Joke of the day, an occasional series - 3

At the risk of sounding tactless, if not out and out callous, the old chap who was apparently at death’s door a week or two ago has rallied. So there is nothing to report along those lines, whether ironical or not. I shall be seeing him this coming Wednesday night on my way back from London, and I shall do my best to cheer him up. It’s not that he is ill, simply that he is 83 and that his body is slowly packing up. I managed to cheer him up and get him to laugh again the last time I saw him, but it is so crass to chat along the lines of: ‘Look, I don't know what you’re worrying about, it might never happen’, when, in fact, it will happen and unless I end up in a horrible motorway crash tomorrow on my way to work, it will happen to him rather sooner than it will happen to me. The only thing I can do, or one of the only things I can do, is to remind him of his Anglican faith and to ensure he becomes less anxious.

Having said all that, here’s another joke to be getting one with.

The wedding reception was held at a lovely hotel and everyone agreed that it was one of the nicest occasions they had ever attended. Finally, at about two in the morning, the last few guests drifted off and the newly-wed couple retired to the honeymoon suite where they decided to have a last glass of champagne. They were discussing out the day had gone and who had been there, when the bride noticed that her new husband had grown a little silent.
‘What’s wrong?’ she asked.
‘Oh, nothing, darling, nothing at all, nothing my dear,’ he said.
‘Come on, something’s bothering you, what is is?’
‘Really, it’s nothing,’ said her husband, ‘nothing at all it’s just . . . it’ll keep, really.’
‘Look,’ said the bride, ‘tell me now. Let’s start as we mean to go on and be completely open with each other.’
‘Well . . . ah, no, it’s nothing, seriously, nothing at all, it’s just, y’know, something I’ve been wondering about, but, y’know, another time, really.’
‘Oh, for God’s sake out with it.’
‘I don’t, y’know, I don’t want to upset you.’
‘You’ll upset me if you don’t stop beating about the bush,’ said the bride, ‘now come on, out with it.’
‘Well . . . it’s just y’know, I’ve often wondered . . .’ The newly-wed man fell silent.
‘Wondered what?’
‘Well, y’know, I’ve often wondered whether, er, y’know . . .’ Again he drifted off into silence.
‘Whether what?’ the bride asked, now sounding a little impatient.
‘Well . . . OK, I’ve often wondered, y’know . . . I’ve often wondered whether, er, whether I was your first.’
The bride was silent for a moment, and then she sighed. ‘Oh God, if I had a pound for every man who’s asked me that!’

Joke of the day, an occasional series - 2

I had intended publishing my next blog entry along the lines of the imminent death of an elderly friend, how sad I was blah, blah, blah and meditations on how profoundly the demise of someone very, very close can impact on the ego, especially the sensitive, ineffably well-developed ego of the remorselessly self-centred blogger. Reflections on irony were to play a large part in that entry. However, I usually draft these entries on before publishing them and the draft to that particular entry is on another laptop (officially I have two, in fact, for reasons it would be far to tedious to go into here, I have four), so that shall have to wait until another day to be published. In the meantime I shall tell you another joke, one which has gained a certain status on the Daily Mail feature subs’ desk as ‘Pat’s Polish farmer joke’.
Here it is:

At the end of World War II when Poland gained a large chunk of the east of Germany and Soviet Russia gained a large chunk of east of Poland, the Soviet and Polish authorities set about deciding where the frontier should be between Poland and Soviet Russia. They finally agreed on a suitable frontier whose only drawback was that it went right through a Polish farmer’s property. So they called him in, sat him down and explained the situation to him. They asked him where he would rather have his farm: in Poland or Soviet Russia.
‘Oh Poland,’ he told them, ‘without a doubt, without a doubt, it has to be Poland. Those Russian winters are terrible.’

Joke of the day, an occasional series - 1

David and Maurice were two Jewish friends who had known grown up together, worked together and known each other all their lives. Now that they were both retired, they met up two or three times a week at a French cafe in North London to gossip and read their newspapers. David was always a Daily Telegraph man and Maurice preferred The Times, but one day, David is amazed to see that Maurice is reading The Flame, the newspaper of the National Front.
‘For God’s sake, Maurice, why are you reading that bloody awful rag?’
‘Oh, I don’t know, David,’ says Maurice, ‘I like The Times, but it was beginning to depress me. It was all so negative and downbeat, nothing but inflation, misery, scandal, horror, crime and disaster . But The Flame is so different, it’s much, much more positive and upbeat. Did you know that, apparently, we own all the world's banks, run Hollywood and have complete control of the White House?’

Smell of cow shit brings a promise with it

This will sound daft, but I know spring is one its way, not because January is slowly drawing to a close, but because I can smell the cow shit in the air.
I arrived back her at Higher Lank about ten minutes to midnight, and getting out of the car, the first thing I noticed was the smell of cow shit. I am not trying to be funny - for once - when I say I like the smell a great deal. (The waste from vegetarian animals simply doesn't smell offensive.)
The thing is that you can never smell the cow shit in the winter. Why, I don't know. Perhaps it is too cold, but then that can't really be the answer because last week when we had a mild smell, I still couldn't smell it. But now I can, and now I know spring is on its way.
BTW Another smell I like a lot is that of silage.

Saved from a fate worse than death — apparently

So much for winter hell on Earth. After spending more than a week away from home and seriously concerned that I would miss out on important episodes in my children’s childhood (such as discovering it is quite possible to watch TV 24 hours a day if there is no one there to curb such excess), I was determined to get back to Cornwall from work last Wednesday. Being of late rather more mature and responsible (I’m afraid it happens to us all, dammit, despite all those grass-induced late-night pledges that ‘I’m not going to grow up, man, I mean like, you know, who needs it, I mean like growing up, I mean why lay that trip on yourself, man, when there are people dying everywhere, you know, dying, just dying, and all the fatcats, you know, man, all the breadheads, are just sitting there and they don’t give a fuck man’ etc ad nauseam) I checked and double-checked the forecasts — in London, Exeter (where I would travel to by train and pick up my car), Okehampton in the middle of Dartmoor and here at home in St Breward — and did so several days running to ensure I had the very latest information. I even rang up the BP service station at Belstone, just outside Okehampton for an up-to-the-minute eyewitness account of the situation, and a guy there confirmed that the A30 was not only passable but completely free of snow. So I took off.
The first thing I noticed on my journey, or rather the first thing I didn’t notice, was snow. According to the TV news, everywhere apparently, except the small corner of West London where I live and work between Sunday and Wednesday, was several feet deep in snow. So, I asked myself looking out of the train window, where the bloody hell was it all? Where had it gone? For most certainly the TV pictures had not been faked (we have strict laws against that kind of thing — only radio phone ins and TV quizzes can be faked these days), but where was the snow?
The mystery deepened when I got to the station at Exeter St Davids. There the streets were, I must admit, a little damp — it was foggy — but incontrovertibly snow-free. The road out of Exeter to the A30 and the A30 itself were also resolutely snow-free. I did eventually get to see a little snow when I got as far as Belstone, but it was an embarrassment, nothing but small patches in the grass which couldn’t make up its mind whether it was still snow, whether it had become ice or whether it was by now something in between. Snow should be majestic. There is undoubtedly something wildly impressive when you come across a six-foot bank of freshly fallen snow, however inconvenient or even dangerous it might be. You cannot but respect it. It is there and it is beautiful. It might even move some, although not me, to try their hand at verse. But this kind of snow, the kind of whatever it was masquerading as snow on Dartmoor? It was as embarrassing as a fat man man in late middle-age reeking of nicotine and with hair which is beyond thinning who still comes on as though he were some virile he-man in his mid-20s. And for this I endured an additional three days in London? Give me a break.
Thursday and Friday the temperatures climbed and today
was as mild as any day one might enjoy in late winter or early spring. Today it is also pissing with rain which is very re-assuring. The weathermen, who completely cocked up over the ‘cold snap’ are informing us that we should not be fooled by the ‘mild spell’ and that the cold temperatures could last until well into April. Yeah, right. Sounds like a bad case of over-compensation to me. And his from the guys who promised us a ‘barbecue summer’ last year. Did we get one? Answers on a postcard, please, addressed to your nearest municipal dump.
The two pictures were taken just a few minutes ago. They show the remains of a snowman my children built. One is a general shot, the second is a — very necessary — close-up. Take especial note of the rain.
End of rant.