the laughing fit

Moosehead

2007-01-27T09:15:00.000+01:00

The following news story on the BBC news service today reminded us of "The Germans" episode from Fawlty Towers when Basil gets his head bashed by a moose, looses his senses and triggers off a series of hilarious and politically incorrect events involving Ze Germans (see picture).

Student felled by moose head sues

An American student is suing her university for negligence after a mounted moose head fell on her from a wall during a biology exam.

Amy Walters was peering through a microscope when the stuffed trophy fell, hitting the side of her head. She says she has suffered from headaches ever since, and is suing for "loss of enjoyment of life" and "embarrassment and humiliation".

Pennsylvania State University has not yet commented on the case. The accident happened at the university's biology laboratory at the Fayette campus during an exam in February 2005.

'Saw spots'

Ms Walters' complaint said there were "several wild game heads displayed on the walls about the room". The "moose head with antlers" fell from the wall, knocking Ms Walters into a chair, whereupon the hunting relic landed in her lap, it said. The impact "caused immediate pain in her head and caused Ms Walters to see spots", it said, although "after taking a moment, she was able to complete the exam".

Nevertheless, a few hours later she felt sick and reported to the university's medical facility.
She said she has continued to suffer from severe headaches since the day of the accident, and wants a jury trial to award damages. She is alleging that the "defendants were careless, reckless and negligent in failing to ensure the moose head was properly affixed to the wall".

Story from BBC NEWS.

Published: 2007/01/27 02:15:51 GMT

What's in a name?

2006-12-04T10:47:00.000+01:00

Read the plaque carefully.

Mugshot

2006-11-08T08:57:00.000+01:00

As they say in Panto... "He's behind you!"

Price of Cigarettes

2006-10-20T11:31:00.000+02:00

If the price of cigarettes goes up any more!

2006-10-05T08:50:00.000+02:00

Al Murray vs The Americans

Duh! Mericans.

Middle East

2006-10-03T09:02:00.000+02:00

Dude

2006-09-25T14:57:00.000+02:00

2006-09-21T13:23:00.000+02:00

aldo giovanni e giacomo, monaci

hilarious!

Balls

2006-09-11T10:54:00.000+02:00

Warner Brothers

2006-09-07T11:42:00.000+02:00

Not the Eurotunnel

2006-08-24T09:53:00.000+02:00

EU tunnel crossing ends in farce

By Artyom Liss
BBC News, Moscow

Two Egyptian men are awaiting trial in Russia after several attempts to burrow their way under various European borders using nothing but shoehorns.

The men - both believed to be in their 20s - started in Belarus and dug a tunnel under the border with Poland.

But once in Poland, they lost their way, ending up where they started - in front of barbed wire.

Thinking they were now looking across the German border, the pair did the trick again.

But instead of getting to Germany, they ended up back in Belarus.

Minutes later, the two men were arrested by Belorussian border guards and later sentenced to 10 days in jail.

Belarus is separated from Europe by kilometres of barbed wire, guard towers, automated sirens and powerful search lights.

Prosecutors say the would-be migrants did not go for the easy option of using a spade - apparently, they thought buying one in a shop would immediately give the game away.

The two Egyptian men travelled to Belarus from neighbouring Russia where they arrived on tourist visas a few months ago.

Second attempt

But even the prison term did not stop the pair.

When Belorussian authorities released the men and put them on a train back to Moscow, the officials were hoping that the Egyptians would never return.

But the two men got off the train hundreds of miles away from the Russian capital and decided to have another go.

This time, they chose the border between Russia and Ukraine as their starting point.

But the men clearly ran out of luck. Russian border guards arrested the Egyptians long before they got anywhere near Ukraine.

"I know it all sounds like a really bad joke," Evgeny Petrov from the Bryansk regional prosecutor's office told the BBC.

"But we've checked the story time and again, and it seems to be true! I must say, this is the weirdest way of illegally crossing the border I've ever come across," Mr Petrov said.

The migrants are now in pre-trial detention in Russia, expecting a legal hearing.

If convicted, they will have to pay a fine, and will then be extradited back to Egypt.

This time, police officers will probably escort them all the way to the departure gates of Moscow's Sheremetyevo international airport.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/europe/5279316.stm

Published: 2006/08/23 18:00:32 GMT

© BBC MMVI

Smart Ass

2006-06-29T16:33:00.000+02:00

From Reuters' Oddly Enough:

MULTAN, Pakistan (Reuters) - Fateh Mohammad, a prison inmate in Pakistan, says he woke up last weekend with a glass lightbulb in his anus.

Wednesday night, doctors brought Mohammad's misery to an end after a one-and-a-half hour operation to remove the object.

"Thanks Allah, now I feel comfort. Today, I had my breakfast. I was just drinking water, nothing else," Mohammad, a grey-beared man in his mid-40s, told Reuters from a hospital bed in the southern central city of Multan.

"We had to take it out intact," said Dr. Farrukh Aftab at Nishtar Hospital. "Had it been broken inside, it would be a very very complicated situation."

Mohammad, who is serving a four-year sentence for making liquor, prohibited for Muslims, said he was shocked when he was first told the cause of his discomfort. He swears he didn't know the bulb was there.

"When I woke up I felt a pain in my lower abdomen, but later in hospital, they told me this," Mohammad said.

"I don't know who did this to me. Police or other prisoners."

The doctor treating Mohammad said he'd never encountered anything like it before, and doubted the felon's story that someone had drugged him and inserted the bulb while he was comatose.

Never Be Rude to a Froggy

2006-06-27T11:10:00.000+02:00

The Swiss face the ex-French colony.

Translation: What? Are we playing France again? No. It's Togo

and from the mail:

********Quote of the month****************
De tous les peuples de la Gaule, les Belges sont les plus braves car les plus éloignés de la civilisation et des moeurs raffinées de la Provence [...] et les plus voisins des Germains.
Julius Caesar COMMENTARIUM DE BELLO GALLICO I,1.
*******************************************
Of all the peoples of Gaul, the Belgians are the most gallant since they lie furthest from the refined civilisation and customs of provence [...] and are the closest to the Germans. Julius Ceasar.
*******************************************

Yep. It's pick on the French week.

Public Opinion

2006-06-20T11:30:00.000+02:00

from our Finnish correspondent

The Pastor's Donkey

A pastor entered his donkey in a race and it won. The pastor was so pleased with the donkey that he entered it in the next race and it won again. The local paper read: "PASTOR'S ASS OUT FRONT." The Bishop was so upset with this kind of publicity that he ordered the pastor not to enter the donkey in another race.

The next day, the local paper headline read: "BISHOP SCRATCHES PASTOR'S ASS." This was too much for the bishop, so he ordered the pastor to get rid of the donkey. The pastor decided to give it to a nun in a nearby convent. The local paper, hearing of the news, posted the following
headline the next day: "NUN HAS BEST ASS IN TOWN." The bishop fainted.

He informed the nun that she would have to get rid of the donkey, so she sold it to a farmer for $10. The next day the Paper read: "NUN SELLS ASS FOR $10." This was too much for the bishop, so he ordered the nun to buy back the donkey and lead it to the plains where it could run wild. The next day the headlines read: "NUN ANNOUNCES HER ASS IS WILD AND FREE."

The bishop was buried the next day....

Morale of the story is .... being concerned about public opinion can bring you much grief and misery ... and even shorten your life.

So be yourself and enjoy life ..... you'll be a lot happier and live longer.

Camouflage Tent

2006-06-16T14:05:00.000+02:00

Confuse the cows... go natural!

Love Thy Neighbour

2006-06-14T13:57:00.000+02:00

Spoof Gone Sour

2006-06-02T08:56:00.000+02:00

In this day and age of attempts to perfect the spoof some dabblers in the art are failing miserably. The laughing fit reports directly from Lebanon (via CNN) where a Christian TV spoof of Hezbollah Leader Nasrallah ignited the usual fiery bunch "later... somewhere in the Middle East". Here's the news report as provided by CNN:

Hezbollah spoof sparks protests

BEIRUT, Lebanon (CNN) -- Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah urged demonstrators to return to their homes early Friday after a television program satirizing him spurred hundreds of followers to set bonfires in the streets of Beirut.

Nasrallah told Hezbollah's television network Al-Manar that he was grateful for the support, but "We care very much about stability in this country."

"I ask the demonstrators to stop their acts and go back to their families and homes," he told the network in a telephone interview.

"Your brethren in Hezbollah will follow up on this issue, so no one will be disrespected in Lebanon," he added. "But again, we don't want these feelings to be used in the wrong way."

The protests were sparked by a program on the Lebanese Broadcasting Corporation, a private Christian channel, in which an actor spoofed Nasrallah. Besides the bonfires, hundreds of Lebanese threw garbage cans and tires into Beirut streets and set them on fire.

The main road to Beirut's international airport was blocked, as was a smaller road in the popular nightclub area called Monot. The nightclubs, which had been busy, evacuated their patrons into the street.

Rita Khouri, an editor for LBCI's news division, said the network did not produce the program and did not necessarily endorse its political views. She said the show producer, Charbel Kahlil, had sent an apology to Al-Manar, which read it on-air.

Though there were no demonstrators near LBCI headquarters, government security forces erected a barricade in front of the building.

Several Lebanese predicted the demonstrations would further enflame an already tense situation on the streets. Hezbollah is designated a terrorist group by the United States and Israel but is a significant player in Lebanon's fractious politics.

Cross-border clashes erupted between Israeli soldiers and Hezbollah fighters last weekend after last week's assassination of a Palestinian militant leader in the southern Lebanese city of Sidon.

The Palestinian militant group Islamic Jihad blamed the attack on Israel, which denied involvement.

Hezbollah began firing rockets, mortars and machine guns into several Israeli towns and villages on Saturday, while Israeli warplanes pounded Hezbollah targets along the border in response.

CNN's Arwa Damon contributed to this story

From the Inbox: Zobb

2006-05-30T16:42:00.000+02:00

article received in Inbox:
Sunday, May 28, 2006
Erectile dysfunction drug importer
has hard time with Maltese translation of penis
David Lindsay

On a lighter note to the heated debate over the cost of registering medicines in Malta, and one which demonstrates the bureaucratic difficulties of the system, a medicinal importer recently described how the failure to find a suitable translation of the word “penis” into Maltese had given him and the Medicines Authority something of a hard time. Some time ago, the importer started bringing a well-known erectile dysfunction drug into Malta but, unlike other similar drugs, the product had fallen under the Europe-wide centralised registration procedure applicable to newer and hi-tech medicines.

The procedure in question necessitates the translation of the product package and informational insert into Maltese and, given the nature of the medicinal in question, the word “penis” had figured in the product literature to no small extent. But when it came to translating the word into Maltese, the importers found themselves at something of a loss and requested guidance from the Medicines Authority, which, in turn, referred the importer to the tried and tested Prof. Joseph Aquilina’s English-Maltese dictionary for clarification. But when the importers purchased the pricey reference book, they found penis translated simply as “zobb”, with no other appropriate suggestions available, and went ahead with the translation as per the dictionary definition.

But when the Authority received the translation, with penis duly translated to zobb, it recoiled at the mention of the word, considering its somewhat crass everyday usage. The Authority, however, was at a loss for a viable alternative, as was the importer. The advice of lawyers was eventually sought and the importer was informed that the Maltese courts sometimes referred to the penis as “il-metafora” (the metaphor), which was rather ambiguous for inclusion in medical literature. Unfortunately, there was no precedent as this appeared to be the first such incidence in the Maltese medicinal registration field.

Both the Authority and importer alike were stumped and the importers set about racking their brains for a solution to the problem of terminology. A great number of synonyms were bandied about, including another word used in the courts – il-gisem (the body). For want of a better solution, in the end both the importer and the Authority settled for the Italian translation of penis – “pene” for the Maltese literature. “I can only imagine what difficulties could arise if literature for a women’s health product had to be translated into Maltese,” the importer mused.

The Foul That Wasn't

2006-05-30T14:44:00.000+02:00

Getting ready to rumble. WC Final 1998 - Barthez bulldozers Ronaldo in the penalty area. For the referee there is no foul. For the crowd there can only be one result.

The Usual Suspects

2006-05-17T11:48:00.000+02:00

Global Warming

2006-05-10T11:27:00.000+02:00

Laughter: The Best Medicine

2006-05-05T11:03:00.000+02:00

Hammer & tickle
by Ben Lewis
Communism is the only political system to have created its own international brand of comedy. The standard interpretation is that communist jokes were a form of resistance. But they were also a safety valve for the regimes and jokes were told by the rulers as well as the ruled—even Stalin told some good ones

A man dies and goes to hell. There he discovers that he has a choice: he can go to capitalist hell or to communist hell. Naturally, he wants to compare the two, so he goes over to capitalist hell. There outside the door is the devil, who looks a bit like Ronald Reagan. "What's it like in there?" asks the visitor. "Well," the devil replies, "in capitalist hell, they flay you alive, then they boil you in oil and then they cut you up into small pieces with sharp knives.""That's terrible!" he gasps. "I'm going to check out communist hell!" He goes over to communist hell, where he discovers a huge queue of people waiting to get in. He waits in line. Eventually he gets to the front and there at the door to communist hell is a little old man who looks a bit like Karl Marx. "I'm still in the free world, Karl," he says, "and before I come in, I want to know what it's like in there." "In communist hell," says Marx impatiently, "they flay you alive, then they boil you in oil, and then they cut you up into small pieces with sharp knives.""But… but that's the same as capitalist hell!" protests the visitor, "Why such a long queue?""Well," sighs Marx, "Sometimes we're out of oil, sometimes we don't have knives, sometimes no hot water…"

It was in Romania, while making a film about Ceausescu, that I first stumbled across the historical legacy of the communist joke. There I learned that a clerk from the Bucharest transport system, Calin Bogdan Stefanescu, had spent the last ten years of Ceausescu's regime collecting political jokes. He noted down which joke he heard and when, and analysed his total of over 900 jokes statistically. He measured the time gap between a political event and a joke about that event, and then drew up a graph measuring the varying velocity of Romanian communist jokes. He was also able to assert—somewhat tenuously—that there was a link between jokes and the fall of Ceausescu, since jokes about the leader doubled in the last three years of the regime.

The story of Stefanescu, the statistician of jokes, was, ironically, much funnier than the jokes themselves. It seemed to capture the prosaic reality of the little man struggling against the communist universe.I was charmed.

Soon my volume of Stefanescu's Ten Years of Romanian Black Humour was joined by 30 or so other collections of communist jokes—such as Reinhard Wagner's Jokes of East Germany Volume 1-2 (1994/96), and Hammer and Tickle (1980) by Petr Beckmann. The earliest volume I found, Humour Behind the Iron Curtain, was published in 1962 by the Nazi-hunter Simon Wiesenthal, under the pseudonym Mischka Kukin. I wondered if Wiesenthal found communist jokes a diversion from the business of tracking down Nazis, or if they represented to him another struggle against injustice. I also came across a wonderfully overwritten PhD thesis by the Stanford anthropologist Seth Benedict Graham: A Cultural Analysis of the Russo-Soviet Anekdot (anekdot is the Russian word for a political joke). Graham's earnest academic language suggests the standard theory of the joke as a tool of subversion: "An important reason for the anekdot's pre-eminence was its capacity to outflank, mimic, debunk, deconstruct, and otherwise critically engage with other genres and texts of all stripes and at all presumed points on the spectrum from resistance to complicity."Graham gestures towards the Orwellian notion of the joke as "a tiny revolution."

Jokes were an essential part of the communist experience because the monopoly of state power meant that any act of non-conformity, down to a simple turn of phrase, could be construed as a form of dissent. By the same token, a joke about any facet of life became a joke about communism. There have been political and anti-authority jokes in every era, but nowhere else did political jokes cohere into an anonymous body of folk literature as they did under communism. With the creation of the Soviet bloc after the war, communism exposed itself to Czech and Jewish traditions of humour—mutating viruses to which the system never developed the right antibodies.

Some jokes that were traceable back to the Austro-Hungarian empire found their apotheosis under communism—like this one about the Hungarian communist leader Matyas Rakosi: Two friends are walking down the street. One asks the other "What do you think of Rakosi?" "I can't tell you here," he replies. "Follow me." They disappear down a side street. "Now tell me what you think of Rakosi," says the friend. "No, not here," says the other, leading him into the hallway of an apartment block. "OK here then." "No, not here. It's not safe." They walk down the stairs into the deserted basement of the building. "OK, now you can tell me what you think of our president." "Well," says the other, looking around nervously,"actually I quite like him."There's another factor that reinforces the mode of covert protest in communist jokes—the way former citizens of the communist countries felt about them. I suggested to each interviewee that most of these jokes weren't actually very funny, or at least had dated badly. How could they laugh at so many mediocre and repetitive jokes? They were outraged by the question. "Every week there was another great new joke. The strange thing is that you always asked: where do they come from? You never knew.

The author was a collective—the people," said Ernst Röhl, one of East Germany's leading satirists. "I remember, as a student, when we had to gather the harvest and we told jokes incessantly," I was told by Stefan Wolle, the author of Back in the GDR. "Then we sat in the pub until midnight telling jokes. Everyone had his special collection." "Some of these jokes are minor masterpieces," said Doina Doru, a Romanian proofreader who spent ten years checking that Ceausescu's name was spelt correctly in the daily newspaper. "What is colder in a Romanian winter than cold water?" she continued by way of illustration, "Hot water!"So far as I know, no one was executed for telling a joke. But people routinely went to prison.

The archives of the Hungarian secret police are full of the dossiers of people arrested for telling them. Day in, day out, officers of the state were taking the time and trouble to track down joke-tellers, or going out of their way to add the evidence of joke-telling to other charges, and then handing out short sentences.Perhaps the most emblematic story of the joke-as-resistance is a report of the prosecution of a joke-teller in Czechoslovakia in 1967, which I found in the archives of Radio Free Europe, the anti-communist cold war broadcaster. An arriving refugee brought the news that a worker in a liquor factory had been arrested for telling the following joke: Why is the price of lard not going up in Hungary? So that the workers can have lard on bread for their Sunday lunch.The joke had been overheard by the party secretary of the factory, who immediately reported the worker. The joke-teller was arrested on charges of "Incitement and defamation against the People's Democracy." After six hearings, the employee was fired.

The sentence was relatively lenient because the co-workers all stood by the employee, saying that the party secretary did not hear the introductory words of the joke-teller: I heard a very stupid joke yesterday…The joke wasn't very funny—the implication is that since there is no meat in the shops, Sunday roasts have been replaced by lard sandwiches. But the real story produces its own punchline. Communism was a humour-producing machine. Its economic theories and system of repression created inherently funny situations.

There were jokes under fascism and the Nazis too, but those systems did not create an absurd, laugh-a-minute reality like communism. Communist jokes were a way to criticise and outmanoeuvre the system, but they were also something more than this. They comprised a secret language between citizens—membership of a club to which the government was not invited (or so they thought). The first jokes about the Russian revolution surfaced immediately after October 1917. In one, an old woman visits Moscow zoo and sees a camel for the first time. "Look what the Bolsheviks have done to that horse!" she exclaims. As the system became harsher, a distinctive communist sense of humour emerged—pithy, dark and surreal—but so did the legal machinery for repressing it.

Historian Roy Medvedev looked through the files of Stalin's political prisoners and concluded that 200,000 people were imprisoned for telling jokes, such as this: Three prisoners in the gulag get to talking about why they are there. "I am here because I always got to work five minutes late, and they charged me with sabotage," says the first. "I am here because I kept getting to work five minutes early, and they charged me with spying," says the second. "I am here because I got to work on time every day," says the third, "and they charged me with owning a western watch."Yet there is an obvious problem with the idea that communist jokes represented an act of revolt: it wasn't just opponents of the regime who told them. Stalin himself cracked them, including this one about a visit from a Georgian delegation: They come, they talk to Stalin, and then they go, heading off down the Kremlin's corridors. Stalin starts looking for his pipe. He can't find it. He calls in Beria, the dreaded head of his secret police. "Go after the delegation, and find out which one took my pipe," he says. Beria scuttles off down the corridor. Five minutes later Stalin finds his pipe under a pile of papers. He calls Beria—"Look, I've found my pipe." "It's too late," Beria says, "half the delegation admitted they took your pipe, and the other half died during questioning."Stalin's laughter underlines the cynicism of the Soviet enterprise. But after his death the joke trials petered out.

One of Khrushchev's first acts was to release all those imprisoned for minor political crimes, which included telling jokes. In his famous secret speech to the 20th party congress, Khrushchev cracked one too. He said that Stalin would have liked to have deported all the Ukrainians, but didn't know where to put them. The stenographers recording the speech noted the reaction of the party—"laughter."In this new era, political leaders took the view that the jokes were a harmless way for people to let off steam. They believed that jokes would help people to cope with the hardships of the difficult stage of socialism, before the communist utopia arrived. They also imagined that the jokes could be used as an early warning system; problems indicated by humour could be tackled before they caused a revolution. Ilie Merce, a senior member of the Romanian Securitate, said that he used to file reports on the jokes—who was telling what—in order to convey the popular mood to the ministry of the interior.

Everyone told jokes, even the apparatchiks. Guenter Schabowski, the East German newspaper editor and later politburo member, told me: "At Neues Deutschland we told each other jokes in the canteen. We weren't blind to the failings of the system, but we convinced ourselves that this was only because it was the early days and the class enemy was perpetrating sabotage. One day, we thought, all problems will be solved and there won't be any more jokes because there won't be anything to joke about."

There were still occasional outbreaks of arrests for jokes in the 1960s and 1970s—usually linked to moments when the state felt vulnerable—when the Berlin wall was built or when there was another price hike. At these times, newspapers would publish "Outraged of Vladivostok" letters railing against the flood of jokes, like this one from Izvestia in 1964.Dear Sir, Ten days ago I went to our savings bank. In front of the clerk's window there were five people waiting for their turn. And while standing there I heard too much. There were two of them in front of me, well fed, healthy, and really well dressed… and in a public place and with an insolent casualness they were trying to outdo each other, swapping their "best" political jokes… How can I restrain myself in front of these "jokers," who tell me mockingly a "new anecdote"? Nothing is sacred to them. They spit on everything!… We have to fight them; it is necessary to discredit, shame and dishonour them in front of honest people.

With deep respect, Nikolay Kuritsin, external student, Kadykchan village. In the 1960s, the Soviet bloc was deluged by a flood of new jokes. There were around 20 subcategories. The most popular theme was the economy: One housewife to another: "I hear there'll be snow tomorrow"—"Well, I'm not queuing for that." There were jokes about Soviet propaganda: The capitalists are standing at the edge of the abyss. Soon communism will overtake capitalism. There were gags about Marxist-Leninist theory: Why is the individual placed in the centre of socialism? So it's easy to kick him from all sides.

There were jokes about communist art: What is the difference between painters of the naturalist, impressionist and the socialist realist schools? The naturalists paint as they see, the impressionists as they feel, the socialist realists as they are told. There were jokes about communist-style democracy: When was the first Russian election? The time that God put Eve in front of Adam and said, "Go ahead, choose your wife." And, of course, there were Jewish communist jokes: "Hey Hymee, how's your brother Joseph?" "He's living in Prague and building socialism." "And didn't you have a sister, Judith—how's she doing?" "She's well too—living in Budapest and creating a communist future." "And your older brother Bernie?" "Oh he moved to Israel." "And is he building socialism there too?" "What, are you crazy? Do you think he'd do that in his own country?"The point of this last gag seems to be not just to have a laugh at communism, but to shift the blame for it away from the central committees to the Jews. In other words, jokes could aid the system as well as undermine it. This, it seems, is what Graham's thesis on the meaning of the anekdot was grasping for when it described a "spectrum from resistance to complicity."

A joke could be told about Stalin, or by Stalin; it could mock both the makers of the system and its victims. A joke could be an act of rebellion or a safety valve, an expression of revulsion against the system or of familiarity, even warmth towards it.This is not to deny that the communist joke was often at its best in its dissident form. When Russian tanks rolled into Prague in 1968, the population fought back with wit. Every night graffiti appeared in Wenceslas Square with lines like "Soviet State Circus back in town! New attractions!" and "Soviet School for Special Needs Children—End-of-Term Outing."

People cracked jokes: Why is Czechoslovakia the most neutral country in the world? Because it doesn't even interfere in its own internal affairs. And: Are the Russians our brothers or our friends? Our brothers—we can choose our friends. "We showed our intellectual superiority," one former dissident told me proudly.Jokes under communism were shaped by the cultures that produced them, as they are anywhere else. For the Czechs, a sense of humour encapsulated a type of national resilience. East German jokes, meanwhile, tended to be touchingly self-deprecating. And yet there was a pan-communist umbrella of comedy that stood above national distinctions, just as the international socialist project itself did. What ultimately defined the genre was less the purpose it served than its style. T

he communist joke was by nature deadpan and absurdist—because it was born of an absurd system which created a yawning gap between everyday experience and propaganda. Yet sometimes, through jokes, both communists and their opponents could carry on a debate about the failings of communism.The logic of this discourse led to the strangest coded conflict, as the pages of the East German satirical magazine Eulenspiegel reveal. Eulenspiegel was founded in 1954 as the state's official organ of humour. There were no censorship laws, as the East Germans were so proud of telling the west. Instead the editors had to guess what kind of jokes were permissible.

Every week the magazine carried three or four pages of anti-imperialist humour, in which capitalists in top hats counted their money, GIs enslaved Africans and doves sat atop hammers and sickles. Eulenspiegel could also print anodyne comic critiques of daily life in East Germany, as long as they didn't incriminate the politburo. Ernst Röhl was able to write things like this: Man doesn't live from bread and ham alone. He needs something green. And green things have been in short supply for a long time. Cabbage has been more the subject of discussion than digestion. And the Adam's apple is the closest one gets to fruit at the dinner table. But this year Mother Nature has been particularly green. Cucumbers are no longer the shoemaker's bribe. Onions no longer raise laughs in cabaret sketches…

People like Röhl saw themselves, rather self-indulgently, as fifth columnists, eating away at the regime from the inside. But there were limits to permissible satire. Once the cover featured "young pioneers" with long hair—a decadent western fashion. The politburo was livid, but the magazine had already been sent out, so the police reclaimed all the copies they could from newsagents and post offices. Eulenspiegel once tried to make common cause with Pardon, its West German left-wing counterpart.

After all, Pardon also attacked Adenauer and American imperialism. But the editors of Eulenspiegel were stung when Pardon rebuffed their advances, on the grounds that the communist satirists should criticise their own leader, Walter Ulbricht, the same way the capitalist ones went for theirs. The editors of Euelenspiegel printed a rebuttal entitled "How do we write about Walter Ulbricht?" in 1963: "We know from various reliable sources that President Ulbricht has a terrific sense of humour… [but] the transparency and virtue of our state makes it not only difficult but simply impossible to write a satire about its representatives. Where there is nothing to uncover, the satirist will find no material.

So how do we satirists write about Walter Ulbricht?… We send our greetings and best wishes to the first secretary of the central committee. We wish comrade Ulbricht health, stamina and a long life."This article could have been satirical, but wasn't. Rather, it occupies the strange socialist space where the serious and the humorous are identical. Eulenspiegel was the only place where serious criticism of the state could be published. Readers wrote in with complaints about their leaking prefab apartments and so on, and there was a column called Erledigt (Dealt With) which celebrated the grievances that the Eulenspiegel had managed to redress, and often came with printed apologies from factory managers and landlords.

Nothing illustrates better the inverted reality of communism: real problems could only be presented in a context of laughter, presumably so that one could always claim one was only joking. In this realm, where humour turns out to be a complex social dance, the idea of the joke as simply subversive breaks down. But on this side of the iron curtain, communist jokes were only interpreted as evidence of anti-communism; their wider significance was lost. In 1950-51, a group of Harvard anthropologists undertook one of the most influential research projects of the postwar era. The US government wanted to find out how Soviet citizens might react if the US invaded Russia.

So the academics interviewed thousands of displaced Russian citizens living in camps in Germany. When asked to describe what Soviet society was like, the refugees told jokes: "Did you hear the one about the sheep who tried to leave the USSR? They were stopped at the border by a guard…." "Why do you wish to leave Russia?" the guard asked. "It's the secret police," replied the sheep. "Stalin has ordered them to arrest all the elephants." "But you aren't elephants." "Try telling that to the secret police."In the 1950s, the New York Times Magazine would devote the odd page to jokes from the Harvard project. From the 1960s onwards, volumes of communist jokes were published in paperback form in Europe and North America.

Willy Brandt was a renowned communist joke-teller, but there was one western politician who took the jokes more seriously than anyone else: Ronald Reagan. He ordered the state department to collect the jokes and send them to him in weekly memos. As a result, Paul Goble, head of the Balkan desk in the 1980s, assembled a collection of 15,000 communist jokes. Reagan often used Goble's gags in his speeches and negotiations. When Gorbachev came to Washington, Reagan told him a communist joke, later boasting at a press conference that he had laughed.

The joke, which made fun of the communist theory that a transitional era of socialism was preceding the communist utopia, went like this: Two men are walking down a street in Moscow. One asks the other, "Is this full communism? Have we really passed through socialism and reached full communism?" The other answers "Hell, no. It's gonna get a lot worse first." Communism ground on into the 1970s. Brezhnev and his geriatric cronies gave rise to some new jokes (Brezhnev reads a speech at the Winter Olympics "O-O-O-O-O." "No," his aide whispers to him, "that's the Olympic logo.") And the technology gap gave rise to others: The latest achievements of the East German electronics company Robotron were celebrated—they built the world's largest microchip. Meanwhile the state was seemingly less worried by the jokes. In Poland, the most liberal regime of them all, they even permitted communist jokes on television.Jokes did not bring down communism. That was achieved by the nonsense of its economic policies, and by the decisions of the leaders of the superpowers, east and west—in the case of Reagan, by pricing the Soviets out of the arms race; in the case of Gorbachev by glasnost and perestroika.

This much is well known—what isn't is the significance both leaders attached to communist jokes. Gorbachev knew the jokes, and like his predecessors, he told them. You can't imagine Stalin or Khrushchev telling a joke about his own unpopularity, but Gorbachev did. In 1996 he appeared on the Clive Anderson show in Britain and told this one, whose lineage can be traced back through the 20th century: A man is queuing for food in Moscow. Finally he's had enough. He turns round to his friend and says "That's it. I'm going to kill that Gorbachev," and marches off. Two hours later he comes back. "Well," says the friend, "did you do it?" "No," replies the other, "there was an even longer queue over there."Gorbachev and his aides talked openly about the jokes. In 1989 he told a crowd of workers, "political jokes were our salvation," a reference to the way the jokes let out frustrations and debunked propaganda.

As the first reforms faltered, one of his ministers warned him that if the new laws didn't work "the people would return to the bottle and the political joke." One could even argue that Gorbachev's policies liberalising the economy, press and politics were addressing the implicit complaints of decades of jokes. Exactly how communist jokes functioned politically, socially or psychologically is a question as complex as the meaning of works of art. What is self-evident, however, is that since the fall of the wall the jokes have dried up. Life just isn't as funny any more.

The vast enterprise of communism gave a universal quality to the meaning of the jokes that hasn't been replicated since its collapse. They subverted and they supported; they undermined and they prolonged. As Gorbachev's respect for the jokes and Reagan's obsession with them show, they were intrinsic to the whole communist experience. Jokes were to communism what myths were to ancient Greece: anonymous, oral stories which both represented and shaped people's views and actions.

Jokes may not have carried the weight of the great forces which ended communism, but they were more than mere figures of speech. Jokes kept alive in the minds of the citizens of the Soviet bloc the idea of an alternative reality, and they made light of four decades of occupation of eastern and central Europe. They may even explain why the end of communism was so sudden and so bloodless. No point anyone getting hurt over a little joke, right?

source: Prospect Magazine (May 2006)

History will absolve me (but not my English)

2006-04-28T00:39:00.000+02:00

Place: Museum of the Revolution, Habana, Cuba
Subject: English Translation of the "History will absolve me" speech by Fidel Castro
Memorable Quote: "they are able to fight braverly"

Funny Names

2006-04-10T11:53:00.000+02:00

Yep. He exists. Thanks to Antonio for the pic. Meanwhile yoga classes in Luxembourg are given by a certain "Francis Bender" - an inside joke perhaps?

This blog will not be updated until the 28th April for vacational reasons. Should you sill have an incredible desire to laugh we suggest you pick up a mirror near you. Nature will do the rest.

Tata.

Heard in the Hive

2006-04-06T15:43:00.000+02:00

The Laughing Fit has heard from reliable sources that President Fenech Adami's appearance on the podium at Strasbourg yesterday had a shocking effect on many Frenchies present. It seems that the frogs were astonished to see the ghost of Lionel Jospin reincarnated as head of an island state. One look at the photo above shows that they were not so much to blame... the similarity between the two is rather striking. So... who's who?

April's Fool

2006-04-01T17:46:00.000+02:00

Back at J'accuse we were busy announing a new dance stage for the weekend (well done Kenneth for smelling it out). Read the Wikipedia entry on April Fool's and in particular the list of famous hoaxes on this day. Here's the Beeb's round-up of the April Fool's pranks in the Brit media:

Has Tony Blair declared his true political colours by painting the door of 10 Downing Street red?

Has Coldplay's Chris Martin done the same by cosying up to Conservative leader David Cameron?

And, as for penguins by the Thames and roads made of biscuits: has the whole world gone mad?

Millions of newspaper readers and radio listeners will have woken up on Saturday only to be bemused or enraged by the journalist's biggest joy of the year: the April Fools' Day joke.

Notting Hill windmill

Fleet Street's finest have not disappointed with their outlandish tales and cringeworthy wordplay.

The Daily Mail shows pictures of a "socialist" red door being installed at 10 Downing Street, complete with comments from design consultant April Fewell.

If red is the new black, blue is just as en vogue with one of the world's trendiest men.

The Guardian has Coldplay's lead singer, Chris Martin, agreeing to release a version of one of the band's hits in an effort to persuade young people to vote Conservative.

The song Talk has been renamed Talk to David, after Mr Martin's actress wife Gwyneth Paltrow met party leader David Cameron's other half Samantha at a yoga class.

Mr Martin, an environmental campaigner, reportedly turned to the Tories after seeing a wind turbine on the roof of Mr Cameron's Notting Hill home.

Sing for your shopping

He is quoted as saying: "I realised that whatever Labour said about Kyoto, you were never going to see a windmill on the roof of No 10."

Also on a musical theme The Times's Alexi Harpor (April Hoaxer?) describes the joy of "chip and sing" cards.

From 2009, customers will be encouraged to belt out tunes in supermarkets rather than type in a code they can easily forget.

Apparently, the singing voice is more difficult to forge than anything else - except, maybe, a newspaper article.

The Daily Mirror shows an oak tree with "abnormal growths" in the shape of the Queen, the Duke of Edinburgh and the Prince of Wales.

But the exact location is being kept secret "because of fears it could attract druids".

On a sadder note, The Sun shows a lone jackass penguin strolling along the south bank of the Thames, having been accidentally taken from his Antarctic home by fishermen.

Straining the credulity of even the most gullible reader, it quotes "one joker" as say the creature was "popping into Savile Row to p-p-pick up his penguin suit for a black tie do".

Ode to anger

But perhaps the most blood-boiling effort this year comes from BBC Radio 4's Today programme.

After months of protests at the station losing its UK Theme - a medley of British tunes which woke up listeners for more than 30 years - it reports a specially composed Euro Theme is to replace it.

It includes a snippet of Beethoven's Ode to Joy, accordion music and the theme tune from the Dutch-based 1970s detective drama Van Der Walk.

Today proudly announced the latter was the "quintessence of Holland", as listeners up and down the UK almost choked on their cornflakes.

Wit in the Commons

2006-03-31T09:50:00.000+02:00

Heard in the Commons: Deputy PM Prescott was standing in fro PM Blair at question time. Prescott does have a reputation for a rather loose command of English grammar and it appears that this time round he had been trained and groomed for a couple of days in order to avoid an embarassing scene. Not much hope unfortunately... in answer to a question by former Tory Leader William Hague about council tax and pensioners, Prescott answered like so:

“That I think is what we have done, that is what we continue to do and, as for the argument about the payment of the council tax, let me tell him and he must know again in the comparison between our Government and his Government, that we gave in the response 39 per cent increase in real terms in council tax compared to the last five years of which he had some influence where there was an actual reduction of 7 per cent in real terms of contribution to councils for their council tax.”

To which William Hague retorted:

"I think there was so little English in that answer, President Chirac would have been happy with it."

... and the Chamber erupted.

The Laughing Lute : Habemus Capa

2006-03-30T12:18:00.000+02:00

Caparezza. We love this artist. The rapper from Puglia is back with a new album called "Habemus Capa". Another wordsmith with social messages mixed into pleasant tunes that are catchy and funny. Would merit the description of "loony tuner" if he did not have so much to say about life.

Purchase advice: Steal it if you cannot afford it
Don't buy it if: You are prejudiced against all thing rap
Listen to it carefully: if you love wordplays in italian

Settimana enigmistica transformed into rap... enjoyable!

London exhibit showcases long history of satire

2006-03-29T16:16:00.000+02:00

THIS JUST IN FROM REUTERS:

Wed Mar 29, 2006 8:39 AM ET
By Leah Eichler

LONDON (Reuters) - Caricatures are meant to provoke -- and sometimes they can turn deadly, as the furor surrounding the Prophet Mohammed cartoons has shown. But London satirists today tend to attack prejudice itself, says Mark Bills, curator of "Satirical London", a new exhibit at the Museum of London.

The exhibit, which opens on April 1 and runs until September 3, examines the long history of satire in the city, with over 350 images from the last three centuries. One example is an caricature of a memorial to Jean Charles de Menezes -- the Brazilian electrician shot dead last year at a London underground station by police officers who suspected him of being a suicide bomber. The image features rifles arranged like a bouquet of flowers and a sign that reads: "You looked a bit Middle Eastern, son."

Highlights of the exhibit include the first cartoon ever published in Punch magazine in 1843 and an authentic store front of Mrs. Humphrey's, a noted 18th century print shop.

SAME TARGETS
The targets of satire have been consistent throughout the years -- politics, the monarchy, the Church and the art establishment -- although attitudes toward them have varied over time.
Politicians have always been in the firing line. Puppet heads, including ones of former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and the Queen Mother from the television show "Spitting Image," will be the most recognizable images in the exhibit.

The show, which ended in 1996 after a 12-year run, featured unflattering puppet heads of popular politicians and international figures."It's part of the territory when you're a politician," said Bills. "It's a sign of vanity and ego if you can't take the knocks."

He said that although the artistic merit of the satirists was quite high, many felt excluded by the art world and were metaphorically banging at the window of the Royal Academy. "There was a great divide between those considered artists and satirists. High art in this period (18th and 19th century) was about lofty ideals whereas satire was very much about reality and every day imperfections," said Bills.

Because of this great divide, many caricaturists aspired to be more traditional artists in order to gain the recognition they thought they deserved -- but most did not succeed. Although there are only a couple of historic religious caricatures in the exhibit, Bills points out that the vitriol of London satirists often focused on other city stereotypes, such as bankers, alcoholics and prostitutes.

"If you have a look at national stereotypes, a big thing in satire, those could be very prejudiced viewpoints," he said. The Danish cartoon riots showed how powerful satire can be. "There are always taboos," he said. "Sometimes the only way you can tell the line is by treading around it."

Air Malta Customer Delighted

2006-03-27T17:45:00.000+02:00

Joe Cappello, Air Malta's Chief Operating Officer was beside himself with enthusiasm when launching the new Summer Schedule. "This summer will be an exciting season for Air Malta and its Customers" said Joe. The number of destinations and frequencies have been increased. Government will decide later today whether doors (or skies) will be opened for low-cost airlines.

In an interview after Cappello's press conference one of Air Malta's fourteen remaining customers said that he was as excited as his uncle Joe and was looking forward to flying Air Malta this summer after he has saved up his first fourty pounds to clear the taxes.

picture: barfmalta.

Black Man Walking

2006-03-25T09:38:00.000+01:00

It appears that 90 illegal immigrants being held in detention in Floriana managed to stage a "mass escape" that was well timed for the visit of EU MPs currently touring detention centres. As we try to see the comic in the tragic (not much left to laugh about) we find this piece in the Times particularly notable for its tragi-comic content:

"All officers available at the time were immediately mobilised and the immigrants were apprehended in Floriana, Sa Maison, Portes des Bombes and the Valletta Waterfront, among other places. Five others were intercepted at the former opera house site.

The escape caused a lot of commotion among passers-by, with some individuals heard calling out for the immigrants to be "burned in the square". Others said the migrants should be grateful they were being hosted in Malta in the first place.

The police were evidently overwhelmed by the mass escape, and at one point they were seen stopping black pedestrians who, as it turned out, had nothing to do with the escape."

Malta? Racist? Qed tifhem?

Mind Your Language

2006-03-24T15:38:00.000+01:00

OUR COMMENTS IN CAPS:

President Jacques Chirac said on Friday he had been so shocked to hear a fellow Frenchman speak English at a European Union summit the previous day that he had felt compelled to leave the room.[A BREAK TO TAKE A PISS?]

"I have to say I was profoundly shocked to see a Frenchman express himself in English at the (EU) Council table [SHOCKED AT THE LANGUAGE OR THAT A FRENCHIE COULD ACTUALLY SPEAK ANGLAIS?]. That's why the French delegation and myself walked out rather than listen to that, [THAT BEING A LANGUAGE OF A FELLOW MEMBER STATE]" Chirac told reporters.

Chirac said France had fought for a long time to ensure that French was spoken and used within multinational institutions, from the European Union and United Nations to the Olympic Games [AND IT STILL IS.].

"It is not just national interest, it is in the interest of culture and the dialogue of cultures. You cannot build the world of the future on just one language and, hence one culture. [YEAH, WE CANNOT ALWAYS SPEAK FRANCAIS MONSIEUR LE PRESIDENT]"

French once dominated the EU, but English has overtaken it since the bloc expanded to take in Nordic countries in the 1990s and east European members in 2004 [YES, NOW WE ALL SPEAK THE ENGLISH YES?].

Chirac, flanked by his foreign and finance ministers, quit the summit chamber on Thursday when Ernest-Antoine Seilliere, head of a European business lobby, switched from French to English during a speech to EU leaders [TUT TUT].

Chirac missed Seilliere urging leaders to "resist national protectionism in order to avoid a negative domino effect" in the EU's internal market, a veiled criticism of France and others who have tried to block cross-border takeovers.

English, French and German are the working languages of the 25-nation bloc, which has no single official language. All 20 languages of the member states are used at summits, ministerial meetings and in the European Parliament [MALTA STILL LACKS INTERPRETERS... BUT THAT IS ANOTHER STORY].

We hold this truth self-evident

2006-03-23T09:12:00.000+01:00

Penis Envy

2006-03-15T15:59:00.000+01:00

This is a picture of a "fossa", the creature that is dubbed "The Pink Panther of Madagascar". It is a cousin of the Lion but has its own reasons to feel King. According to today's Times, the fossa has the larges penis bone of all the cat'like species. An adult fossa is about 3 and a half feet long and has a penis of about 7in, a sixth of its body length. "If man had the same ratio he would be 3ft tall and very smug" the Times continues.

The fossa's mating sessions last about eight hours and the penis bone is thought to assist the male during this time as a sort of natural Viagra. Just in case male readers were getting overly jealous of the feline phallus please note the additional info: "Like the domestic cat, the fossa's member has spikes that make withdrawal a painful and long drawn-out business. Equally wincingly, the bacula can easily break."

Still purring?

the laughing lute #2

2006-03-14T11:30:00.000+01:00

They are to France & Belgium what Kusturica and the No Smoking Orchestra is to the Balkans. And they are fun.. Today's recommendation is Les Ogres de Barback!

SALUT À VOUS
La plus jolie est à Cergy, la plus à l’aise est Angolaise,
Elles ont le teint doux à Moscou et la peau sèche à Marrakech.
Elles se la coulent douce à Kaboul, se destressent à Los Angeles
Elles ont du cran à Téhéran et du bagou à Katmandou

Pour les attirer à Sydney, on se les bataille à Shanghai
On leur ment un peu à Saint-leu pour une nuit à Philadelphie !
Y’des mignonnes à Barcelone, des amours à Saint-Pétersbourg,
Qui à mon cou se pendent à Ostende, comme des vraies dames à Amsterdam !

Elle sont si bonnes, c’est à Lisbonne, elles nous sourient toutes à Paris,
Elles sont coquines à Argentine, sont si bien roulées à Lomé.
Elles ont la classe en Honduras, elles ont le temps à Erevan
Bien fournies en Californie, beau bas du dos à Santiago,

Tu les aimes à Jérusalem, tu les bénis Alexandrie
Tu les adores dans les Comores et les chéris à Miami
C’est l’idéal à Montréal, c’est élégant à Abidjan
De leur faire le coup à Guangzhou du séducteur en Équateur !

Elles sont mortelles à la Rochelle, elles sont canon bien sûr à Lyon
Elles ont du pot à Mexico et elles ont du vice à Tunis
Elles ont des aires à Buenos Aires de princesse d’ex-URSS
Elles vont et s’en reviennent à Vienne pour t’enlacer tout près d’Alger

Mais jamais, au grand jamais, je n’en ai vu de plus mûre
Que celle-là, un soir de mai, dans cette rue de Saumur.

Elles nous emmènent tout près d’Athènes parler des chemins de Dublin
Nous faire envie à Varsovie, nous faire la cour à Singapour
Y’a des matins, c’est à Pékin et y’a des soirs, c’est à Dakar
Une journée de rêve à Genève, un mois magique à Mozambique

Quand elles assurent, c’est à Namur, qu’elles sont tip-top, c’est à Saint-Trop’
Qu’elles ont du chien, c’est à Holguin ou qu’elle sont chiennes, c’est à Cayenne
Elles ont des ballades à Bagdad, hallucinantes au bord de Nantes
Ça porte chance au port de France, ça vaut de l’or à Salvador

Elles sont pulpeuses, c’est dans la Creuse, elles sont fruitées à Yaoundé
Goût caramel dans les Seychelles ou bien goût vanille à Séville
Tout juste amères si c’est au Caire, bien comme il faut à Santiago
Un peu sucrées à San José, goût chocolat c’est à Lima

Presque parfaites à Nazareth, pas déçu à Honolulu
T’en seras fier dans le Cap-Vert et toujours content à Oran
De les avoir à Zanzibar, tout près de toi à Panama
Rendre la vie belle à Bruxelles et le destin beau à Tokyo

C’est un délice au cœur de Nice, c’est du bonheur derrière Honfleur
C’est du plaisir à Agadir, c’est de la joie à Bogota«
Quand elles sortent le grand jeu à Dreux, qu’elles se la jouent stars à Mostar »
Quand elles déchirent tout à Wenzhou ou qu’elles cartonnent à Washington !

Mais jamais, au grand jamais, je n’en ai vu de plus mûre
Que celle-là un soir de mai, dans cette rue de Saumur.

Elles sont sauvages dans mon village, civilisées où je suis né
Pas peur des mots dans mon hameau mais, ma foi, gentilles dans ma ville
Des têtes à claques dans ma baraque puis des petites là où j’habite
Parfois des anges derrière ma grange ou des démons dans ma région…

Salut à vous…

Captionise it #1

2006-03-13T15:45:00.000+01:00

What caption for this pic?

Finn Athlete Packs it Tight?

Finn Chances Hang on a Thread?

Mikko Pantstootighten?

Send in your suggested caption for this pic.

Click on comments

Humour Emeritus

2006-03-11T10:29:00.000+01:00

Bishop Emeritus Nikol Cauchi contributes to our encyclopaedia on humour. We loved it and we reproduce it in whole since it will vanish from the ether soon and we do not want that do we? (our highlights)

Sense of humour

Bishop Emeritus Nikol Cauchi

I sometimes wonder whether primitive man had any literary tastes, though it is more likely he was too busy devouring some husk or other since his overriding concern was survival. There is some risk of modern man losing his liking for poetry and art too, due to his eagerness to gain maximum advantage from technological progress. But at least there are still a handful of people, young and old, who can spare some time and energy for reading. And they will be aware that several of their favourite authors show a vein of humour in their writings.

In the history of Western European literature, there are some authors and poets who made a name for themselves through their frequent use of humorous expressions. They do not shun parody, sarcasm and satire. Their aim is not solely to amuse their readers - and much less to vent anger or hate - but also to deliver a useful message to their readers which may help to reform or improve social living.

Take, for example, Cervantes, the author of Don Quixote, who ridiculed the ostentation of pomp and chivalry of his age, and Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam, who directed the following words at his erudite friend Sir Thomas More: "In response to the charge of sarcasm, I reply that this freedom has always been permitted to men of wit, that in their satire they make fun of common behaviour of men, with impunity, as long as their freedom does not go to an extreme". This was more than four centuries ago.

A sense of humour in some quarters may be as rare as common sense - two human characteristics that even in our country are a bit of a luxury - though surely if they were more abundant people would lead a happier life. A sense of humour is a reality which beats every definition and it bears a slight resemblance to mercy because it benefits both the giver and receiver. I have to admit that I enjoy meeting people with a jovial nature, and have often felt awkward during encounters with those who display a lack of it.

According to the common saying, everybody likes a joke. But there are countless exceptions to this sweeping remark. It is closer to the truth to say that some people are so devoid of a sense of humour that they can hardly understand a light-hearted remark, or, worse still, are offended by it.

Someone once said: "Laugh and the world laughs with you; Weep, and you weep alone". But, strangely enough, some individuals seem more content to cry than being provoked into a smile. A sense of humour is an ingredient of our western culture that seems to become more deep-rooted as the standard of education rises; but I entertain doubts as to whether this process is happening in other cultures. An innocent joke, a witty expression or some gentle leg-pulling which is gladly accepted by one group of people may be highly offensive to others.

It would be do an enormous amount of good if more and more people from various cultures would be able to appreciate a harmless joke, and display a sense of humour. In certain situations only dialogue can lead to better understanding and bilateral tolerance. The need for this is badly felt in every place that people meet and live - in the family, industrial relations, and even in international forums. Provided that there is goodwill on both sides, a sense of humour cannot fail to make discussions smoother and more fruitful. It could also, perhaps, improve inter-cultural relations, and avert clashes of civilisations.

There is a simple prayer on the wall at Chester Cathedral that has often been a source of inspiration for me: "Give me a sense of humour, Lord! Give me the grace to see a joke, to get some happiness in life, and pass it on, to other folk". Perhaps it can inspire a few others too.

[This article appeared in the Times of Malta online on the day of Local Council Elections 11.03.06 in the Talking Point column]

inbox #1 : Zex Bomb

2006-03-10T12:38:00.000+01:00

received: 10.03.06
sender: k.briet

Numbers

2006-03-09T22:39:00.000+01:00

0 D: 0 P: 0 L

"the beginning of time"

More Potty Business

2006-03-09T12:15:00.000+01:00

After Anglu we have Zeppi. This time the one to get the joke is the accused. Read the article in full to get the fun of the joke at the end.

From Di-ve:

Zeppi il-Hafi Assaulted by Inmates

VALLETTA, Malta (di-ve news) -- March 08, 2006 -- 2030CET - Joseph Fenech, better known as Zeppi l-Hafi, told a court how five inmates assaulted him because he wanted to stop them dealing in drugs in prison. The five inmates, Silvio Buttigieg, 31, Jamal Muftah Sale Belhhrs, 32, Maurizio Massimiliano, 36, Eusebio Busuttil, 38, and Marco Pace, 36, are all accused of assaulting and injuring Fenech on the 11th of January 2006 around 1100CEST.

In front of Magistrate Antonio Mizzi, Fenech, 49, of Kappara, said that 13 out of the 15 prisoners in Division 5 were all taking drugs. When asked whether he intends to drop the charges brought against them, Fenech refused, saying that he wants all legal proceedings to continue against them. Fenech recalled that when he entered Division 5, he smelled smack and alleged that the room, which was supposed to be used as a gym, was in fact empty and everyone used it for drug-taking.

Fenech also complained about the excessively dirty showers, saying that these are so dirty that a prison warden was infected while cleaning them. Fenech then said that in an argument he had with the five inmates, he told them to go and clean up "and not just to take drugs". Eusebio Busuttil called him a "traitor" and Fenech told them that he will report them to the major about drug abuse. Il-hafi went on saying that the accused then started a conspiracy against him which finally led to an assault which left him lightly injured. The five were later sent to Division 6.

Fenech said that he wanted to stop drug abuse in prison. To this statement, the accused burst into laughter, saying that Fenech was lying. The hearing continues on the 6th of April.

Pot calling the Kettle Black

2006-03-09T10:38:00.000+01:00

Labour MP Anglu Farrugia is an expert in violent criminal matters. So we do not understand why we get a giggling fit when we read the following article in the Times. Look out for a comment by Daphne Caruana Galizia on this matter. Definitely.

from today's Times:

Minister 'physically attacks' man, 76
Labour MP Anglu Farrugia yesterday demanded that the police investigate an incident in which, he said, Rural Affairs Minister George Pullicino physically attacked the president of the Progressive Farmers' Cooperative, Joe Farrugia.

Dr Farrugia said in an adjournment speech in Parliament that the incident happened outside the facility where the crates of the Ta' Qali vegetable market are washed.

He said the minister had been shouting at the workers and when Mr Farrugia, 76, asked him to stop, the minister shouted that that was not the way to speak to a minister. He then grabbed Mr Farrugia from the back and neck, shook him "and could have killed him."

The incident happened in the presence of four people, and Dr Farrugia said he was therefore insisting that Police Commissioner John Rizzo should immediately investigate and arraign Mr Pullicino to face criminal charges.

It was shameful that the minister had acted in this way simply because an elderly man had told him that if he was going to continue to shout, he was stupid (cuc). Ministerial arrogance had exceeded all limits, Dr Farrugia said.

Sexist Humour

2006-03-08T18:07:00.000+01:00

Happy Women's Day !

60's Cigarette Ad

2006-03-06T16:56:00.000+01:00

*credits: g. roberts

the laughing lute #2 : Innuendos

2006-03-05T13:25:00.000+01:00

"Like a scrotum here it is in a nutshell". Ever since I heard the Bloodhound Gang's "discovery channel" song I have liked the band. For their spunk, for their careless lyrics which are for what matters excellent examples of hundreds of innuendos thrown into rhyming couplets and shot out at the speed of a kalashnikov's bullets leaving the barrel. They are incredible. their command of double-entendres is sans pareil and it takes about a hundred hearings of each of their songs to make sure that you have not missed out any of thier jokes. One for the Fuhrer, One for the Pope, The Inevitable Return of the Great White Dope. Offensive lyrics? Of course. Funny... definitely.... and can be also stomach churning. Musical purists will turn their stiff noses at this kind of band. I find this posturing unacceptable - they are obviously not Beethoven or the Killers but what the heck... they make me spend a good hour or so with every cd they produce.

So keep them rolling, And if you do not like it then:

FOXTROT UNIFORM CHARLIE KILO . YANKEE OSCAR UNIFORM.

enjoy:

Vulcanize the whoopee stick
In the ham wallet

Cattle prod the oyster ditch
With the lap rocket

Batter dip the cranny ax
In the gut locker

Retrofit the pudding hatch
Ooh la la
With the boink swatter

If i get you in the loop when I make a point to be straight with you then
In lieu of the innuendo in the end know my intent though
I brazillian wax poetic so pathetically
I don't wanna beat around the bush

Foxtrot Uniform Charlie Kilo
Foxtrot Uniform Charlie Kilo

Marinate the nether rod
In the squish mitten

Power drill the yippee bog
With the dude piston

Pressure wash the quiver bone
In the bitch wrinkle

Cannonball the fiddle cove
Ooh la la
With the pork steeple

Foxtrot Unifrom Charlie Kilo
Foxtrot Uniform Charlie Kilo

Put the you know what in the you know where
Put the you know what in the you know where
Put the you know what in the you know where
Put the you know what in the you know where pronto

The Laughing Lute #1

2006-03-02T10:53:00.000+01:00

The Laughing Fit brings you the first musical suggestion of the season. Any season will do. Sraight from the land of Deutschland we propose that you purchase (or download from iTunes) The Robocop Kraus' album - They Think They Are The Robocop Kraus.

While their music may not be everyon's cup of tea I am particularly fond of their lyrics. They play with words in a lornesque fashion. Check out "In Fact You're Just Fiction" for a sample of that. Enjoy the tune. For it is a tune.

From The Phoenix Review:
"Kinetic grasshopper melodies, sing-song vocal lines and group chant choruses, perky and bright synthesizer licks, skewed rhythms, and outbursts of power-strummed guitars all serve slyly cynical but inoffensive lyrics that rant and wonder about religion, terrorism, and life’s banalities and amazing improbabilities. If that sounds like Talking Heads, Devo, and Kraftwerk tumbled into a cosmic blender, well, so do the Robocop Kraus. Even better, their occasional funky underpinnings have a distinctly white European brittleness that comes off as geeky charm."

Greatest Maltese Blogger of Disrepute

2006-02-28T23:52:00.000+01:00

We interrupt this series dedicated to a dictionary of comedy in order to award the Madame in Charge of the Blog called Out Loud and Proud with this Oscar. The jury unanimously agreed that her unshamefaced plea for a prize as well as her "couldn't be arsed approach" to all things blog earned her the much coveted prize. She also posseses a colourful sense of humour with a few tints of sexual not so innuendos. The jury wonders out loud (and not so proud) as to the nature of the blogger's sexual deviance and hopes that our Wild Oscar that is being awarded will cause the Madame to post a photo of her in yet another flagrantly provocative pose ... a mooney would do!

Meanwhile C.S. is allowed to cut and paste the above photo award and display it on her site as the GMBD Award 2006 (with acknowledgement as to the awarding site of course). We do not really expect her to do it... but bollocks to that anyway. May all her dildos fall flabbily on the wayside. And as an afterthought... the Black Russian guise was fantastic...

Buffone

2006-02-24T09:30:00.000+01:00

A buffoon: a ridiculous but amusing person. From the buffone or court jester. The most serious courts of Europe required a buffoon to alleviate the tedious pedanticism of mundane life. Said the Earl of Rochester to the King:

Poor Prince

Thy prick, like thy buffoons at Court

Will govern thee because it makes thee sport

Shakespeare chose to put some of the noblest words in the mouths of buffoons. The most famous of them all is Jaques in As You Like It. Here, for your amusement is the whole soliloquy that made Jacques immortal! By the way the photo is of a certain Pablo de Valladolid - a court buffoon in Madrid. Painting by Velazquez (1636-7) now lies in the Prado.

Jacques: All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances,
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. At first, the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms.
Then the whining schoolboy, with his satchel
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
Made to his mistress' eyebrow. Then a soldier,
Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the canon's mouth. And then the justice,
In fair round belly with good capon lined,
With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws and modern instances;
And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slippered pantaloon
With spectacles on nose and pouch on side;
His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide
For his shrunk shank, and his big manly voice,
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion,
Sans teeth, sans eyes,sans taste, sans everything.

(As You Like It, 2. 7. 139-167)

Ximjotta

2006-02-23T10:57:00.000+01:00

A is for Ape
And X is for.... ximjotta. To copy. To mimic (most times in jest). A typical, slapstick way of causing merriment. Remember the times as a kid when you all walked behind the old man imitating his way of walking? Aping can be like caricaturising - it will thus bring out the ugliest, most prominent traits or ticks of the victim.

Never, ever call the discworld librarian (picture) an Ape or Monkey. He tends to get violent and could let loose a few punches. In case of trouble just give him a banana and he'll stay quiet for a while.

Right no more of this monkey business. Next up we will talk about the letter B like Buffu, Buffone, Buffon (ouch not very nice yesterday).

Ook!

Listening to: The Monkees
Eating: A Banana

Ditto (jew idem)

2006-02-13T16:51:00.000+01:00

Which wankellectual do you want to be today?

Kill Your Idols... the Xifer Spoof

2005-11-23T17:32:00.000+01:00

Imiss il-parodija tas-serjetà. Trid toqghod attent. Ghax il-linja bejn ic-cajt u s-serjetà hija dejqa u facilment irriversibbli. U hawn elit li c-cajt ikollu jgharblu u jaghzel fejn huwa accettabbli u fejn mhux. Elit personali li johloq ir-regoli tal-loghba hu stess u mita taqbizlu jitfa' l-ikbar tantrum. Dak ta' "ghax meta taqbizli imbaghad ma nibqax nirraguna". Imma forsi jekk titfaghlhom il-muzika ta' Morrisssssssssssssssssssssssssgay f'widnejhom u xi gelato Algida u lejla ma tfajla Litwano-Baltiko-Italo-Hispanika jistghu bil-mod jergghu ghal normal. Imma imbaghad ikun tard wisq. Ghax la taqbez taqbez. U l-maskra taqa'. Tkun hrabt mill-elit tgahna, tal-pulcinelli li nittantaw ix-xemx u l-qamar ghal ma' l-elit intokkabbli li partu id-dahka sinciera u c-cajta ferriegha ghal dik makkinuza u inerta. Tkun tlaqt lill-Benigni biex sibt lil Hector Bruno. Ghax iva... illum qed nghixu iz-zmien tal-politically correct fejn mhux suppost tghid dak li tahseb imma trid tghid dak li jrid jisma' haddiehor. Bilfors. M'humiex armi kimici imma ghodda ta ' illuminazzjoni. M'humiex partiggjani imma partitarji. M'humiex ipokriti imma politikanti. M'humiex halja imma ekonomisti. M'humiex zombies imma bnedmin.

Xi drabi jekk tersaq wisq lejn it-tarf taf taqa' l-isfel, isfel, isfelu ma tergax lura.... imma x'jien nghid... il-pulcinell qajla ikollu ragun.

And now Zemploid....

2005-11-14T12:00:00.000+01:00

the next victim of my experimental blog is the Zemploider.

Not much to do. Just click on choose template and hey-presto... a lawyer's blog is suddenly mine. I can afford to joke about lawyers being anal and all that... it's all about professional courtesy. But any non-lawyer trying to crack the same will not be tolerated.

so three cheers for zemploid the haemorrhoid android.

ah yes... the real deal can be found at http://zemploid.blogspot.com/

Zemploid's Orbit indeed.

the Spoof is here

2005-11-11T17:17:00.000+01:00

This page is the result of the continuing tests to change the look of J'Accuse. It currently sports a spoof of Fausto's website. Clever eh? I am sure Fausto will get the joke and not take offence... if not... no worries it will soon vanish (and oh... apologies).