These jokes are my own creation in the style of / paying homage to Tim Vine. Usual disclaimer applies these were funny in my head, they may not be in reality.
Number 1
DFS delivered my new suite the other day, Sofa so good.
Number 2
I went to the Doctors the other week, he asked for a urine sample. I gave him the sample and he said "I was only pulling your leg" and I replied "No, you are taking the piss".
I have started a new project, yes another one. This one is about writing fictional comedy around interviews of some sort. This is basically all about the conversation between two people which can be quite random and hopefully slightly funny.
Standard disclaimer applies in that these were funny in my own head, you may not find them funny at all.
Interview Number 1
Person A: So why do you want this job?
Person B: I don't
Person A: Pardon?
Person B: I don't want this specific job.
Person A: Then why come to the interview then...
Person B:Well, lets say no one comes to an interview for this job.
Person A: They do, you're here.
Person B:You are not following me at all
You are interviewing for an administration assistant right?
Person A:Well...Yes.
Person B:There are billions of admin jobs right?
Person A: I suppose...
Person B: So what I want is an admin asst job, it does not have to be this job.
Person A: So you don't want this job then.
Person B: Well I wouldn't say no.
Person A: Well thats interesting because I wouldn't say yes.
Person B: Can I suggest next question?
Person A: Do you think that would help?
Person B: At this point in the interview who can say?
Person A: Quite
Person A: Let's move on to what you know about our organisation?
Person B: The business or your personal organisation
Person A: The business of course
Person B: I know very little... I'm afraid
Person A: You are afraid?
Person B: No, I am not scared
Person A: Good, because I have had feedback I am an aggressive interviewer.
Person B: That's ok I have had feedback I am agressive when interviewed.
Person A: I always feel like I am being judged at interviews.
Person B: You are
Person A: Well yes
Person B: It is just so personal though isn't it.
Person A: Yes but that is an interview, impersonal and personal at the same time.
It is an imperfect tool in an imperfect world.
Person B: Like a 102 piece screwdriver set.
Person A: Ah but that's a perfect tool, you have the perfect bit for any screw.
Person B: I think we should agree top disagree.
Person A: Anyway, to move the interview forward slightly
Person B:Certainly a better direction than backwards,
or sideways.
Person A:Quite
Person B: I would see myself as the 102 piece perfect tool for the reasons you just described
Person A: Which are?
Person B: I fit any job
Person A: Ah but your philosophy of screw driver bits would suggest you don't fit this specific job.
Person B: That would be one possible interpretation but I could not possibly comment
Person A: It's an interview I think you are required and compelled to comment
Person B: No comment
Person A: This is not a police interview
Person B: Good because I had a disagreement with my lawyer last night
Person A: Do you need a lawyer?
Person B: You tell me, you are the one asking the questions
Person A: Yes, I am and parking this to one side the original question was what do you know about the organisation?
Person B: I know the organisation needs and administrative assistant...
Three years at the top of the book charts for Jamie Oliver's recipe books. Two years with Jamie Oliver's 30 minute meals and in 2012 top of the chart's with Jamie's Oliver's 15 minute meals.
According to his publishers Jamie is really pushing the limits of cooking with his next title for Christmas 2012. It is Jamie Oliver's 3 minute meals.
One of the receipe's has been released as a teaser:
Step 1
Visit Sainsbury's
Step 2
Buy Jamie Oliver's Italian meat balls spaghetti ready meal.
Step 3
Take home
Step 4
Put in microwave, set for three minutes and wait.
Step 5
Enjoy another spectacularly quick Jamie meal.
***Sorry Jamie could not resist - zephyrist***
Man walks into a pound shop, grabs a shop assistant and points to a bowl?
Man: How much is that?
Shop assistant: One pound.
Man: Oh that's too expensive. How much for that one?
SA: That is one pound.
Man: What, is everything one pound in here?
SA: Yes
Man: How about I give you 50 p for that bowl.
SA: No, perhaps you should try the 50p shop down the road.
Man: Why how much would a bowl cost in there?
(Probably needs a bit of work but you get the idea.)
You may like me have been puzzled by a couple of adverts appearing all over London with white text on a back background, with a symbol of Eros in the corner or more precisely the London Evening Standard logo.
The adverts are white text on a black background and are in various different text versions:
Sorry for losing touchThe text is so generic that it could relate to a lot of different organisations, I guess the advertising agency are banking on the fact that Londoners will recognise the Evening Standard symbol. They have missed a trick though as I thought it was one of those adverts where you had to look up the text on line. However you do that and you find nothing. It was only when I remembered the symbol was for the Evening Standard that I got the hint, but then even when I went to the Evening Standard website I found nothing about it. Some missed opportunities there, some people will see the adverts and not even connect them to the Evening Standard.
Sorry for being negative
Sorry for taking you for granted
Sorry for being complacent
Sorry for being predictable
Sorry for putting Gordon Brown in ChargeThen there is a third set of whit text on a blue / green background with a black horse in the corner:
Sorry for the MPs second home allowance
Sorry for the Iraq War
Sorry for Youtube announcements
Sorry for Hazel Blears
Sorry for the credit crunchOK I might have made the second and third group of adverts up but it might be a good idea, anyone from the labour party or the banking sector (Lloyds was the bank if you didn't catch the colour / logo references) if your reading this or perhaps someone from McCann Erickson who came up with the campaign, feel free to borrow my ideas.
Sorry for the housing crisis
Sorry for unfair overdraft charges
Sorry for investment banking bonuses
Sorry for a precipitous fall in our share price
Sorry for everything really
In searching around for something to write an article about I return to an old favourite of "the end of the world". This is one that keeps popping up every so often and is about how susceptible our electricity transmission grid is to solar storms. Its not just the electricity network either, its satellites and communication systems.
Of course there is a bit of movie fake realism to the start of the article, you can imagine movie voice over man coming on and saying:
"It was a time when our best friend became our worst enemy... it was a time when the life giving light became the plague of darkness...mankind at its darkness hour... a future in which people fear the dawn... Solar Storm 2012 coming soon to a screen near you. Certificate 15 with mild violence and on screen nudity."Any way ... returning to reality and the new scientist article they have a much more sensible scene setter:
"It is midnight on 22 September 2012 and the skies above Manhattan are filled with a flickering curtain of colourful light. Few New Yorkers have seen the aurora this far south and their fascination is short - lived. Within a few seconds, electric bulbs (note from zephyrist: is that as opposed to gas bulbs?) dim and flicker, then become unusually bright for a fleeting moment (Another note from zephyrist: or in one word "blow"). Then all the lights in the state go out. Within 90 seconds the entire eastern half of the US is without power."Just like in Hollywood the rest of the world doesn't seem to exist as usual the world ends in New York. Seriously can a UK director not come up with an end of the world film set in Bristol or something that isn't cheesy or just a comedy. Why is the British film industry based on period dramas or rom-coms with Hugh Grant or cheap comedies or gritty low budget crime thrillers. Where is the British block buster disaster movie?
4-10 years for the US to recoverA Solar storm will spew out plasma balls from the surface of the sun which will hurtle towards earth and create a massive interference with the earth's magnetic field which in turn induce currents in wires of the electricity grid. Which will in effect overload the system blowing virtually every transformer in the system. With few spares and every transformer needing to be replaced it could take up to 12 months to manufacture and replace them. In the mean time how would we survive without a fully functioning grid network. Every aspect of our lives from fuel, transport, food, healthcare, water and heat depend on the electricity grid. It would be the end of the world as we know it.
72 hours of healthcare remaining
30 days of coal left (although if no power grid why would you need coal for power stations)
Well what a week it has been, finally got a solid three inches of snow last night, lots of good powder snow to wake up to this morning. It was the good fall of snow that was forecast in the linked article. Ok so Oxfordshire only made 3 inches but it was still good and who knows what tonight will bring.
Some useful tips from the AA in that article:
"If you are driving along and you cannot hear your wheels turning that probably means you are on ice."Of course there are other options that can be considered in such an eventuality if you are not on ice:-AA spokesperson
"If you are driving along and you cannot hear your wheels turning that probably means all that nagging about driving too fast by your passenger has finally burst your eardrum."
"If you are driving along and you cannot hear your wheels turning that probably means that your car is flying into open space having just driven over a cliff edge obscured by snow."
"If you are driving along and you cannot hear your wheels turning that probably means that the RAF have just airlifted another damn fool that tried to drive to work in 10 inches of snow."I could go on, but I wont. By the way the standard disclaimer applies, these sounded funny in my head by the time they escaped out onto the internet they may have been the equivalent of a pair of Bermuda shorts in a snow storm. Just not funny or cool.
"If you are driving along and you cannot hear your wheels turning that probably means that the hamster has run out of energy."
"If you are driving along and you cannot hear your wheels turning that probably means that you have adapted and installed skies on your car."
"If you are driving along and you cannot hear your wheels turning that probably means that your dreaming of the days when the roads were gritted."
"We're certainly not out of the woods yet"I personally wasn't aware I was in a wood. Perhaps he means that next we will get a heavy wood storm with logflakes as big as your fist. Mr Cliche himself goes on to talking about fighting and cooking:
"It looks like the cold air will win the battle and it's a recipe for some more snow. "The Winston Churchill / Gordon Ramsey approach to weather forecasting. We shall fight snow on the beaches, we shall fight snow on the landing grounds, we shall fight snow in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight snow in the hills; we shall never surrender unless you live in Gloucestershire in which case you surrender when you run out of salt. The Gordon Ramsey recipe approach of seasoning the snow with a bit of salt and some grit for texture just wont work any more. Plus the Gordon Ramsey approach of shouting at and shaming the snow is just a waste of time .
This was a little nugget from the BBC. Amidst all the heavy news stories someone has collected all the jokes that readers have emailed in about the credit crunch.
My particular favourite is:
"Masked man holding a bank cashier up with a gun. Says: 'I don't want any money - I just want you to start lending to each other...
David, Cambridge, UK"
I have invented a new art form, it is called post ironic modernism. I still have not quite worked out what it actually is or what constitutes post ironic modernism but I have a few examples.
Example 1 - Well Bupa, you did ask.
Example 2 - The alternative start to Love Actually, Debate Actually (if it helps imagine Hugh Grant saying it in the same style)
Whenever I get gloomy with the state of the world I think about the "Have your say" pages at the BBC news site. General opinion is starting to make out we live in a world of nutters and madness but I don't see that. It seems to me that the population of the UK is some 60 million people and even the most popular posts are recommended by only 600 people which suggests that intelligent debate does still go on, just not on the internet. Often its not particularly dignified or newsworthy but its always there. Fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, husbands and wives, boyfriends, girlfriends, old friends. When the stock markets were crashing as far as I know none of the phone calls from the people in the banks were messages of hate or revenge, they were message of thought and hope. If you look for it I've got a sneaky feeling you'll find that intellectual debate actually is all around
This BBC article is about hos some people can hear what they see after a student reporting sounds from a screensaver.
There is even a test to try to see if you can hear pictures. I don't think I could hear anything but I could imagine the sounds of rushing a bit like a wave coming in and out.
Anyway her is my DIY test? Can you hear the dots?
Everyone likes a good rant against the system at some point. There are always useless jobsworths who deserve to be put in their place. I often feel like writing snotty emails to people but it really only gets you into trouble. The best thing to do is phone them up, then there is no hard record of the conversation and you can always claim you were misinterpreted.
Or my other little petty thing is to use the phrase , "If you do have any further queries do hesitate to contact me in the future."
Should they spot the missing not you can simply claim it was a typing error. OK so a small rebellion in the great battle against the dumb and unhelpful.
Anyway Giles Coren, restaurant critic for the times is plagued by sub editors who mess around with his submissions changing the context and destroying his perfectly formed prose. On occasion he writes a snotty note to the sub-editors. Some of them are so good that they hvae escaped onto the internet. They are so good you should go read the article but to give you a teaser here are some of the best lines.
"It's not ******* rocket science. It's ******* pre-GCSE scansion. I have written 350 restaurant reviews for The Times and I have never ended on an unstressed syllable. ....."He signs the email "All the best" which is a nice touch.
"...what do you think you can achieve with that kind of dumb-wittted smart-arsery?"
"never ask me to write something for you. and don't pay me. i'd rather take £400 quid for assassinating a crack whore's only child in a revenge killing for a busted drug deal - my integrity would be less compromised."The guardian article does note sadly that these are abridged but not subedited - versions of the emails.
I accept no responsibility for the humour in the following article. A lot of people will already know that I can find amusement in the smallest things, others would suggest my mind is not wired the same way as other people.
Finding Nemo ...
Found him!
It reads, "Nemo Me Impune Lacessit"
Which means "None provoke me unpunished."
I feel the game could be extended to any photo where the word nemo is clearly visible. I may play this later with my camera phone.
Can I Speak to Mr C Lyon
This is a very clever practical joke from the book "Penguins Stopped Play - eleven cricketers take on the world" by Harry Thompson which I can highly recommend.
Basically you track down the telephone number of a zoo and leave a message on a work colleagues desk that a Mr C Lyon rang while they were away could they please ring them back on this number.
Unless you are particularly bright you would ring the number and only when somebody said something like "London Zoo" you would twig. Of course some people might still ask to speak to Mr C Lyon (Sea Lion if you haven't twigged yet) in which case their colleagues are probably now even rolling around on the floor. In my office we have some one who would probably continue to argue that a Mr C Lyon did ring from that number.
As a HR professional I feel obliged to point out that practical jokes could be interpreted as bullying and harassment in the workplace. Make sure the person you are playing the joke on has a sense of humour otherwise you could find yourself facing disciplinary action.
Usual disclaimer: If you don't find it funny, it was funny in my head, not all heads are the same.
Meanwhile on RMS Titanic in the dining room.
Waiter: Iceberg!!!!!
Diner: No, I ordered the mixed leaf salad.
What this joke really needs is a cartoon with the caption "Dave, hated it when the waiter got his order wrong, it really ruined his night."
You may have heard the story this week about how Emma Clarke who does the voice for announcements on the tube has not had her contract renewed. There was speculation that it had to do with her putting up some spoof announcements on her own website.
Spoof London Underground Announcements
I particular like the very last one, "Here we are again..."
Sometimes it is very difficult to hear song lyrics, although the internet pretty much means you can now look up the correct version. Here is another that I have misheard.
I'ts beginning to get to me - Snow Patrol.
Actual Lyric:
"And it's beginning to get to me
That I know more of the stars and sea
Than I do of what's in your head
Barely touching in our cold bed"
"And it's beginning to get to meWhy they should be singing about an argument on Uncle Ben's microwave rice I'm not entirely sure but that is what it sounds like.
That I know more of the stars and sea
Than I do of what's in your head
Barely touching on Uncle Ben's"
While trudging to work at the end of a long week I was thinking of a prayer to get me through the day. Don't worry I am not about to get all religious on you I was remembering some joke prayer about asking for the strength to get through the day despite all the idiots or something like that.
A bit of google work later... there are a few versions of a joke email that gets forwarded everywhere which is in turn a corrupted version of a famous prayer called 'The Serenity Prayer'.
The Joke Version:
Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,You can see how apt this is when you are facing another day at the organisation where the phrase 'bureaucracy gone mad' was invented.
The courage to change the things I cannot accept,
And the wisdom to hide the bodies of those people
I had to kill today because they pissed me off.
God grant me the serenityThe second version is a nice little prayer even if you don't believe in God.
to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference.--Reinhold Niebuhr
When you have surfed your way all over the internet.
When you still feel there is still one more page to look at.
When you feel there has to be one page, just one final page to make sense of it all.
When the google 'I'm feeling lucky' is just not enough any more.
When you don't know where to go, but you want to throw the dice one last time.
When the dice is spinning on a point and it comes up seven... Just.... Click here.
I have been thinking some more about noises that things make which perhaps could have been designed in or out but somehow survived into the final product.
My MP3 player says"bye" but not"hello", it could have said "powering down" or just switched itself off. I wonder if bye is translated in foreign versions.
I used to own a motherboard which spoke on start up, until it entered into a suicide pack with my graphics card.
On start up it used to say,
"Power on self test complete, Computer now booting from operating system."I miss that re-assuring voice. Of course you could have chosen different words how about:
"I have spun my drives, as far as I can tell you have a graphics card processor and some memory now lets see if the operating system wants to start today."Sorry went off on a tangent there.
"Hardware OK, now cross your fingers, operating roller coaster system about to start"
"Hardware confirmed, now launching missiles"
"Hardware confirmed, Operating system starting. Do you feel lucky?"
"Hardware confirmed, please insert coffee."
"This is your computer talking. Pre flight systems have been checked, If you care to check out the Windows on your left, we will be serving Java shortly."
Sometimes it is very difficult to hear song lyrics, although the internet pretty much means you can now look up the correct version. Here is another that I have misheard.
The Automatic - Monster.
Actual Lyric:
"What's that coming over the hill
Is it a monster? Is it a monster?"
"What's that coming over the hill
Is it a boxster? Is it a boxster?"
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