How do you make a joke?

How do you make a Joke? ©

By Michael Casey

I was hanging out the washing today, I am a Hausfrau now after all, and I thought what shall I write about today, then I thought perhaps I should explain jokes to you all. Robin my former colleague at the hotel was sometimes surprised when I managed to get serious people to laugh. He started on Reception back in 2002 now 2017 he is a General Manager at the newest of Birmingham’s hotels. Me I’m a home bird thanks to my weaknesses, but at least I’ve 1,000,000 words to leave to my family, no money but lots and lots of words. If ever you are in Birmingham and you see a Robin feel free to ask are you Michael’s old friend, if he blushes then that’s the right Robin.

Now I must apologise to Sir Ken Dodd, who is a newly knighted comedian, we knight comedians and politicians in UK, how do we tell them apart? The comedians are millionaires and drive better cars than the politicians.                Sir Ken or Doddy as we all love him looks like Tiny Tim and speaks as if he is on acid, his mind certainly is. He has never taken any substances, but that’s just by way of explanation. Now he is way past 80 now and his shows always overrun by at least 2 or 3 hours, his style is like an avalanche, you can run but you will be smothered with laughter.

Now why am I mentioning Sir Ken, because he did a three hour show explaining comedy, it was all in a documentary about him recently, so I have that thought in the back f my mind as I talk to you. Before I continue I need to mention one thing, Doddy was taken to Court by the Inland Revenue or IRS in USA language, for not paying tax.

It was a three week Court case, HE WON. His Barrister asked Doddy where do you keep your cash, the answer was, in a shoebox in the cupboard under the stairs. And how much money was in the shoe box, £20,000 was the Reply. And Mr Dodd, and he was still a Mr then, where do you keep your Love Letters, in a secure bank vault was the reply.

This proves Sir Ken Dodd has got his priorities right, I believe his accountant was to blame. I saw builders applauding Sir Ken in the street, and I heard Sir Ken do 15 mins on accountants as part of his act.

So to today’s theme, what makes people laugh? Politics is one easy answer, especially in today’s world. If it’s the Blue party then you make jokes about the Red party, and everybody makes jokes about the Green party.  These colours have been chosen randomly so that wherever you are in the world reading this you can connect to the story. Yellows are better than everybody else perhaps the Pope says, as yellow is the papal colour.

And on it goes, when we have the Blues our friends will try and cheer us up, and that in essence the purpose of jokes, to banish the Blues, Clapton  & Co don’t like jokes because it banishes the Blues. Jazz makes you want to dance and as for Country and Western that makes you vote Republican, though 50% of the entire population don’t even bother to vote as they are busy listening to House music in their Garage.

Politics was invented by the king as a way of dividing people, divide and conquer as they say. William the Conqueror knew the magic meaning of 1066, he was a mathematician after all, go ask your local maths wiz what 1066 really means, you’ll find him behind the bar pulling pints. 1066 is the magic number in Political Calculus after all, if you kill 10 leaders the other 66 will soon fall into line, or is it the other way around, kill 66 and the final 10 won’t be any trouble. It’s complicated I think I need a pint of Stella Artois, though back in 1066 cider must have been amazing.

Where was I, yes how do you make a joke? It’s like a cake really, you just need the right ingredients and you mix them together and put them in the oven. Though having a bun in the oven means something else entirely, and is far more fun than baking but does involving maths as you are multiplying.

Like baking everything depends on timing, if there is a straight man, PAUSE, you are already making up your own joke. What I am saying is that the straight man feeds the lines to the funny man, Abbot and Costello if you are in USA or Morecambe and Wise if you are in UK. If there is no straight man, PAUSE, you are again making up your own jokes, I’ll be redundant at this rate, if there is no straight man, and sometimes you can’t  find one for love nor money. PAUSE, I decided to slip that one in before you lot did. 

Catch our breath with a new paragraph, or if you heard this on Radio that was the sound of me sipping my Stella, PAUSE, Stella Artois my pint, Stella doesn’t work here anymore you are such a naughty audience, I may have to spank you. You really really are a bad audience, I’m on the Radio and I could hear all you scream, YES PLEASE.

Where was I, I’m a little relieved, I just had to rub some pain killer on my shoulders, my Arthur, stop it straight away, Arthur is my Arthritis, what were you all thinking. If anybody would rub my shoulders it would be a Stella not an Arthur. And Stella doesn’t work here anymore, she left, the real reason being she kept on banging her head on the inside of my DAB radio, it gets really crowed in here, 1,000,000 words and a fat silver haired guy sitting in his chair talking, all from the inside of a radio.

Well I didn’t really explain about how to make a joke, but to be honest if you can then you do, if you cannot just listen and don’t step all over the punchline. I have to go and buy some Polish bread now, yes really it’s no joke if you run out of bread or rice in our house. Though Patrick the baker in The Butcher The Baker and The Undertaker he has far more misadventures than me but that’s 600 pages of stories so you’ll have to go buy the book, its full of jokes.