slipped up and asked for “a hot flush sundae”. But I think she may have inadvertently hit on something. Maybe we could have a global awareness day for women of a certain age and call it Hot Flush Sunday?
It’s good to be back home for a while. In the past four weeks I’ve travelled to Dubai, Nepal and Florida so it’s relief not to be carrying bags around or constantly taking my shoes off at airport security. I really did enjoy my trip to the U.S. but, as Dorothy almost said in the Wizard of Oz,” East West Home’s Best”.
Apart from the lack of cookie dough of course.
Everywhere I went in Florida the London singer was exercising her lungs on radio, TV shows, commercials, bars and restaurants. They have gone lady gaga for her and will probably now trace her roots back to Calamity Jane, qualifying her to sing the Star Spangled Banner at the Superbowl next year in a cowboy hat.
I love visiting America where the “great service” in retail is all a myth as supermarket check out staff find new ways to ignore you while waiters fake their bonhomie and politeness, a fakeness that’s at least sincere as they sincerely want a big tip. No one waits for you in America or says “you first” as you stand in line, and it’s such a change from our polite culture shown last week as we Brits queued up to be charged in court for rioting.
While Brit lawyers were tied up in court defending the undefensible, American lawyers were advertising at the side of the road. They are the usual, ambulance chasing, chancers we get here, but they’re more inventive. They take out huge road side adverts inviting us to dial 1-400-I-AM HURT, or 1-400-ITS-SORE. I even saw one that read 1-800-OUCH-MAD.
The natives, for some reason, are obsessed with where every other American they meet was born and the second sentence uttered is always “where are you from?”. They then get the answer Tulsa or New Jersey and, no matter what they’ve heard, always answer with “Oh, OK.” Are they all secretly conducting a cost saving census for the government?
As well as Adele, Brits seem everywhere in the American media just now, voicing adverts or appearing on shows. I watched America’s Got Talent with Brit Sharon Osborne showing off her new face and, surprisingly, her new voice too as she currently sounds like an extra from The Exorcist. Piers Morgan was another judge, praising a man for belly flopping off a diving board then later talking politics on CNN. Or maybe it was the other way round. With Piers I never hear what he says above my cries of “how does he get away with this rubbish?”.
TV adverts are dominated by food and medicine. With drug laws the Americans have to put all the side effects on screen too, so a cream for flaky skin will have a voice over that says “can also cause cancer, leukaemia and death, check with your doctor” over happy pictures of people having a picnic in a boat.
As they’re very religious I was not surprised to see a commercial that was shown in almost every TV break for an agency called ChristianMingle.com, a dating site for the religious which had a message that “it’s what God would want”. The Lutheran church along the road from where I was staying had an electronic message board with inspirational messages like “Chew on the bible. It stops truth decay,” and my own favourite “Dusty bibles lead to dirty lives.”
But the religious majority won’t be happy with me as I discovered a great new vice. It’s called Nestle’s Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough and comes in a tube shape ready to be cut up and placed in a baking tray. For those who remember scraping the cooking bowl when mum was making cakes, this is incredibly evocative stuff. I bought a tube and ate the whole thing raw. It’s brilliant. Can we get it here soon please?
My daughters, of course, just wanted to go to McDonalds all the time for hot fudge sundaes but I’m a bit worried about what my youngest has been reading as she slipped up and asked for “a hot flush sundae”. But I think she may have inadvertently hit on something. Maybe we could have a global awareness day for women of a certain age and call it Hot Flush Sunday?
It’s good to be back home for a while. In the past four weeks I’ve travelled to Dubai, Nepal and Florida so it’s relief not to be carrying bags around or constantly taking my shoes off at airport security. I really did enjoy my trip to the U.S. but, as Dorothy almost said in the Wizard of Oz,” East West Home’s Best”.
Apart from the lack of cookie dough of course.
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