Friday 15 November 2013

2000 year-old joke


I ran into an old friend in town yesterday, and he was on his way to buy a start-up disc to set up a website, not knowing how to do it any other way.

As a 'painter and writer' of over retirement age (yes, he does actually paint and write), he thought he deserved more recognition than he gets at present, and a website seemed to him the obvious way of getting it quickly.

Yes, I know what you are thinking - that there are about 50 million other writers and painters who have long since found out that having a website does not necessarily get you the attention you so richly deserve, but my friend has always been an optimist who lacks any shred of self-doubt when it comes to his artistic abilities.

He already has an inkling that many others have gone down the route of self-publication on the net before him, so he has another cunning little plan up his sleeve.

As well as being an optimist, he has always flirted dangerously with contention as a means to attract attention, but he is - or was -  a bull of a man with a barrel chest and hands like bunches of bananas, so this - coupled with an apparent immunity to physical pain - meant that he usually came out on top if the attention he received got a bit nasty, which it sometimes did.

The title of his first bulletin, he proudly told me, is going to be 'Jesus was the first zombie'. This, he thinks, will both attract the most extreme nutters out there on the web, and also tap in to the current world-wide obsession with zombies in general.

I asked him if he was aware that most well-established websites spend a lot of time and effort in trying to deter the sort of maniacs who would be bound to latch on to a title with this sort of content, and he said something like 'all publicity is good publicity'. Like I say, he hasn't much experience of running a website.

"In any case," I helpfully suggested, "Jesus wasn't the first zombie."

"Who was then?"

"Lazarus."

The title, 'Lazarus was the first zombie - created by Jesus' wasn't catchy enough for him, especially since Mary Shelley got there about 200 years before, right here in little old Bath.

Also, in getting the above image, I have discovered that - inevitably - about 50 million other people have had the same idea long before my optimistic friend.

8 comments:

  1. As I was reading your blog this morning I was thinking how funny you would find the latest Toronto Mayor Rob Ford fiasco. Don't know if you can watch this from the UK, but if you can you will find this really funny. http://www.ctv.ca/DailyShowwithJonStewart.aspx It's the second segment about our Mayor Rob Ford.

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    1. Funnily enough, I was going to write a post about the strange way that mayors on the North American continent have a fondness for crack cocaine.

      I'll look up that link.

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    2. It will let me watch as many crappy adverts as I like, but not the actual interview...

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    3. Try this one. http://www.thestar.com/news/city_hall/2013/11/14/rob_ford_admits_drinking_and_driving_says_hell_sue_former_staffers.html

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  2. Your banana-fisted friend should take a leaf from my book. He should feign total disinterest in notoriety and sales, and he'll not be disappointed.

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  3. Replies
    1. You're late - too busy wiping slivers of shit out of cracks in floorboards, I dare say.

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