> on 12/24/03 11:48 PM, Rebecca Seiferle at [log in to unmask] wrote:
do the Swiss tell jokes on themselves?
Hi!
I meant to butt in here such a long time ago, but yet another Icelandic
server meltdown has proved to be a bit of an understated handicap up here;
and our generously lengthy Christmas holiday is anything but congenial for
fixing things practical if you need outside help. Anyway, I'm back, for
however long it lasts ...
I've heard that it's the Irish who initiate all the Irish jokes and I'm
inclined to believe that. They are at least responsible for the so-called
anti-Irish jokes that are quite wonderful although few and far between. My
favourite anti-Irish joke doesn't really work in print, but here goes:
'The foreman on a building site in London was fed up with hiring Irishmen
who too often turned out to be useless idiots, as far as he was concerned.
So he devised a simple test to find out if an Irish worker was up to working
on a building site at all. It was a simple two-part question, 'Do you know
what a joist and a girder is?' When he first tested an applicant the
response was, 'Oh, that's an elementary one, Sir. Joyce was an Irish
modernist writer and Goethe was a German romantic poet.'
As for dumb blondes, I never thought they really existed until last week,
when I accidentally stumbled on Jay Leno's Tonight Show and his 'interview'
with one Jessica Simpson, who apparently has acheived fame (notoriety)
through her 'reality show' on which she and her new husband live their
newlyweds' life in front of a live tv camera (produced by her father!!!). A
genuine blonde and possibly a close relative of Homer Simpson. She was
actually so much better while stumbling through her responses to the
questions, i.e. trying to make the distinction between a chicken and a
tunafish, etc., as her singing was so much worse than any demented dogs'
bite.
Following this is my favourite blonde joke (i.e. the only one I can possibly
remember):
'A blonde went to the hairdresser and asked for a haircut as she sat in the
chair. She had a set of earphones clamped over her head and the hairdresser
asked her kindly to remove it. The blonde declined. So the hairdresser began
trimming that head of hair and soon found her endeavour somewhat hampered by
the active presence of the earphones. So she pointedly asked the blonde to
remove the appliance only to receive another rejection from the adamant
blonde. A few minutes later, having cunningly cut around the headphones, the
hairdresser insisted that the customer remove her headphones. The only
response was a rigorous shaking of that cropped blonde head. Infuriated, the
hairdresser cut the cords of the headphones and threw the appliance away.
Then she happily resumed the cutting of blonde hair. Only seconds later she
saw that her customer had turned quite blue and soon afterwards dropped dead
in the chair. Literally. Quite shocked, the hairdresser grabbed the
earphones from the floor and put her ear to it only to hear 'Breath in -
breath out - Breath in - breath out', at very long intervals.'
Now, to go back to Irish jokes, we've adapted a number of them and made them
apply to those who live in Hafnarfjördur, the town where I live. I suppose
the reason for this is that we miss not having jokes of that sort anymore,
but we had them in the 19th century.
As with the Irish, it's the people of Hafnarfjördur who initiate most of
these and here's an example:
'The police in Hafnarfjördur had not had much to do since that late summer
day last year when the local truck driver ran his brand new vehicle
full-speed into the harbour, claiming afterwards that he simply wanted to
test his air-brakes. Now, in the dead of winter, they finally felt as if
they were on to something. As the two of them drove past the local co-op
they observed an unfamiliar individual, very probably not a local, who
seemed to be caught by some profound dilemma right there on the pavement
outside the shop. The policeforce of two drove on and made the regular trip
around town before returning to the co-op, only to find the unfamiliar
figure still there, still being troubled by something or other possibly
profound. To the local force this seemed like a very serious matter,
potentially dangerous, so they drove on, each thinking oh so hard and
weighing their limited options about wether the individual in question
happened to be there still on their third round. So they came back to the
co-op only to find the alien individual still there, still in the travails
of some inexplicable dilemma. They stopped the car and the older one stepped
out. He approached the unfamiliar figure of a man and dared ask 'Is there a
problem, Sir?' The unfamiliar individual looked up helplessly and promptly
handed a tin of sardines to the policeman, saying: 'There is indeed! I just
bought this tin of sardines in your co-op and there is simply no way I can
open it.' 'Ah', said the older policeman, 'give it to me'. And he took the
tin of sardines in the big palm of his hand, looked at it closely and after
a moment's reflection knocked gently on the top of the tin yelling: 'Open
up! This is the Hafnarfjördur police!' '
Now, this is nothing, the best jokes I've ever heard are the ones the
Norwegians tell about the Swedes and vice versa. But can I remember them?
Not for the life of me.
Best
Árni
--
Árni Ibsen
Stekkjarkinn 19,
220 Hafnarfjördur,
Iceland
tel.: +354-555-3991
e-mail: [log in to unmask]
http://www.centrum.is/~aibsen/
|