34. Knock Knock

Caroline has been looking for a job.  She hasn’t worked since her contract with the Cayman Islands government ended on the last day of June.  For the last ten weeks, she’s brought in no money at all and we have been living off my meagre pension.

“I think I’ll have a gap year,” she announced a couple of months ago.

“Will you, buggery,” I said (I’m renowned for my repartee).

Today she was looking through the online adverts.  She was very quiet for a few minutes.

“Do you know what?” she said looking up at me for the first time in twenty minutes, 

“It’s the words ‘full time’ and ‘permanent’ that are putting me off.”

**************

One of our neighbours has a son called Charlie.  Charlie is 5 and yesterday he told me a joke.  It was more of a riddle than a joke but it resonated because it was exactly the same ‘joke’ that my Dad had told me some 58 years ago. 

“When is a door not a door?”.... pause…. 
“When it’s ajar.”

When Dad told it to me I didn’t get it.  I didn’t know what “ajar” meant and so it hardly seemed funny or clever.  I asked Charlie what “ajar” means and he didn’t know either because he could only tell me that it was something that jam comes in. 

Some months later, my Dad tried me with another one: “What’s the difference between a buffalo and a bison?”  Answer: “You can’t wash your hands in a buffalo

When I was about six he told me a rude joke.  It wasn’t a rude joke in the conventional way but it was bad enough to shock my aunt who was staying with us and I remember her crying out, “Ralph!  That’s too much!”  I found her reaction much funnier than the joke:

Three patient’s germs were eavesdropping in the doctor’s surgery and they heard the doctor ask the patient if he was regular.  “Oh yes, doctor.  Twenty past eight every morning.”  “OK,” said the doctor,  “I’m going to give you some penicillin.  That should make you better.”

The germs heard this and were very alarmed.  “I’m going to hide behind the liver,” said one.  “I’m going to go to hide in the heart,” said another.  “You two can hide where you like,” said the third, “but I’m going to catch the eight twenty in the morning.”

It was about this time that I first read ‘Alice Through The Looking Glass’.  I remember enjoying it very much but there were two words that I had never come across before.  When Alice was talking to her kittens, Snowdrop and Kitty, she told them something and it seemed that they couldn’t “dennie” it and at some later point she was “mizzled” by something or other.

It was some years later that I realised that those two words were “deny” and “misled.”

On October 6th 1965, I first met Ian Sharp who, at around midnight on that memorable day – our second at Durham University - told me a joke as we stood side by side at the urinals at the bottom of E Stairs. 

Most people, meeting someone for the first time at that location might have  mumbled something like, “Hello,” but Sharpy, ignoring usual social conventions, launched straight into a joke.  He’s a natural storyteller who tells jokes very well and I found it very funny.  
A couple of months ago, I met a man at a party who told me exactly the same joke almost word for word except in his version, Keith Miller, the Australian test cricketer who had been in the RAAF was addressing a group of women on ANZAC Day.  I didn’t have the heart to tell him that to my certain knowledge the joke was at least 45 years old.

This is it in summary:

It’s a ‘This is Your Life’ TV programme and one of the guests is recounting an aerial dogfight that the star guest had taken part in during the Battle of Britain.

“There were two fuckers above him,’ he said, “and another fucker below him.  He shot down one of the fuckers and then two more of the fuckers appeared from out of the sun.”

Eamonn Andrews, the host, was very embarrassed as this was live television.  He turned to the camera.  “I must explain that the aircraft that Squadron Leader Robins is referring to were, “Focke-Wulf”, a fighter plane used by the Germans.”

“No they weren’t,” protested the Squadron Leader, immediately and loudly.  “Those fuckers were Messerschmitts.”

Despite that rocky start, we are still friends.

I wonder if five particular children in Cayman will remember the first joke that they ever heard and that they heard it from me.  
I must preface this by telling you that although all Caymanians speak English as their first language, they use a different word order from other English speaking countries, especially when asking questions. I am no linguist but the word order sometimes seems French to me. 

For instance, every child who ever asked me how old I am (and most of them did) said, "What age have you?" When they asked me my name they said, "What your name is?" 

I was helping during a literacy lesson. The children were aged six and I was sitting at a table with five of them. They were bright kids who hadn't really needed assistance from me. They had all finished their task and so I decided to fill in the remaining time by introducing them to the knock-knock joke, the concept of which none of them had any idea.

I gave them a couple of examples. The first one was, of course,

"Knock knock"

'Who's there?"

"Amos"

"Amos who?”

"Amos quito."

They loved this one:

“Knock knock”

“Who’s there?”

“Lucy”

“Lucy who?”

“Lucy lastic makes your pants fall down.”

They didn’t get this:

“Knock knock”

“Who’s there?”

“Sam and Janet”

“Sam and Janet who?”

“Sam and Janet evening” (Sung to the tune of ‘Some Enchanted Evening’)

It fell flat even after I had sung them the punch line a couple of times. Either they didn’t think it was funny or were distressed by my singing.

After one or two more, they definitely knew what to expect and certainly understood the format. I began with the girl who was clearly the brightest in the group:

Me     “Knock knock”

Her    “Who's there?”

Me     “Boo”

Her    “Who Boo is?”

Me    “ Never mind, you plonker.”

Later, I asked if they could think of one to ask me.

Two of them immediately said they would. That really impressed me as I have never thought up an original knock knock joke in my life and here were two six year olds who had. “Go on then,” I said to a boy.

Him     “Knock knock”

Me      “Who's there?”

Him     “Picture”

Me      (after some thought and really, very impressed)   “Picture who?”

Him     “Picture frame”

The other boy said, "George" followed by, "Town" the capital of Cayman, which was a very good try.

Two of them knew what a buffalo is but none of them had ever heard of a bison and so they never got to hear me ask them the difference between them.