Category Archives: Humour

Biker Chat

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I was out on my motorbike the other day and was waiting at some traffic lights when another motorcyclist complete with pillion, possibly his wife, pulled up next to me. Instinctively we looked the other’s bike up and down, I think both admiring what we saw.

It then occurred to me that men probably look at motorbikes the way they look at women and the way women look at men – and other women, of course!

Anyway, we got into a brief conversation about our machines which, for some reason, like cars, boats and planes, are nearly always referred to as female.

Just before the lights turned to green, my new friend concluded “Yes, she’s not a bad old thing and she always starts first time. The exhaust blows a bit these days but she’s still a good ride and I have no intention of trading her in just yet”.

Confident that he was still referring to his motorbike I nodded politely, wished him a safe journey and accelerated off before the lights changed back to red!

Health and Safety at Agincourt

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This Sunday sees the 600th anniversary of the Battle of Agincourt, October 25th, 1415 a battle won by the English (and Welsh) against all the odds.  I wonder what would have happened if a similar event had occurred in these politically correct days………….

King (to his troops) – “We few, we happy few, we band of brothers….”

Health and Safety Official  – “Hey you, what do you think you’re playing at?

K. – “Well, I’m just about to give battle to the French and I thought I’d try and rally the men.”

H.S.O. – “Really, and what do you think you’re doing with all those bows and arrows? Where are the safety guards for those sharp points?

K. – “We were going to fire them at the French.”

H.S.O. – “What! Have you any idea how dangerous those things are? Have you issued safety goggles to your bowmen and have you carried out a full risk assessment?”

K. – “I beg your pardon?”

H.S.O.  – “And what about those wooden stakes?

K. – “Er, we were going to put them in the ground so we’d have some protection if the French cavalry decided to attack us.”

H.S.O. – “Are you stupid, have you considered what would happen if the horses suddenly stopped and threw the riders on to those stakes? They could do themselves a nasty injury.”

K. – “That’s the idea!”

H.S.O. – “And these soldiers of yours, are they on minimum wage contracts?

King – “What?”

H.S.O. – “How much do you pay them?”

K – “Pay them?”

H.S.O. – “And have you made any provision for sick leave, parenting leave and fulfilled all the criteria regarding gay rights, religious discrimination and sex discrimination? Do you employ any female employees or people from ethnic minorities”.

K. – “Eh?”

H.S.O. “Are your employees incentivised? Do you give them targets?

K.  – “Oh yes, of course. We train them to aim for the head or the heart. Well the heart really because you can still cause serious damage if your aim is a bit off centre.”

H.S.O. – “Who are you anyway?

K. – “I’m King Henry V”

H.S.O. – “Yeah, yeah and I’m Julius Caesar.

K. – “No, I really am the king and I’m the undisputed leader of this fine body of men.”

H.S.O – “They don’t look very fine to me”

K. – “That’s because we ran out of supplies and they’ve been living on nuts and berries for the last few days and most of them have got dysentery.”

H.S.O. – “Alright, that’s it. I’m afraid I’m going to have to close down this operation  without further notice. There’ll be no more invading of  France for you, sunshine.

K. – “Sergeant-at-arms. I’ve no idea what planet this jester is from but, methinks, it’s certainly one unfamiliar to me. Take him away, remove his head and let’s start this confounded battle! Cry God for Harry, England and St George!”

(With apologies to William Shakespeare)

Genius Declared

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“To love oneself is the beginning of a lifetime romance”.

Today, October 16th, is the birthday of Oscar Fingal O’Flahertie Wills Wilde or just plain old Oscar Wilde for short. He was born in 1854 in Dublin the son of Sir William Wilde, an eminent surgeon and writer, and Jane Elgee, an Irish revolutionary poet.

He was a prodigious playwright, essayist, poet and critic and has the distinction of being quoted probably more than any other literary figure, bar William Shakespeare. In spite of his talents he only wrote one novel, “The Picture of Dorian Gray”, which was also made into a film.

He was educated at Trinity College, Dublin and Magdalen College, Oxford before moving  to London where he quickly made his name in literary circles as a scholar of the new philosophy of aestheticism.

His fame spread and so he crossed the Atlantic to begin a series of lectures for the American literary elite. When asked by US Customs whether or not he had anything to declare he allegedly replied “I have nothing to declare except my genius”! There are no records of the Custom officer’s response!

Although married with two children he was bi-sexual and after a well-publicised homosexual affair and allegations of liaisons with male prostitutes he was convicted of gross indecency and sentenced to two years hard labour. Unsurprisingly, imprisonment proved  a terrible time for Wilde, who wrote “I know not whether Laws be right or whether Laws be wrong. All that we know who lie in gaol is that the wall is strong and that each day is like a year”.

He was released in 1897 and moved to France, never to return to either England or Ireland. He died of meningitis in Paris in November 1900 at the relatively young age of 46 but left a body of work that still has a profound influence on the world of literature to this day.

“Ah don’t say that you agree with me. When people agree with me I always feel that I must be wrong”.

A Big World Out There

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I spend a fair amount of time in the USA and am very fond of the country and its people. However, like many travellers from across the world I do get a little frustrated by the apparent parochialism of some of the television stations and other media which sometimes give the impression that America IS the world

I appreciate that the US is a huge country – the UK could fit into it 38 times! – but it’s not the only country in the world and it’s not even the biggest. Its northern neighbour, Canada, for example is actually bigger but that’s by the by.

What prompted this missive is the lack of television coverage of the current Rugby Union World Cup, a true world event with participants from across the globe, unlike for example, Baseball’s “World Series” which comprises 31 American teams and 1 Canadian. It’s somewhat risible that the winners of that annual competition are referred to as “World Champions”!

I was in Tennessee for part of the Rugby World Cup which for the benefit of any Americans not in the know, is taking place, right now, in little old England and Wales, two quaint little places across the Atlantic Ocean – basically take a right at New York and keep going once you reach Ireland!

I spent ages scrolling through the 250 channels or whatever on my hotel TV set and narrowed my search down to approximately 12 sports channels the majority of which were showing College Football (amateur American Football played by students), replays of College Football, last year’s ice hockey and Sunday’s fishing competitions. Rugby? I may as well have been looking for The Martian Decathlon!

It’s even more maddening when all bar a couple of Americans I spoke to in Nashville (and they were rugby players themselves) were even aware that the USA has a team in the competition. The US team got as far as England as it happens, but that’s not saying much in fairness!

Anyway, the point is this, America is a wonderful country with an awful lot going for it and an awful lot going on but, US television broadcasters take note, there really is a great big world out there just waiting to be discovered by your viewers; honestly!

Busy Time for Lawyers

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I recently read an article in the Sunday Times about there being a big increase in matrimonial breakdown following the summer holidays, a fact that every experienced divorce lawyer has known for years.

When you think about it, it is hardly surprising since there is so much expectation attached to holidays, particularly summer holidays and sometimes those expectations turn out to be unrealistic and unfulfilled. What should be a sun-kissed idyll often turns out instead to be a battlefield with fights over activities for the kids, arguments over finances, where to go, where to eat and so on.

However, the time that lawyers look forward to with most relish is Christmas, though this anticipated pleasure has nothing whatever to do with Christmas cheer and goodwill to all men; in fact, far from it. Divorce rates positively soar come early January with the inevitability and predictability of the New Year’s Sales. The post-holiday return to work sees the creation of a revolving door to the divorce lawyer’s office with filing cabinets full to bursting!

The reason why this happens is really quite simple. For most of the time, some couples just muddle through and go about their daily existence with no real dramas. However, joint time off work can often be a game changer. Suddenly, they are thrown together for two weeks at a time, often for 24 hours a day. It’s too much and all that spare time simply provides ample opportunity to analyse the relationship and conclude that, actually, we don’t really like one another!

It’s all very sad of course and particularly so that a marriage, initially based on love, so often ends up being picked apart in a court of law.

Still, look on the bright side, at least it’s keeping somebody in work!

Rubbing It In

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I was working in Miami last week, specifically Miami Beach, where the streets are lined with pastel coloured Art-Deco buildings and the beautiful people walk along Ocean Drive pausing only to sip their margaritas and admire one other. Being far removed from such glitterati I was sat in a plain old bar drinking Budweiser with my head buried in a newspaper but that’s another story.

What struck me about my visit was the fact that, strategically located near to the beaches, are sun cream dispensers supplied by the city medical authority, enabling folk to apply factor 30 sun protection free of charge (as if they cannot afford to buy their own!).

No doubt the prominent location of these dispensers serves as a useful reminder to the forgetful. I imagine that, if you spend half the morning sculpting your eyebrows, removing unwanted body hair and putting on your designer make-up, a little thing like sun protection is probably easy to overlook. I’m sure that the local women struggle too!

On a serious note, since skin cancer is one of the fastest growing diseases of the modern age (described by many experts as an epidemic) the move makes sense, if only to save on medical bills. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if this idea catches on elsewhere.

As an additional service, applications are now being accepted for the job of rubbing in the cream on the young and beautiful of Miami Beach. Apparently the queue begins somewhere in New York!

Excess Alcohol Leads to Hangover Shock

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Some incredible news last week, following the publication of the results of two linked Dutch and Canadian investigations  into alcohol and hangovers.  In fact, I was so shaken that I had to sit down and drink a glass of whisky just to steady myself.

The co-ordinator of the two investigations, a Professor Joris Vester, examining the results and relying, no doubt, upon  years of study and experience, concluded that “the more you drink the more likely you are to get a hangover”. Like I said, incredible.

Incredible that it took the examination of thousands of participants, not to mention the cost of the investigations themselves, to reveal what any small town drinker could have told the learned professor for free!

The second conclusion, and in fairness, one that is perhaps not so obvious, is that, scientifically at least, there is no such thing as a hangover cure. So, all those sure-fire cures such as a pint of water before bedtime, a greasy breakfast or some hair of the dog are mere placebos at best. But I reckon that most drinkers could have told him that too.

It seems to me that the obvious scenario with alcohol is either not to drink it at all or to know your limit and stick to it. Recognise your “full” sign and either switch to water or go home to bed and avoid any necessity of finding the perfect cure for your hangover! Common sense really.

Tales of the NHS

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Two news stories concerning the NHS caught the eye last week.

The first was the proposal that ex-smokers should receive e-cigarettes on our National Health Service to help them overcome their cigarette addiction. In other words the already overburdened British taxpayer (that’s you and me) is being asked to subsidise people who voluntarily started smoking and now want to give it up.

This is wrong on a number of levels, not least the fact that a smoker having given up his 20 cigarettes a day (at a cost of £7 per day or £49 per week) is now well able to afford his own darned e-cigarettes!

The second was the suggestion that doctors should be punished for over- prescribing antibiotics  without giving due thought to the needs of the patient. I understand what the critics are getting at but it would be very hard to prove and also seems a little harsh on our overworked doctors. That said, I don’t doubt that there are some doctors who prescribe medicine to certain bothersome patients just to keep them quiet!

It reminds of the story about the doctor who rings his plumber in the middle of the night complaining that his toilet is flooding. The quick-thinking plumber tells the doctor to throw some aspirins down the toilet and then to give him a call in three days time if the symptoms haven’t cleared up!

A Good Book

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It occurred to me recently, as I was enjoying a good book (a Ken Follett novel, as it happens), how comparatively little people seem to read these days. Of course, with the ubiquity of the internet and the ease of finding information, listening to music or watching films online there is probably less of an incentive for people to read for pleasure.

That’s a shame, since to many of us, reading is a great source of pleasure and relaxation. Don’t get me wrong, I am an avid user of computers and the internet and, like most of us, I cannot really imagine life without the internet, sad though that admission may be.

However nothing beats the sheer thrill of escaping into a good novel, briefly leaving the real world and using one’s imagination to enter another dimension. A book can be anything you want it to be, educational, thought provoking and stimulating. It can make you laugh, make you cry and scare the living daylights out of you. When I read “Jaws” by Peter Benchley back in 1975 I didn’t dare take a bath for a week! Mind you I was a student then and times were hard!

Hubris and Schadenfreude

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It is somewhat satisfying when the swaggering playground bully gets his comeuppance and is forced to receive what he has been dishing out to those who he appears to regard as his inferiors.

The Greeks had a word for it, “hubris”, meaning excessive pride or self-confidence leading to nemesis or inevitable downfall.

It can apply to all walks of life. Even to cricket, apparently.

There’s another interesting word on this subject although, this time, German. That word is “schadenfreude” meaning pleasure derived from another’s misfortune. A sensation felt, I think, by many an Englishman following the events of the past weekend!