Two brothers who hated one another left home and never saw one another until they happened to meet by chance decades later on a railway platform. By then they had both become rather portly and the one had become a bishop and the other an admiral... both were also wearing the uniformed regalia of their ranks. The bishop went coolly up to his admiral brother and said 'Ah! Stationmaster, when does the next train for Brighton leave?' The brother replied. 'Any time now, but do you think it is wise to travel in your condition, madame?'
The late Cardinal Hinsley of Great Britain and the Archbishop of Canterbury shared a taxi after attending the same dinner. 'It is quite fitting we take the cab together' smiled the Archbishop, 'after all, we both serve God.' 'Yes, yes,' agreed the Cardinal, 'You in your way, I in His.'
"Less Toothpaste" In the early 1950s a new brand of toothpaste was introduced from America called 'Less'. It was an unusual strong pink colour and came in half-size tubes. The advertisements explained that, since it was extra strong, one only needed half as much as usual. The price was not halved, however, but almost as much as any normal tube from established makers. A comedian on T.V. literally destroyed the brand overnight with the throwaway line "Less toothpaste... less teeth!" It then disappeared from the market rapidly.
In the early 1950, after the coronation procession of Queen Elizabeth has passed out of sight along the Mall, the soldiers lining either side of the route remained in place to keep people from crossing the road and the pavement crowds were also unable to move away due to control measures and efforts to spread the yet greater crowds behind them. Some time later, a London County Council rubbish collection lorry appeared on the road and drove slowly along collecting full litter bins. On the heap of litter at the rear, a dustman sat resplendently facing forward and, like the Queen, graciously acknowledged the crowd with the slow regal hand gestures from the forehead towards the subjects. When a few weeks has passed and the stir in the press about the Coronation had died down, the daring dustman was taken to court and ended up with a long imprisonment for his dusty deed. Such were some of the last struggles of the Imperial Monarchy against its subjects.
Lord Lichfield always wrote on a pad at dinner. His grandson found the pad of the night he died, on which stood "Fish cold. Butler farted". Of a bad grouse shoot with unclassy guns, the Lord noted: "Shit shot shit".
In England, many intrepid feats have been carried out in the name of charity. In the 1970s one hero paddled around the coast of East Anglia to the Wash in a bathtub. About then someone else collected money by lying for 24 hours in a bath full of cold baked beans.
The Hidden Meanings Of Some English Expressions Explained:
'You're entitled to your point of view' = 'you have a completely foolish standpoint'
'With respect, may I say' = 'you are talking twaddle'
'With great respect' = 'you are talking absolute twaddle'
'If I may say so' = 'you are utterly wrong'
'I suppose that you think you're funny?' = 'I am about to hit you.'
'Quite so' = "That's enough of that, now shut up!"
The Rev. W.A. Spooner of New College, Oxford (1844-1930) achieved this dubious claim to fame when he announced to his congregation: "Let us now sing the hymn 'Kinquering congs their titles take'. He also once asked his congregation: 'Is this pie occipewed'. He is also reputed to have sent down a student for misbehaviour with the words: 'You can take the next town drain to London." A classic Spoonerism is 'My wife says I have had tee many martoonis, but I am not so much under the affluence of incohol as some pinkle theep. I mean thinkle peep!' In the text of the English marriage ceremony, the phrase 'lawfully joined together in holy matrimony' was accidentally spoonerised during a wedding by a nervous vicar as "joyfully loined together in holy matrimony".
The Manchester Guardian reported one day that a man who had been knocked unconscious by a golf ball smack on the centre of his forehead was revived by friends and was being helped to his feet when another ball hit him forcibly in the small of the back.
At a meeting about psychic sex with spiritualists, the medium asked the audience if anyone present happened to have had sex with a ghost. One small man at the rear raised his hand and said 'I have'. 'Really, said the medium, 'can you tell us what it was like'. 'Well, the man replied, it was just normal'. But it is most unusual, how is sex performed with a ghost... I mean if...' The man interrupted, 'Oh! I thought you said with a goat'.
A golfer returned from the practice tee so visibly unnerved that a friend rushed from the locker room to ask what was wrong? 'What's wrong?' was the bitter reply. 'I just killed my wife. That's what's wrong!' 'Holy smoke, how did you do that?' 'I was out there practicing and didn't see her come up behind me. I took a back swing, hit her on the head - and she just dropped dead!!' 'Gee... that's almost incredible, though. Say, what sort of club could you have been using, then?' 'A niblick,' mourned the golfer. 'That's the club,' said his friend.
Two G.I's were hauling a steaming kettle from the kitchen in Fort Dix, New Jersey. A colonel stopped them 'Get me a ladle!' he commanded. He tested the brew, gulped and roared, 'Do you call that soup?'. 'No, sir' came the meek reply. 'That's water we've been washing the dishes in.'
A guide was showing American tourists around Oxford, who wanted to know where the rooms of the renowned Professor of Greek who translated Plato, Dr. Jowett were. The guide led them to a cloistered square. 'That open window on the second floor, my friends, is Mr. Jowett's digs! Would you like to see him?' 'Sure would!' commented on of the tourists. The guide picked up a sizeable stone, then hurled it with deadly accuracy through Jowett's window. A moment later, a face purple with rage appeared there. 'Aha!' said the guide triumphantly, 'that always gets the old boy!'
In a speech to troops, General Patton said: "America loves a winner and will not tolerate a loser. Americans play to win all the time. I wouldn't give a hoot in hell for a man who loses and laughs. The very thought of losing is hateful to Americans. And, as some American sports' coach said: "Show me a good loser and I'll show you a loser!
Was it not Billy Graham who said, "Jesus Christ was some good loser!"?
From US newspapers:
We hope you can come, Senator, because all of us would like to hear the dope from Washington.
Misprint in New York newspaper: He always carried a rabbi's foot.
When they heard that the Channel Tunnel contract was out for bids, Two Paddies offered to dig it all by hand for £60,000. When asked how, they said one would start at Dover and one at Calais. When asked how they would ensure that they would meet at the middle, they looked puzzled, then said, "If we misses, yer get two tunnels for the price 'a one!"
What is special about an Irish firing squad? The victim is shot at in the centre of a circle of executioners.
There were three persons and two parachutes on the plane when it lost an engine and was bound soon to crash. The Irishman aboard begged on his knees to have one of them, saying he had thirteen hungry children to feed, a crippled wife with tuberculosis and a stray foal that was bound to grow up to become a St. Leger winner. Out of the goodness of his heart, the Welshman said, "All right then, boyo. You take mine there!" The Irishman strapped it on before Di changed his mind and jumped. The Scotsman then said, "Look, Di, you brave fellow... you take mine, go on. I'll manage somehow.' 'No, no.' said Di, that was only my rucksack that Paddy took.'
CAMPAIGNING
William Whitelaw on Harold Wilson: "He is going about the country stirring up apathy".
EDUCATION
Harold Wilson on Harold Macmillan: "He had an expensive education - Eton and Suez."
CONSCIENCE
Lloyd George on Macdonald: "He has sufficient conscience to bother him, but not enough to keep him straight."
QUINTIN HOGG alias LORD HAILSHAM,
when asked on BBC in 1989 how he would argue his case on the Day of
Judgement before the Lord quickly replied: "When I meet my Maker I hope
I shall have the professional sense to plead guilty and throw myself
on the mercy of the court. And you don't defend your case yourself...
that's bad advocacy."
SIR W. CHURCHILL
On Atlee: "A sheep in sheep's clothing". "A modest man with much to be modest about".
On someone else: "He let the grass grow under his feet"
ANTHONY TROLLOPE
Of certain politicians: "not much better than diluted water"
CLEMENT FREUD
"I forget but never forgive' because there's a whole lot of people on the other side of the House of Commons whom I hate, but I can't remember why."
BILLY GRAHAM
"Its a very long time since evangelism (etc.) was world news, and we
thank God for it."
NIXON: in the White House to Armstrong, on the moon: "This has to be the most historic telephone call ever made." (But what about A.G. Bell's first call then?)
Nixon also said on T.V., before the Watergate investigation succeeded, "There can be no whitewash at the White House". (Some unsuspected truth in that for him at least, if in little else).
CLIVE JAMES said on TV:
On elderly megastars at Las Vegas: "...a kind of elephant's graveyard where they sell their own ivory before crashing to their knees for the last time."
On Hemingway's big game hunting, fishing and suicide: "He could never kill enough living beings and the very last trophy he bagged was himself".
In comparing the heroes of Europe and U.S. in the inter-war period: The U.S. heroes like Tarzan, Al Capone stars etc. 'developed all their muscles except those of the brain'.
SOMERSET MAUGHAM:"There are three ways of writing a novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are."
AMBROSE BIERCE's criticism of a bad book."The covers of this book are too far apart".
JAMES JOYCE' famous last words were: "Does no one understand me?" (i.e. author of 'Finnigan's Wake').
MADAME BLAVATSKY quoting an Indian mystic on Western opera: "Your most renowned operas, for instance, sound to us Hindus like a wild chaos, a cascades of unpleasant, harsh, and entangled sounds, in which we do not see any meaning at all, and which simply give us a headache." (p. 290. From the Caves & Jungles of Hindostan).
C.E.M. JOAD spoke of Western classical music is dominated by people drawing the tails of dead horses across the entrails of dead cats.
SAID by unknown wits:-
Of CLEMENT ATTLEE. An empty taxi drew up and out stepped the Prime Minister (Anon.)
Of BERNARD INGRAM (Margaret Thatcher's mouthpiece): He is not the sewage, only the sewer.
Of GEORGE BUSH: He reminds every woman of their first husband.
Of BOB DOLE: He reminds every woman of her first husband's divorce lawyer.
Of SUSAN HAYWARD: her lightest touch as a comedienne would stun a horse.
Of PAMELA ANDERSON LEE's acting in the film 'Barb Wire' described: to call it wooden would be unfair to trees.
Of a rival by BETTE DAVIS: the original good time had by all.
Of KEVIN COSTNER's hugely expensive, massively wasteful mega film 'Waterworld':
'Huge Waves of Sheer Boredom'
OTHER AMUSING WORDS
A neurotic is someone who builds castles in the air, a psychotic is someone who lives in them and a psychiatrist is someone who collects the rent.
Professor of Psychiatry = blind leading the blind
In psychiatric hospitals there are people who do not at all believe they are mad, including the psychiatrists.
Three brains for transplanting for sale. Engineer's $3000, a professor of maths $4,000 an unlabelled brain $5,000. Why? Because it belonged to an (INSERT: Profession or Nationality of your choice) and has thus never been used.
ADVERT SEEN IN INDIA: "You have heard of God? Well, Maharishi is greater!"
SODOM AND GOMORRAH (1962 MOVIE BY ROBERT ALDRICH) At the beginning of Robert Aldrich's 1962 movie Sodom and Gomorrah, Anouk Aimee sets out to deliver a message to the Elamites. Halfway across the desert she encounters a stranger, who helpfully warns her: "Steady as you go. Watch out for Sodomite patrols!"
ELIZABETH TAYLOR in a film about Moses as the Pharaoh's wife after he failed to stop the locust plague, Red Sea turning to blood etc. railed at him "An' yer kall yesself a pharer!"
If you put all the economists in the world end to end, they still couldn't reach a conclusion.
Regimental Sergeant Major's recipe for instilling gen. info. into the skulls of squaddies: "First you tell 'em what you're going to tell 'em. Then you tells 'em. Then you tells 'em what you've told 'em."
"In God we trust. All others, cash!"
"If at first you don't succeed, maybe failure is your thing".
"Mission of Love!? Its a tough job, but someone's got to do it!"
Immediate advice to someone going to Alaska was "Don't eat yellow snow!"
"Be a good neighbour and leave me alone."
"We've been through so much together and most of it was your fault."
"Remember, boys, a penny bun costs twopence when you have a woman with you."
"Have success and there'll always be some fool to say you have talent."