I knew I took this photo for a reason! Just for Pun!
A balanced diet?
Tag: Comedy
Quote
I read the book this quote was in, I think it’s got the character Granny Weatherwax in it, (who often holds a sign when she’s possessing another animal and leaves an apparently lifeless body, “I ain’t dead yet”) but I can’t for the life of me which Terry Pratchett book it is in, (he wrote so many). I recommend him as a funny fantasy writer.
He died a few years ago of a form of alzheimers disease. I miss his cheerful and intelligent books so much I just wanted to share his words.
Sarcastic humour
I wanted to explain sarcasm, then I saw this sign! British people are quite sarcastic also called ‘sarcy’ ‘taking the pis*’, ‘taking the pee’ ‘taking the mik’or ‘mikky’. We often love to make a sarcastic joke of things. For instance pointing out trump means to fart loudly (break wind) in this country. We find that amusing.
I think some countries just don’t get it, their humour is more literal. That may go to explain why it can be harder to understand each other’s languages and empathise with each other.
Some parts of Britain can be even more sarcastic I think the Midlands are particularly like this? They play with word sounds and make puns and skits that will cause fits of laughter for some but not others. It’s good to have a laugh!
Monty Python!
What makes you laugh?
I wanted to find an image to represent Monty Pythons Flying Circus, but WordPress doesn’t have any pictures of it and I couldn’t find an image I was able to share from Google.
Monty Python was on British TV from 1969 to 1974. I wasn’t allowed to watch it when it was first shown because I was too young. But I saw and enjoyed it later on.
It’s cast, Terry Jones, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, Michael Palin, John Cleese and Graham Chapman, together with other actors and comedians created an anarchic, silly and surreal brand of humour, consisting of a series of sketches, often with a running joke threaded through them. Often the sketch would peter out and a cartoon foot would come down from a precenium arch and squash the characters. That is what my illustration is about.
Notable sketches included the dead parrot sketch about a pet shop selling a Norwegian blue parrot which was actually dead, also a dance where two men dressed in uniform take it in turns to slap each other in the face with fish, one eventually falls into the sea. Hells grannies was about a gang of frightening grandmother’s who terrorise a town. They all made me howl with laughter.
Once the TV series stopped the pythons made films like The Life of Brian, The Meaning of Life, and Monty python and the Holy Grail. The cast aso made their own separate films for instance a Fish Called Wanda and Time bandits among others.
As this is a long time ago you might not of heard of them. Go look them up. It’s worth it!
Red nose day in the UK
Back in 1985 several comedians got together and started raising funds for charity. A few years later it became a biannual fundraising event for people in the UK and around the world. The comedian Lenny Henry was at the forefront of the shows and helped present so many funny routines that made it such a different type of telethon for collecting money. Many comedians and musicians have lent their support to the show including Dawn French, Jennifer Saunders. Billy Connelly, Griffin Rhys Jones, Miranda Hart, Russell Caine, and many more. The show also went to places to see how they could help and recorded the results of their support of communities and individuals. Providing help for people suffering from HIV, and other chronic diseases, mental health issues, children injured during war, starvation and so many more frightening experiences.
Comic relief has collected over One Billion pounds in donations from the British public in those 40 years and are continuing to do so. We may wish that governments should support more needy children and young adults, but at least we are trying to make an effort to help.
Newcastle under Lyme
My friend designed this banner for a Mock Mayor ceremony he organised in 2021? To celebrate the ancient tradition of electing a Mock Mayor (like a lord of misrule) for a day. I’m not sure of I’ve remembered the right date. But Covid happened and a new ceremony was postponed.
That means I’m still the Mock Mayor! It makes me laugh. It’s not real or serious but it is a nice thought that I was allowed to play the part! My hubby got to wear a dress and play the lady mayoress, he revelled in it. Fun memories….
Bright lights over Bentilee
I’ve just got back from the local theatre, Claybody Theatre at The Dipping house, Spode Works, Church Street, Stoke upon Trent, Stoke-on-Trent.
It was a thoroughly enjoyable performance. It was set in 1967 on the Bentilee housing estate, on the edge of the city of Stoke on Trent. A city of potteries and coal mines and steel works that had since suffered industrial decline.
It’s late summer on the estate when several people see a bright glowing light in the sky that goes from red, to slightly greenish to a blue hue. It ended up on TV with locals talking about what they had seen, but no real explanation. (this was the era of science fiction programmes on TV, like The Invaders, or Space family Robinson and even Fireball XL5.)
What I enjoyed was the local knowledge. The speech was real Stoke on Trent accents, with a smidge of Durham and a twang of American or Irish.
I won’t go into detail with spoilers, but there is a mixture of 1960s memories, a touch of romance, a lot of local in jokes. It was useful knowing Bentilee estate, I have worked there. The comedy made the audience chuckle and laughter out loud. I do enjoy Deborah McAndrews writing. The play got a loud round of applause at the end. Good to see local friends who had come out to see it!
A hero’s name?
I think we mainly assume that a hero will be called Prince Caspian or something similar. Being of noble blood, and handsome. Fairytale books and films lead us to this definition. Only stories like Beauty and the Beast where at the end the Beast turns into a handsome Prince slightly subverts this.
But what happens if the hero has an ordinary or odd name? Maybe Euphonio Grunt-Ffungus? His name being a long lost memory from generations ago of the families profession of truffle hunting!
What heroical task would Euphonio complete? Would he rescue a cat from on top of a giraffe? Fight off a venomous kangaroo? Hide chocolate from a dragon? Kill a giant spider that’s threatening to engulf the palace?
I think this kind of hero would be in a comic fantasy, not a serious story. But we cannot chose our names, let alone our ancestors.
Stolen from Facebook
I loved these weird images of cats on this post on Facebook. It’s too funny not to share. It might disappear in a few weeks because I don’t have enough memory for all the images I use and regularly delete photos when I get a media full message.
Gobbledegook
Confused, muddled, incoherent. Gobbledegook.
Like double-dutch it’s a word that tries to describe the kind of word salad some people talk rather than a measured and clear explanation.
If you have ever seen “Sir Humphrey”, the political private secretary in “Yes, Minister”, and “Yes, Prime Minister”, the BBC series from the 1980s and 90s, you will know he would used gobbledegook or flimflam (another lovely word) to blag his way through telling the Minister important information without telling him clearly. It’s in this case a method of obfuscation, using a long tangle of incomprehensible words that is sneaky and makes the story he is trying to tell virtually impossible to understand.
It’s an informal noun and according to Google it is defined as :
language that is meaningless or is made unintelligible by excessive use of technical terms.
“reams of financial gobbledygook”
I hope you enjoyed this word!
Mallaband-Brown 