Midgetgems Comedy

In the spirit of ‘I’m Sorry I Haven’t A Clue’, a few alternative meanings:

Efficiency - Yorkshire trawlerman describing what he’s caught

Head lice- The main reason police stop drunk drivers

Elope - The missing half of a deer

Scrutiny - Word game invented on the ‘Bounty’

Extension - Increase in alimony

Effervescent - 1.Damn, I missed the pheasant!

Effervescent - 2.Try the game pie

This scrap of paper is one of my most prized possessions.  I remember asking my Dad to get it for me on one of his outings to the BBC.  Every time I look at it I find it ironic that I should be wished  ‘Light, Peace, Happiness’, three things that seemed to evade the great man.  I hope he has found them now.   Not sure what the squiggly legend at the bottom says but my interpretation is ‘Peter Sellers - Legend’.

Have YOU seen this man?!

(Are you this man?)

Last seen wearing a ridiculously expensive shirt, fake tan, false grin and probably too much aftershave

Detectives believe he may possibly be American

WARNING: Do NOT touch the screen to receive your healing and remove any jewellery you may be concealing

If you have any information, please contact your nearest vigilante group

Three cheers and a ‘Spirit Of Basil Fawlty Award’ for Ian Taylor, the man who cut his car in half!

And thank the Lord for petty bureaucrats registering zero on the laughter scale! They are a gift of inspiration for us writers. If we didn’t have people whose sole purpose in ‘life’ is clamping down on anything quirky, there wouldn’t be anyone to laugh at!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/gloucestershire/7395452.stm

The composer Delius also wrote many books on cooking.

Not strictly true actually; that’ll be a Delius myth.

“May 9, marks the anniversary of the day in 1950 when the European Union was conceived. French Foreign Minister Robert Schuman gave a speech calling for European countries to combine their coal and steel production under a single European institution, paving the way to our current European Union.”

I was once asked by some German friends around the time of re-unification what the Brits say when they cross the English channel (well of course it’s English). They wondered if we say, “I’m going to Europe” or “to the continent”, “abroad” or some other phrase. I confess I had never thought about it at the time. The subtext to their enquiry was, “Are you in Europe or not?”

Coal and steel issues seem a little dated now so I can probably state with some degree of confidence that Britain is a constantly metamorphosing island kingdom made up of several wannabe nations ruled by a queen with little authority and situated far enough off the coast of Europe to be comfortingly isolated but within easy reach of the duty-free booze. The subtext of my long-considered reply then is, “Dunno, hard to care, more important issues - next question”.

Forget square miles, metres, acres, hectares, furlongs, and even a cow’s moo, the delightfully poetic hearing distance used in parts of Africa, we Brits now use a more modern and sophisticated measure when it comes to land area. Granted, only we Brits claim to understand it but if you are planning to visit us ( and it is looking lovely here though hurry, before it all falls into the sea), you’d do well to familiarise yourself with the ‘rough football pitch’.

Now, a bit of cultural understanding may be necessary: Knowing how to lie through your teeth about the loveliness of someone’s cat here is certainly useful but more interestingly, knowing roughly how big a football pitch is will guarantee you a successful trip.

You see, our south coast has just lost an area ‘roughly the size of four football pitches’ to landslip but it should be explained that football pitches here are not of uniform size. Therefore, if you do get into conversation with one of us and feel the need to mention how big or small your country is, say either, “it’s bigger than a football pitch AND the practice pitch behind the stadium AND the car park Tesco wants to build on” or, “a bit bigger than the centre circle”.

Now, of course, you have gone and mentioned the F-word, rendering it utterly impossible for any of us to visualise the proportions of said football pitch because you have unwittingly conjured up replays of hitting the underside of the crossbar, dodgy refereeing decisions and what might have been.  Notice that we will simply nod with an air of vague interest, anticipating that glorious day when the sea reduces our island to a more recognisable, FIFA-friendly size so we can get a proper game on.

Remains of north v. Remains of south - that ought to be a cracking fixture.

Climate change blamed for absolutely everything

Scientists now say that climate change is responsible for much more human activity than was previously thought with at least 30% of the earth’s population removing items of clothing as temperatures rise.

In a recent survey it was discovered a worrying number of people leave windows and doors open and even venture outside during warm spells. Alarmingly, 83% of people still fail to wear a vest in areas where temperatures fell.

‘I am particularly worried about the unsustainable number of buildings constructed only of sand on vulnerable areas close to the sea’ said Ron Scared, manager of a small flag printing works in Bolton.

The Environment Agency is expected to issue a statement from the Secretary of State stating it’s really nice not to blame humans for everything and let’s not forget about volcanoes.

Me: Well we’ll just have to come up with a genius plan for that then.

Charming offspring:  Wouldn’t we need a genius to do that?

Mustard Magazine is a welcome new and funny friend.

They’ve just selected a few spoof classified ads I submitted on 4laughs.
Thanks guys, much appreciated.

There’s a banner slung over our local school railings. It proudly declares, ‘At Slimmers World, we’re full of surprises’. Permission to insert ‘chocolate fudge’ before the last word?

Seeing the reports of Sven leaving Man City has just reminded me of a song that was used at Newsrevue during England’s last World Cup (Usually a good show if you like topical satire and happen to be anywhere near Little Venice in London - link on blogroll). I say last World Cup; I hope not! Anyway here’ s the script (.pdf)

Any Teen Will Do

If you hate horribly contrived puns, please … look away now.

A bull elephant goes into a brewery looking for a job. (it happens)

‘Okay’, says the foreman, ‘I need all those bags of malt shifted to this side of the yard’.

‘Great!’ says the elephant and gets to work picking them up with his trunk.

‘You’ll have to be quicker than that’, says the foreman, ‘put a bag on each tusk’.

‘I can’t do that, I’m a BULL elephant” says he, horrified.

‘So?’ says the foreman.

‘Well surely that would be malty tusking’.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/7370151.stm

A Swiss amateur parachutist?! Now why does that remind me of the old ‘If at first you don’t succeed, skydiving isn’t for you’ joke? “Sorry, I’m afraid Kurt cannot zecuckooclockgewindlich until we again untangle him from ze ski lift” Who’s going to try out the replica of Da Vinci’s helicopter then? Prince William?