Saturday 13 June 2015

Not growing up in the 1970s


For some reason, I've just remembered 'The Funniest Joke in the World'.

A group of friends at art school were talking about the previous night's showing of Monty Python, and mentioned the Funniest Joke in the World sketch. One of them had not seen the show, and asked what we were talking about, so we all conspired to tell it to her as if it were real.

In a safe at the British Museum Library, we said, resides the funniest joke in the world. It is so funny that if you were to read it, you would die laughing as everyone else has in the past.

It is kept in two parts, in two separate, locked boxes, just incase an unwary curator should accidentally find it and read it all the way through to the punch-line. On the front of each section is a warning in large letters, telling of the dire consequences of reading both parts. There have been people who have read either the first or second parts, but having done so, they are not allowed to even meet each other, in case the two parts should be put together by accident.

Being public property, The British Library cannot legally prevent anyone from reading it who expresses the wish to do so, but they must sign a long and complicated legal waiver which takes all responsibility for the consequences away from the library.

Once this waiver has been signed, the applicant is asked once again if they really do wish to read the joke in its entirety, and if they say yes, they are taken to a room with a one chair and a table on which are the two strongboxes containing the joke in two halves. They are given the keys to the strongboxes, then locked in the room for a short period of time.

Whoever goes into the room to remove the body must first place the two bits of paper back into the boxes, and they are blindfolded for this in case they accidentally get the gist of the joke and die as a result. Four people have died by voluntarily reading it in the last 100 years, and many more have backed out of reading it at the last moment.

The girl stared at us as we told her the story, then said, "I don't believe it. I am going to London tomorrow and I'm going to read that joke. It won't kill me."

The more we begged her not to throw away her young life so needlessly, the more determined she was to go there and read it.

The next morning, one of us stopped her on her way to the station and told her it wasn't true. We couldn't let her go through with it.

I think she would have been ok though, as it probably only kills people with a sense of humour.

30 comments:

  1. Replies
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    2. Smoking Whape Vomit? Should that be Whale? Is this one yours?

      Delete
    3. I've just read it - it's yours. I voted. I think you should get the typo corrected!

      Delete
    4. I voted, too. Up to four now; don't stop the momentum.

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    5. Oh you wonderful people! Thanks x

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    6. Me too. Whape vomit does it for me. :))

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  2. Replies
    1. I think you were one of them... You certainly knew the poor girl.

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    2. No doubt. I certainly remember inventing 'famous artists' and throwing their names into conversations just to see how many would agree with the judgements..... very cruel.

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    3. You could have thrown in real ones and it wouldn't have made much difference.

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  3. Haha …. you can't beat a bit of Monty.
    ….. at least you redeemed yourselves by telling her it wasn't true ! XXXX

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    Replies
    1. Only just. We couldn't believe she would really go.

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  4. I would probably survive then Tom as I quite often just don't get jokes which everyone else finds funny.

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    Replies
    1. I'm so glad you said that Weaver. I rarely think jokes are funny either. I've always wondered why that is so.

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    2. That's because they are rarely funny.

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  5. Monty Python were famous for dispensing with the need for a punch line which adds to the sketch. Their best sketches are very funny (for those who found them funny). My favourite is the Northern Playwright sketch which can be found on YouTube. I went to the O2 with my daughter to see them live last year. They weren't very funny.

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    Replies
    1. They're not funny, but they need the money. John Cleese lives in Bath now.

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    2. I did not know that - not that far from Weston-super-Mare then.

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  6. You were horrors weren't you, but Loved it.
    Merle...........

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  7. Had I But Known, Tom, all the time that I sat writing my thesis in the British Museum Library...(glad I survived in innocence, so I was able to visit NY and Crete just now)
    As to humour: what is happening in GB to your famous British Humour??? When I read that a nobel-prize winner makes an (admittedly bad) joke, he was instantly executed to social death (and his wife too!!!) I can't laugh that off...

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    Replies
    1. Yes, I agree - cannot a Nobel Prize-winning scientist of 72 years old be allowed to make one silly joke about women without ending his illustrious career in disgrace and ignominy?

      There was a woman scientist on the radio this morning who said that she often makes speeches in public where she refers to her male colleagues as 'naughty boys', etc., but it is not allowed for men to do the same these days. It is a national disgrace.

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    2. UCL have let him down. It is a cruel and ignorant decision by a bunch of lefties with no sense of humour.

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