74. Humps

In 2004 Lucy, my younger daughter, got married.  I, of course, had to make the “Father of the Bride” speech.  I haven’t been to many weddings and so I wasn’t very sure what was expected of me.  I knew that I was supposed to say nice things about the bride and the groom and that was easy enough but what else should I say?

Caroline suggested that I tried to say something funny.  I have a thing about speed bumps. What a misnomer. If anything, they slow you down!  I thought of a little joke I could make about them but the question was, at whose expense?  I decided that I shouldn’t say anything remotely smutty in connection with Lucy or David the groom but that Lucy’s godmother and her husband (let’s call them Janet and John – some of you will know who they really are) were a fair and easy target.

The moment came and as I concluded my short and probably dull discourse, both Janet and John sat there, half listening but revelling in the comfort and glow that comes when you have finished all the champagne that someone else has paid for and were now trying assiduously to test the capacity of the wine cellar, again at my expense.

“At that table over there,” I said, pointing airily in the general direction of their table, “hidden behind those many, many empty wine bottles, is Janet, Lucy’s godmother and her husband John.

“They had an interesting visit to Longleat a few years ago,” I told the 80 or so guests.

“They arrived at the gatehouse at the end of the long drive at about half past ten in the morning but they didn’t make it to the actual entrance of the Safari and Adventure Park until two o’clock in the afternoon.”

“The problem,” I continued, wondering whether the several old ladies from Middlesbrough who made up a large part of my audience would get the joke and would not be too shocked if they did, “was that there was a sign at the start of the drive saying ‘Hump Every 50 Yards’ and always ready for a challenge, that’s exactly what they did.”

A few people were kind enough to laugh a little but not Janet.  I was watching her as I delivered the punch line and there wasn’t even the flicker of a smile across her face.

Nothing was ever said about the matter – until last night.

Yesterday was my birthday and John, Janet, Caroline and I went out to celebrate it in a rather nice restaurant.  At about 10:30 and having consumed the best part of two bottles of wine (which he insisted on paying for), John leant across the table towards me.

“Can I ask you a question?” he slurred.

“Of course,” I told him.

“Do you remember, at Lucy’s wedding, telling everyone about Janet and me at Longleat?

I nodded.

“Who told you about that?” he demanded.  “It wasn’t me was it?  Janet thinks I told you once when I’d been drinking.”

For the last seven years, ever since Lucy's wedding, they have been accusing each other of disloyalty and gross indiscretion. 

“How did he know?  You must have told him,” is what they have been saying to each other and all the while both of them have been inwardly worried that it was they who had blabbed but were so drunk when they did that they couldn’t remember doing it.

They were both very relieved when I told them that I could have made any number of couples the butt of the joke and it was just chance that made me use them.

Naturally, Caroline and I were very keen to find out what actually happened and we questioned them intensively. 

It seems that there is a secluded wooded area adjacent to the Longleat Drive that will forever have a special place in Janet’s and John’s hearts and memories.

62. Oh dear!

I was in the Butcher’s shop across the road yesterday morning.  Unusually for a Wednesday there were quite a few people there.  I stood behind five others and waited.

Julian’s is more than just a Butcher’s shop.  It is a social centre too.  The postman stops off during his round and makes himself a cup of tea.  The milkman does the same thing as do several local tradesmen and I often meet my neighbours in there.

The reason that a queue had formed was that Julian was engaged in banter with them all.  Paul, one of his regular customers whom I see quite often was there and so was Steve, who runs a café on The Green.  Paul is always telling Julian and the other customers, stories, anecdotes and jokes. 

 “This is a good one,” Paul said.  He looked over his shoulder to see who else was in the shop.  I knew what was coming.  He was looking to see if there were any women there and so that meant that what followed would be a dirty story or a rude joke.

Seeing that the coast was clear, Paul began:

A man went into a bar.  “A pint of lager please.”

“Certainly sir,” said the barman.  “ What sort?”

“It doesn’t matter what sort,” said the man.  “Anything as long as it isn’t Stella.  I had ten pints of Stella last night.  I passed out and when I woke up I was fucking broke.”

“They're all about the same price sir,” said the barman.  Stella costs the same as Carlsberg and Heineken.” 

“No.  You don’t understand,” said the man.

”Broke’s the name of my dog!”

I thought that was pretty funny and so did everyone else.  Just then my phone rang and I stepped outside to answer it.  It was Caroline who was working in Camden.  She asked me to e-mail her a document from her laptop which she had left at home.   She said it was urgent and so I crossed the road, went back home and sent the e-mail.

Fifteen minutes later I went back to Julian’s.  This time only Steve was there.

“Listen to this, Tel” he said.  “This is a good one.”

“Is it one of Paul’s?” I asked.

“Yes,” he said. 

A man went into a bar.  “A pint of lager please.”

“Steve,” I said.  “I think I’ve heard this.”  He ignored me.

“Certainly sir,” said the barman.  “ What sort?”

“It doesn’t matter what sort,” said the man.  “Anything as long as it isn’t Stella.  I had ten pints of Stella last night.  I passed out and when I woke up I was fucking broke.”

“They're all about the same price sir,” said the barman.  Stella costs the same as Carlsberg and Heineken.” 

“No.  You don’t understand,” said the man.

”Stella’s the name of my dog!”

I laughed politely.  “Yes.  Good one Steve.”

You will find my last regular posting on March 27th here: At the End of The day

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.