Tag: Funny quotes

Quotes that made me laugh #35

Oh no, it’s BoJo!

A few years ago, in a televised interview with Boris Johnson, Eddie Mair, a BBC presenter, deflated the current UK Foreign Secretary’s superficial buffoonery and set out some less-than-flattering instances of his behaviour.

Subsequently, at the start of this month, Johnson laid into what he contended to be the BBC’s bias when selecting its audience for the UK election Leaders’ Debate: “the most left-wing” he’d ever seen. (Incidentally, this was the debate that his party leader, Theresa May, refused to take part in presumably because, to borrow Margaret Thatcher’s phrase, she was “Frightened? Frit? Could not take it?”)

So, given the back story, yesterday’s radio interview that reunited Messrs Mair and Johnson was always going to be ‘a bit tasty’. And it was. It soooo was. I’d go as far as saying that it was the audio-equivalent of a bacon roll from Warwickshire’s Hatton Locks Café!

In an exchange that showed it was not only when bedding women-other-than-his-wife that Johnson loses control of his briefs, Mair skewered him on the policies within his party’s new legislative timetable. When, after a point that he couldn’t answer, BoJo tried to return to an earlier question that he had similarly failed on, Mair eviscerated him (figuratively, of course) and it is his quote that made me laugh:

“Well why don’t we do the questions in the order I’m asking them? It’s not a Two Ronnies sketch, you can’t answer the question before last.”

Postscript: BoJo was apparently the UK’s most popular politician a couple of years ago, his buffoonery clearly out-weighing any mendacity that Joe Public may have seen (although more insightful folk were always aware of the smokescreen behind which lay a different reflection). As The Poke’s website states: “Mair once called him as ‘a nasty piece of work’. Now he’s an ill-informed one”.

What’s in a name?

Sizergh Castle is a National Trust property near my childhood hometown of Kendal. I’ve known of it for decades and always thought the family that owned it from the 13th century until the 1950s was the Stricklands. However, I now know differently, at least for the latter years of the family’s history.

It seems they adopted a double-barrelled name in the 20th century. Consequently, this line from the family’s Wikipedia entry rather amused me when considering the phenomenon of nominative determinism:

“Their first daughter married Henry Hornyold [and] became known as Mrs Hornyold-Strickland …”

A Hornyold-Strickland

I could write the script myself …

Libidinous gentleman: “I say m’dear, are you one of the Hornyold-Stricklands?”

Prim young lady: “Oh no, sir. I’m chaste. ‘Tis my sister I think you’re after.“

Quotes that made me laugh #34

Do these shorts make my …

I don’t know about you, but if I was referring to the different perceptions you get when looking at a tall, hefty bloke in baggy shorts and a loose-fitting t-shirt compared to his appearance when booted and suited, I would probably say something like:

“It’s interesting how that outfit makes him look slimmer.”

What I wouldn’t say is what my 89-year-old mother uttered:

“When he has trousers on he looks normal, but when he takes them he off looks huge.”

Quotes that made me laugh #32

I’m not a great fan of the comedian Frankie Boyle, but I did chuckle at his description of the UK Prime Minister, Theresa May, on a recent edition of the TV show ‘Have I Got News For You’:

“Theresa May looks like the colour grey didn’t care whether you lived or died.”

{This was posted in the spirit of gender and colour balance cf my reference in an earlier post to Lorna Wallace’s description of POTUS as a “Tangerine gabshite walloper”}

 

Banter and Bollocks

I recently read an article on idioms from foreign languages that, when translated, seem to have no obvious meaning in one’s own language. One of the examples came from Sweden: att glida in på en räkmacka that translates literally as: to slide in on a shrimp sandwich and which seemingly refers to a person that didn’t have to work to get to where they are.

And this is where I need your help! A short while ago I read about an old bit of RAF banter. It made me laugh out loud, but I haven’t a clue what it means. Any suggestions are welcome. Here it is:

‘An insult’s an insult, but a chair leg up the a**e – that’s furniture!‘

Quotes that made me laugh #30

What’s religion got to do with it?

A pair of Saint Johnstone footballers were sent off a couple of days ago for fighting each other instead of playing the opposition. So that’s at least two sinners in a team whose nickname is the ‘Saints’. Sadly, we shall never know what their manager thought of it because in keeping with the scriptural theme of saints and sinners, his comment was:

“The referee has said they were both sent off for violent conduct so obviously he feels he has made the right decision but I haven’t seen it with my own eyes so I am not going to comment on heresy”.

(I know! It’s poor sub-editing and not a quote, but it still made me laugh😎).

Postscript: Years ago I heard Emo Philips tell a ‘heresy-themed’ joke on the TV. I loved it for its softly stated and sublime ridiculing of dogmatic puritanism and bigotry in religions, but could never remember enough different Baptist sects to tell it the way he did. So with the help of Dr Google here it is …

Once I saw this guy on a bridge about to jump. I said, “Don’t do it!” He said, “Nobody loves me.”

I said, “God loves you. Do you believe in God?” He said, “Yes.”

I said, “Are you a Christian or a Jew?” He said, “A Christian.”

I said, “Me, too! Protestant or Catholic?” He said, “Protestant.”

I said, “Me, too! What denomination?” He said, “Baptist.”

I said, “Me, too! Northern Baptist or Southern Baptist?” He said, “Northern Baptist.”

I said, “Me, too! Northern Conservative Baptist or Northern Liberal Baptist?” He said, “Northern Conservative Baptist.”

I said, “Me, too! Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region, or Northern Conservative Baptist Eastern Region?” He said, “Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region.”

I said, “Me, too!” Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1879, or Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1912?” He said, “Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1912.”

I said, “Die, heretic” and pushed him over.

Quotes that made me laugh #26

Dance floors always remind me of ‘the first dance’ on my wedding day – and not in a good way.

I’d had lessons and received bespoke tuition to a specific track on Disque de Danse (volume 2). In fact, the dance studio gave us the record so that I could waltz to a familiar tune on the big day.

Nevertheless I froze and was dragged around the dance floor by Management like a fossilised log with all the natural rhythm of something that had been turned to stone over the millenia.

Consequently, a few years ago when Management and I were invited to a friend’s birthday party and the Tall Child asked if I was going to show off any ‘killer’ dance moves. I told him “Yes. People would die laughing”.

So imagine the amusement (at my expense, of course) when, several months after my sister-in-law’s celebratory ceilidh, Management’s oldest friend, with whom I’d danced an approximation to the St Bernard’s Waltz, wrote in a birthday card to her (in all seriousness) that:

“He’s a good dancer, that man of yours”

Laugh? I nearly signed up for Strictly!

The only thing I ever ‘pulled’ at a dance was a muscle!