Busy busy busy (with jokes)

Not me. I haven't been busy. But events... No, I've been more uselessly desk-bound when mapped against time than well perhaps ever. 

 

But leave your desk and pop into the West End and: 

 

You can no longer smoke indoors, but on the plus side you might get blown up... You don't have Blair to kick around any more (a phrase that seemed unpardonably whimsical when Nixon first coined it, but perfectly suits present-day realpolitik - like when Channel 4 cancelled "The Word", not as it turned out because it was poisonously demeaning - and for all the bright colours and live sets from the Vees, the programme did consider the secret filming of an alcoholic left in a dressing room full of complimentary spirits to be telly myrhh - but because its shock-value was by then redundant)... You're surrounded by stacks of newspapers pretty much going "AAAARGH-AAHHH-AHHH!" and pushing the kind of frightened, fight-happy, snivelling, peripheral man-rant that makes you change train compartments (or else famous teenagers snogging or getting drunk at a party) except the train's perpetually delayed due to "earlier signalling problems" which is the only excuse you ever hear apart from "a person under a train" (And why on earth tell us that? Why ever tell us that? Dear God, if you're going to lie about the signals why be so candid about the suicides?)...

And then yesterday - for viewers in the South - the sky suddenly shits ice-balls for ten deafening minutes outside your window while you're signing up to the welcomingly sarcastic F*c*book group "I survived the failed tiger tiger bomb attack of 7/29/07" (sample post: 'I am going to Tiger Tiger this evening to leave a bunch of flowers and a child's toy to commemorate the possible bomb which didn't go off') and this whole Scared-New-World trip finally slips over into the picturesque...

 

I mean I don't know whether it was the heat or the hail or both (or all three) but St. James' Park never looked liked that before this morning surely? Sitting on a bench to try and take it all in I attracted so many insects (the dainty Versailles types, not the rubbery scuttlers) that after ten minutes I looked like the video to Sledgehammer against a double-page spread of "Where the Wild Things Are".

And thence to Victoria Station this afternoon, where Bruce and Keifer were pointing guns at my head from the newsstands (I'm a fucker) and I stand stock still in the middle of the concourse and look around at our lost boys in yellow and at absolutely everyone else and I just think: "Well the plants were nice but shall I sort of go out less now? Give in? Not to the terrorists but to the supplements. Only interact with the outside world through F*c*book? Yes? No?"

You see, 24 hours ago I also joined the F*c*book group "Hilaracles" dedicated to the invention of jokes that don't actually work, and in penning my contributions a door has opened in my head. Not a big door, but as this gibberish leaves my fingers it feels like Zen Koan. I may have found my metier. Listen:

Q: Why did the chicken cross the road half-way?
A: To get half-way!

Q: What's a ghost's favourite chocolate?
A: Malt-Oooooooooo!-sers.

Two nuns in a bath. One says to the other "Do you know how to drive this thing?"

Scotsman: "Where's your kilt?"
Englishman: "It's worn."

What's a ghost's favourite musical?
Billy Ooooooooo!-lliott

"Pack your bags, wife! I've just won a million pounds in the lottery!"
"Oo! Should I pack for somewhere hot?"
"Yes... Jamaica!"

How do you get to practice at Carnegie Hall?
Practise!

A woman walks into a bar and asks for a double entendre. So the barman gives her two.

How many zoo-keepers can you get in a mini?
Six zoo-keepers.
(Try saying it aloud)

What did the Indian brave watch at three in the afternoon?
Watercolour Chall-Ooooooooooo!-nge

Doctor doctor.'
'Who's there?'
'Doctor Who.'

... See? And I think to myself what a wonderful world etc.