Funny Stories (NEW CONCEPTS)

[Mick Harper]

Using comedy to puncture political pretension is usually called satire but giving it a name is an example of political pretension. If you can't remember the events this is referring to, it will be a case in point.
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We need a new Speaker, are you man enough for the job?
Just fill in this form March 14, 2024

The governing party (to your right) is being financed by someone who is recommending a prominent member of the opposition (to your left) be shot. Select your proposed actions from the following:

A. Order the miscreant to be arrested by the sergeant-at-arms, acting in conjunction with the civil power, for abuse of Parliamentary privilege and the criminal offence of uttering threats likely to cause actual bodily harm.

B. Order an emergency debate in the chamber and call members to speak on the basis of their knowledge of, responsibility for and interest in the matter under debate, e.g. the Leader of the House, the Treasurer of the Conservative party, the MP who has been threatened etc etc

C. Order an emergency debate in the chamber and call members to speak on the basis of who is jumping up and down most, waving their order papers around and generally attempting ‘to catch the Speaker’s eye’, but resolutely avoid the Leader of the House, the Treasurer of the Conservative party, the MP who has been threatened etc etc

D. Do nothing. It was five years ago, before the geezer was a donor to anything beyond his local Rotarians, and he was only joking. You can’t for the life of you see what all the fuss is about.

If you selected C you’re in with a shout.

[Mick Harper]

But mostly humour is more domestic in nature and when you're a recluse it's hard finding fun at home.
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Helpline: Dated 22.03.24 March 22, 2024
That’s the British version not the stoopid American one
where they put the month before the day ’cos they’re a nation of halfwits

A lot of you have been asking, “Mick, I’m someone of wide-ranging cultural and intellectual pursuits so I’m always recording more programmes than I can ever get to watch in a month of Sundays, hence my cable TV digibox thingy is not only full to bursting, I’m in a constant anxiety state in case I never get it back down to 99%. I understand from the dark web you’re the go-to, can-do, Mr Fixit. Can you help me?”

[Mick Harper]

On the other hand even I have to go out sometimes.
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Let us pray at this solemn time. March 31, 2024

I’ve heard of Good Friday, I’ve heard of Easter Sunday, I’ve heard of Bank Holiday Monday. But Jesus is Coming Saturday is a new one on me. There were so many evangelicals handing out leaflets in front of Ladbroke Grove station I could hardly get through to Tesco’s without being converted.

But what really got my goat, no offence to the hornèd one, was they were so bleedin’ happy. If I’d been waiting two thousand years for somebody and he still hadn’t turned up, I’d be right put out. On the other hand such wall-to-wall unrequited love does make you wonder:

[Mick Harper]

I can't imagine why I wrote this unless it's supposed to be funny so I'm duty bound to include it. A right dog's dinner.
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A British look at a US election May 10, 2024
The BBC is reporting from swing-state Arizona

[Mick Harper]

Obituaries aren't usually the stuff of comedy. Here's an exception.
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I owe my life to Darth Vader May 27, 2024

The reason I am here to bore you to death about why I’m here to bore you to death (“Can you get on with it, Mick?”) is because, although I had to cross the mighty South Circular — half of London’s orbital ring road before they built the M25 — twice a day, once on my way to and once on my way back from school, completely on my own because I was a latchkey kid with parents who seemed to think my presence was some kind of optional extra, I had the Green Cross Code man’s words ringing in my ears each time I came to and successfully crossed Brownhill Road, SE6 (as we called our section of the South Circular).

[cartoon strip]

In case you can’t read, he is saying:

Think! First find the safest place to cross
Stop! Stand on the pavement near the kerb
Use your eyes and ears! Look all around for traffic and listen
Wait until it’s safe to cross! If traffic is coming, let it pass
Look and listen! When it is safe, go straight across the road — do not run
Arrive alive! Keep looking and listening

If you don’t recognise him, the chap in the last frame is an actor/stuntman called Dave Prowse who has just died. Being in so many kids’ TV adverts as well as comics, Prowse was so typecast as the Green Cross Code man he couldn’t get any film work other than as a Green Cross Code man, for which there was little general demand and in any case was, at best, a walk-on part.

So he applied for any role that didn’t show his face, that disguised his voice but made use of his fine physique. Hence, when they started shooting Star Wars at Pinewood Studios here in la-la Britain, he was a natural for Darth Vader who was similarly dismissive of his son. Though to be honest I found it difficult to identify with Luke Skywalker who made me vomit he was so all-American. Kill him, Green Cross Code man!

Where was I? Oh yes, grown old thanks to the man who would be Darth Vader and no thanks to my parents.

[Mick Harper]

Strangely informative rather than funny but it's a fine line.
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The bitsy, itsy, yellow, weenie, teenie, dot, polka bikini June 15, 2024

Did you know:

* English has strict rules about how adjectives are listed
* English-speakers obey these rules to the letter
* English-speakers have no idea there was even a rule about it?

No, nor me neither till last night.

[Mick Harper]

A true story turned to whimsy. Though there has been one development since. I now ask any passing shopper to press the doodad because people are aware of the phenomenon. One of them took advantage last Saturday and swiped his Tesco Card as well!
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I was a human cyborg June 19, 2024

I first noticed it in a Burger King I had occasion to visit during a stop at a motorway service area. Britain’s restrictive immigration policies meant there were no staff but an electronic thingy doing their job for them. After some patient instruction from a small child, I selected a Whopper (plus bits and bobs including another Whopper).

Then it said ‘Pay’ but nothing happened despite me pressing it multiple times. In the end I had to go next door to Marks & Spencer and sullenly choose something healthy but at least they had a human being at the end of the process. I assumed an algorithm prevented anyone ordering two Whoppers (a policy I thoroughly approve of) and thought nothing more about it.

Until it started happening again and again. Like most of you I have gradually learned how to use the Tesco electronic checkout but unlike any of you (I would imagine) as soon as the word ‘Pay’ appears and I tap it with my finger multiple times, nothing happens. This sequence occurs every time. Every. Single. Time.

The Tesco electronic checkout chargé d’affaires has got so used to it he vaguely hovers so when I turn and look at him helplessly he is primed to come over and tap Pay with his finger whilst giving me a withering look, and I pay. When I ask him each time why his finger works and mine doesn’t, he shrugs. As he never says, “Dunno, mate, but there’s a lot of it about,” I can only assume I’m the only one in the Ladbroke Grove area this happens to.

[Mick Harper]

Is this funny? I don't mean in the sense of 'Is this joke funny?' but in the sense 'Is this a funny story or some other genre?'
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Take It Or Lump It June 28, 2024
A major disaster happened to me yesterday.

I ran out of sugar cubes. That may sound small potatoes to you but you don’t happen to live in my circumstances. I have to drink ten cups of coffee a day to keep my Medium audience fully serviced and that means thirty artificial sweeteners a day. Every day, rain or shine.

Which means a small but not zero chance I will get cancer like those rats fed on a diet of nothing but sweeteners I heard about on the radio and hence my recent switch to sugar. [I feel great, thanks. But then I did before.]

Problemo numero uno: my local Tesco only sells bags of loose sugar in two pound bags. That means ten times a day fetching the bag off the top shelf (my ‘condiments shelf’-- you’ve got to be organised), finding a teaspoon, drying it because you don’t want to have those irritating wet bits in the bag, stirring the coffee, placing the spoon back in the ‘do later’ pile in the sink, and back to work. It all adds up.

First responder action: every now and again I have a Tesco delivery to top up on the big stuff so last time I included in the order two boxes of sugar cubes.

Extendio ad certentum: You do the math: ten times three lumps per day, x lumps per box, two boxes, three-monthly order cycle. I ran out of sugar lumps.

Back to Tesco, back to two-pound loose sugar, back to the old days. But I’d bought caster sugar by mistake. They don’t tell you. Well, they do, it’s right there on the bag, but what I mean is they don’t have a little notice

[Mick Harper]

One of those little godsends that land in your lap from time to time.
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“Mr Beast started following you six minutes ago.”
(Warning from Medium.com in my in-box) July 19, 2024

This was all the more ominous because I haven’t been out today, so presumably he’s some sort of stalker that took up the cudgels very recently. Except all my stalkers are women, so that can’t be right.

Or perhaps ‘follow’ is meant metaphorically. That someone is anxious to adopt my lifestyle. The ‘beast’ part would certainly fit because my lifestyle does undoubtedly include some animalistic aspects. “It’s like a pigsty in here, Mick, haven’t you heard of a vacuum cleaner.”

Whoever he is, he’s clearly a criminal of some kind. You don’t go round calling yourself ‘Mr Beast’ if you’re the Lib Dem candidate for the Kensington & Chelsea council elections. But more likely, round here, he just wants to explain some scientific or political thesis of a heterodox nature.

I get a lot of that in the ordinary course of wandering the streets. Either them to me or me to them. Or me to a lamp-post which, I regret to say, did happen once. I was under a lot of pressure at the time.

In fact I welcome him. Just you knock on the door, Mr Beast, and you’ll find a right royal welcome here. Not literally. We do have quite a few royals in these parts but they’re not the sort of people one would want to socialise with. I had both Beatrice and Eugenie knocking on my door once, collecting for some charity or other. I gave them the old Jehovah’s Witness treatment. Listened politely for ten minutes and then said I had something on the stove.

So let’s get down to some CSI brass tacks in order to identify our Mr Beast:
* he’s a man
* he doesn’t like the name his mammy gave him
* he works the dark side and doesn’t care who knows it
* he’s a member of Medium so can’t write for toffee
* or at any rate he writes for peanuts.

A picture, however inchoate, is beginning to emerge from those bare seven letters, a space and no punctuation mark. Mr Beast, if you’re reading this: get yourself a vacuum cleaner and be my guest.

[Mick Harper]

This isn't exactly a funny story but it always gets a big laugh when I tell it in company. It is a perfectly true story (as Hatty is my witness.)
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Just the person we’re looking for July 25, 2024
They were conducting a long term study into
the causes and treatment of dementia.

My local teaching hospital wrote me a letter asking whether I wanted to take part. Oh yeah, why me? Who put me in the frame? But it turned out there was nothing to worry about, they were looking for fit and healthy people with no evidence of brain impairment.

[Mick Harper]

This actually was as the strapline says it was. I never did work out how it works. This got nine 'views' and three 'reads'.
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Sex, Jews, Gold and Dragons August 10, 2024
An experiment in click-baiting

When I was a baby komodo dragon and I saw a rainbow I would demand we all go and look for the pot of gold. It had to be explained to me that, although there was a pot of gold there, the rainbow would always be one step ahead of us.

"You mean they keep moving the gold?"
"Yes."
"How does that work?”
“Ask your father.”
“You are my father.”
“Always with the smart answers.”
“Are we Jewish?”
“Ask your mother, it’s matrilineal descent.”
“You are my mother, how does that work?”
“We practice parthenogenesis.”
“How does that work?”
“I don’t know but it’s not much fun.”

[Mick Harper]

Two Joanna Lumley stories, so they must be funny. Here's the first
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Today’s Key Class Indicator August 11, 2024

I was listening to Joanna Lumley reading from her autobiography last night and she was conducting us on a literary tour of her London home. “This is the music room,” she trilled, “which is mainly for my husband when he’s working, but it’s perfect for parties. Ninety people get completely lost in it.”

That is a nice encapsulation of the way social class operates. (In Britain, though I would imagine it holds true anywhere.)

It is not the large house in an expensive city. Money never determines your position in the hierarchy however much it may be a sine qua non. It is not getting ninety people along to your house that bespeaks your status, you could probably do that for a special occasion. It is the tacit assumption that doing so is routine that places Ms Lumley at the top of the pile.

[Mick Harper]

And here's the second
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I take on the BBC. Again August 13, 2024

BBC Radio is a battleground between two opposed forces. The programmes are listened to by elderly, traditionally-minded, reactionary people like me. The programmes are made by young go-ahead hotshots who are desperate for a move into television and will employ any bit of razzle-dazzle they can think of to achieve it. Guess who’s winning?

The latest example was last night when we were all snuggled up for A Book at Bedtime. As it is the sixtieth anniversary of Ian Fleming’s death, somebody had thought it a good idea to select On Her Majesty’s Secret Service for us. I thought so too. I have no memory of the plot and I’d find out if my deplorable tastes of yesteryear still hold true today. What could go wrong?

[Mick Harper]

I have never quite got to grips with black humour--like when they call a film 'a comedy thriller'--so it's no surprise that I couldn't have made this up.
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The Wages of Sin is Death August 14, 2024
This is a true story (though I cannot guarantee it actually happened).

I was the head night porter at a London teaching hospital you might well have heard of. It was in the days when unions dictated staffing levels so there were a lot of porters sitting around a lot of the time. Maybe they still do, I’m long gone.

Determined to keep my charges awake and keyed for action, I organised an all-night poker school. This was only mildly profitable until around five in the morning when we were joined by ‘the paper man’.

This was the chap who had the official concession to take the morning papers round the wards to sell to patients and the unofficial concession to take their bets for the day’s racing. He made substantial sums of money from these twin endeavours but was such a mad bastard he lost most of it to us.

The bookie side of his life consisted of writing the bets down, taking the cash to the betting shop in the early afternoon, returning in the late afternoon to collect any winnings, handing them over the following morning and getting a tickle for his trouble. An agreeably straightforward way of life you might think but, like I say, he was a mad bastard.

He would often oversleep and miss getting the bets on for the early races. This was a profitable error a lot of the time since he could pocket the losing bets but a nuisance working out how much he had to give his patient punters when they weren’t.

One day it was a six horse accumulator and the first two horses had already won. He would need a three figure sum just to get the bet back on track but, he figured, what the hell, the chances against the next four coming in were astronomical so, what the hell, he wouldn’t bother.

You can guess what happened since you’re reading it here though actually the sum he ended up owing his customer wasn’t astronomical — there is a limit to all pay-outs at betting shops. But it was still vastly more than any mad bastard ever has at his disposal.

So the following morning, the Paper Man entered the bloke’s ward in a fairly advanced anxiety state to discuss how the situation might be resolved. One never knows what connections National Health patients have on the outside. When he found the bed empty and all made up ready for the next patient he was out of there like Crepello with Lester Piggot aboard.

[Mick Harper]

You know when you start noticing that your favourite newspaper columnist is writing more and more about things they can see staring out of their window? You've got to guard against that tendency.
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Food For The Man About Town August 22, 2024
Adult life falls into three distinct phases

When you’re young you’ve got too much on your plate to bother about what you’re eating. So you live on Pot Noodles. These are disgusting but delicious confections coming in many guises from Prawn Cocktail to Double Egg Sausage and Chips flavour, though that is not why we ate them. It was to save time before going uptown big style.

Then you get married and have children. I don’t know what children eat — I could ask the au pair if it’s something you’re particularly interested in — but we grown-ups mainly have dinner parties at which we serve one another food that foreign peasants live on for subsistence but are gratifyingly expensive at Waitrose. What a funny world we live in.

When the wife and children have left home and you are no longer invited to dinner parties because you’re a dangerous social predator you may find yourself in a quandary on the comestible front. Never fear, M J Harper is here. I recommend Soba Japanese noodles for most, if not all, your needs.

They can be purchased in smart containers and come in a number of challenging varieties: yakitori chicken, sukiyaki beef, pekin duck. You fill them to an indicated mark with hot water, wait three minutes, and pour the water away via ingeniously contrived holes. Et voilà.

Please make sure to wash the empty pots thoroughly before placing them in the appropriate recycling receptacle.