Jokes Archive!
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Mad!
A New
Scientist reader living in the outer London suburb of Barking was
delighted the other day to see a little white van going round the
streets labelled, "Barking Police Dog Patrol".
Don't try this at home!
From a newsgroup on the
internet:
I reckon this bloke must have been a complete idiot. This is what he
told me happened to him.
"Last night I returned from
the pub and decided to do a bit of DIY in the front room. I got
everything ready, but when I pressed the trigger on the huge aerosol of
expanding foam ('fills awkward gaps, sets rock hard, expands 60 times
its original volume') it wouldn't work. It said 'shake 20 times' so I
shook it an extra 50. I fiddled around with it for a while, but it
wouldn't eject any foam.
I took the nozzle off and poked into the hole with a screwdriver, but
nothing happened. I tried hitting the can with a hammer, but it still
wouldn't work. "What a bugger!" I thought. I got a little screwdriver
and put the end into the hole where the nozzle should be and hit it
carefully with a hammer. Still nothing, so I hit it a bit harder.
Eventually I hit it really hard.
Suddenly all hell broke loose. There was a loud bang. A fountain of
sticky foam went up to the ceiling. With great presence of mind I put my
finger over the hole, but this turned the vertical jet into a sideways
spray, with foam hitting the walls, curtains and furniture. I thought
I'd retrieve the situation as much as possible, so I tried to direct the
foam into the cavity I was trying to fill. I managed to fill it very
quickly; in fact it soon overflowed on to the carpet. Since the job was
now done I decided the best thing to do was to put the can in the
dustbin. I carried it along the hall as quickly as I could, but foam was
coming out quite fast all the time. In the yard, a lot of foam got on
the cat, unfortunately. I dropped the can into the bin and shut the lid
as fast as I could.
The wife was pretty annoyed about the carpet, walls, curtains and
ceiling, and the cat was really freaked out. Next day I had to hold the
cat tightly in a towel while the wife cut most of its fur off (good job
it's warm weather). The dustbinmen came, and when they tipped the bin
up on their lorry nothing came out. Everything in there was one solid
mass. The council says I'll have to pay for a new bin, because I just
can't get the solid foam out. It's as hard as rock. We've got to have
new curtains and a carpet, and the insurance say it wasn't an accident,
it was idiocy (cheeky bastards) so they won't pay."
What an idiot!
Poetic justice I
There was a nice snippet in Blackmore Vale Magazine,
one of the local freebies. It seems there was this woman who lost her
bank debit card and didn't realise until she got her bank statement. To
her amazement there was £300 more in her account than she thought
there should be. Investigating, she discovered that whoever had
taken/found/acquired her card was an avid gambler who had got lucky (or
skilful) at the local betting shop, not realising that the betting shop,
having deducted the stake via the debit card, then proceeded to pay the
winnings into the same account. The woman got to keep the winnings while
the gambler landed himself in court!
Poetic justice II
The Guardian reports news of the death of a local politician in
eastern Ukraine. "The 40-year-old man was taking his dog for a walk when
he fell into a heated argument with a group of people who objected to
the dog, a boxer, being off his lead and without a muzzle. The
politician took a hand grenade out of his pocket and threw it at the
young people. The dog fetched the grenade and obediently returned it to
its master, only for both of them to be blown to pieces."
New dinosaur theory
Apparently the Japanese have come up with a new theory about the dying
out of the dinosaurs. It seems it was not an asteroid impact, but
because they made too much noise when they were mating.
"Even if you calculated that dinosaurs only have the same impact when
thrusting as humans," Rikao Yanagida says, "at 100 tonnes, thrusting
every 6.7 seconds would create 2200 kilowatts of energy. About 50 per
cent of that energy becomes noise. If dinosaurs were having sex, the
noise would be tremendous. It would kill any humans within a 130-metre
radius.
"What's more, omnivorous dinosaurs travelled in groups, so when they
had sex the sounds they emitted would have killed off all the small
dinosaurs around them. That robbed the carnivorous dinosaurs of their
food, making them extinct too."
The New Scientist, reporting all this, comments: "Interesting
idea, but somehow we're more convinced by the asteroid impact theory."
Early Bath
What is the difference between the Argentinian football team and a
teabag?
A teabag stays longer in the cup.
One no-hoper seeks another
"Atheist, capitalist, gambling waster, no personality, money, intellect
or charm, unreliable, snobbish seeks pretentious woman, up to 45, for
improving influence. Anywhere."
[From the Weekend FT's 'Affairs of the Heart' page, 25 May 2002]
Deadly serious
A man in Bradley, North Yorkshire,
is raising money for charity by running a sweepstake to guess the date
he will die, but has stipulated that murderers will be disqualified.
[From The Guardian, 22 May 2002]
Catastrophe
[The following leaflet was picked up
in a veterinary practice waiting room.]
HOW TO GIVE A CAT A PILL
1. Pick up cat and cradle it in the crook of your left arm as if
holding a baby. Position right forefinger and thumb on either side of
cat's mouth and gently apply pressure to cheeks while holding pill in
right hand. As cat opens mouth pop pill into mouth. Allow cat to close
mouth and swallow.
2. Retrieve pill from floor and cat from behind sofa. Cradle cat in
left arm and repeat process.
3. Retrieve cat from bedroom and throw soggy pill away.
4. Take new pill from foil wrap, cradle cat in left arm holding rear
paws tightly with left hand. Force jaws open and push pill to back of
mouth with right forefinger. Hold mouth shut for a count of ten.
5. Retrieve pill from goldfish bowl and cat from top of wardrobe. Call
spouse from garden.
6. Kneel on floor with cat wedged firmly between knees, hold front
and rear paws, ignore low growls emitted by cat. Get spouse to hold head
firmly with one hand while forcing wooden ruler into mouth. Drop pill
down ruler and rub.
7. Retrieve cat from curtain rail, get another pill from foil wrap.
Make note to buy a new ruler and repair curtains. Carefully sweep
shattered figurines and vases from hearth and set to one side for gluing
later.
8. Wrap cat in large towel and get spouse to lie on cat with head
just visible from below armpit. Put pill in end of drinking straw,
force mouth open with pencil and blow down drinking straw.
9. Check label to make sure pill not harmful to humans, drink 1 beer
to take taste away. Apply Band-Aid to spouse's forearm and remove
blood from carpet with cold water and soap.
10. Retrieve cat from neighbour's shed. Get another pill. Open
another beer. Place cat in cupboard and close door on to neck to leave
head showing. Force open mouth with dessertspoon. Flick pill down
throat with elastic band.
11. Fetch screwdriver from garage and put cupboard door back on
hinge. Drink beer. Fetch bottle of Scotch. Pour shot, drink. Apply cold
compress to cheek and check records for date of last tetanus shot.
Apply whisky compress to cheek to disinfect. Toss back another shot.
Throw Tee shirt away. Fetch new one from bedroom.
12. Ring fire brigade to retrieve the f*****g cat from tree across
the road. Apologise to neighbour who crashed into fence while swerving
to avoid cat. Take last pill from foil-wrap.
13. Tie the little bastard's front paws to rear paws with garden
twine and bind tightly to leg of dining table. Find heavy duty pruning
gloves from shed. Push pill into mouth foilowed by large piece of
fillet steak. Be rough about it. Hold head vertically and pour 2 pints
of water down throat to wash pill down.
14. Consume remainder of Scotch. Get spouse to drive you to the
emergency room, sit quietly while doctor stitches fingers and forearm
and remove pill remnants from right eye. Call furniture shop on way
home to order new table.
15. Arrange for RSPCA to
collect mutant cat
from hell and ring local pet shop to see if they have any hamsters.
HOW TO GIVE A DOG A PILL
Wrap it in bacon.
Current affairs
From the FT, of course.
Alternative crossword
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | |
| 1 | |||||
| 2 | |||||
| 3 | |||||
| 4 | |||||
| 5 |
ACROSS
1. Breed of horse
2. Violent blow.
3. Mixture of drinks.
4. Metal indentation tool.
5. Humorous magazine.
DOWN
1. Small green vegetables.
2. Female sheep.
3. Chickens.
4. Large bodies of water.
5. Often dropped.
Not sure about these, though ... !
Four fonts walk into a bar. The
barman says, 'Oi – get out! We don't want your type in here.'
A jump-lead walks into a bar. The barman says, 'I'll serve you, but
don't start anything.'
A woman walked into a bar and asked the barman for a double entendre.
So he gave her one.
A sandwich walks into a bar. The barman says, 'Sorry, we don't serve
food in here.'
Dyslexic man walks into a bra ...
A seal walks into a club ...
A man walks into a bar with a roll of tarmac under his arm and says:
'Pint please, and one for the road.'
Boom boom! These are even worse ...
I met a Dutch girl with inflatable shoes last week, phoned her up to
arrange a date, but unfortunately she'd popped her clogs.
Two Eskimos sitting in a kayak were chilly; but when they lit a fire
in the craft, it sank, proving once and for all that you can't have
your kayak and heat it.
Two boll weevils grew up in Cornwall. One went to Hollywood and
became a famous actor. The other stayed behind, drove a tractor and
never amounted to much. The second one, naturally, became known as the
lesser of two weevils.
A three-legged dog walks into a saloon in the Old West. He slides up
to the bar and announces: 'I'm looking for the man who shot my paw.'
Did you hear about the Buddhist who refused his dentist's Novocain
during root canal work? He wanted to transcend dental medication.
Getting worse still ...
A group of chess enthusiasts checked into a hotel and were standing
in the lobby discussing their recent tournament victories. After about
an hour, the manager came out of the office and asked them to
disperse. 'But why?' they asked, as they moved off. 'Because,' he
said, 'I can't stand chess nuts boasting in an open foyer.'
There was a man who entered a local paper's pun contest. He sent in ten
different puns, in the hope that at least one of the puns would win.
Unfortunately, no pun in ten did.
Big finale ...
A woman has twins and gives them up for adoption. One of them goes to
a family in Egypt and is named 'Amal'. The other goes to a family in
Spain, who name him 'Juan'. Years later, Juan sends a picture of
himself to his mum. Upon receiving the picture, she tells her husband
that she wished she also had a picture of Amal. Her husband responds,
'But they are twins. If you've seen Juan, you've seen Amal.'
Roman scandals
This from The Independent,
11 December 2001:
[quote]
Berlusconi shamed by his organs
You'd never guess how interesting Italian ministers can be.
Especially when their biographies have been translated into English by
a computer with an eccentric sense of literary style.
Paolo Bonaiuti, we learn from the Italian government's official
website, is 'megaphone of the President Berlusconi'. Lucio Stanca, the
Minister for Innovation, is 'conjugated and it has two daughters'. He
also graduated 'near the University Mouthfuls' – a rendering of the
prestigious Bocconi University.
The Christian Democrat leader, Rocco Buttiglione, had an influential
relationship with 'August of the Walnut', better known as the academic
Augusto del Noce. Maurizio Gaspari was once 'Undersecretary to the
Inside and member of the Forehead of the Youth'.
Claudio Scajola, the Interior Minister, was 'put endured to the job'
of making up for the 'lack of endowed organs' in Forza Italia, in 1966.
He also enjoys sailing and a competition called 'America Goblet'.
A tongue-in-cheek article in La Repubblica at the weekend had
the country laughing at the computer illiteracy of Mr Berlusconi's
team, which is set on taking the country full-speed into the digital
age. Hapless figures such as Letizia Moratti, the Education Minister,
will be lumbered with gender uncertainty – she was referred to as he,
she and it – for a long time yet.
The government removed the pages and unconvincingly accused La
Repubblica of hacking into website areas 'never intended for
publication'. The only biography in flawless English was that of Mr
Berlusconi. And it was no fun at all.
[unquote]
A genuine case of 'Traduttore, traditore', it seems to me.
This chap went to the doctor ...
'Doctor, I've got this terrible
problem with wind.' (Frrrpt, frrrpt.)
'Dear, dear,' said the doctor. 'It is bad, isn't it. How long
has this been going on?'
(Frrrpt, frrrpt.) 'About a week, doctor.'
'Right,' said the doctor. He went to a cupboard and came back
carrying a long broom handle with a large hook on one end.
(Frrrpt, frrrpt.) 'Good heavens, doctor, what are you going to do
with that?' (Frrrpt, frrrpt, frrrpt.)
'Open the window,' said the doctor.
Watch out, lads ... !
The Bournemouth Yellow Pages has, naturally, listings under the main heading 'Wedding Services'. One sinister-sounding one is 'Wedding Services – Capture'. It turns out to be about capturing the great day on film ... But you never know.
ER indoors ...
The New Scientist this week has a fascinating article on alternative loos. Louise Halestrap, an expert on such things, gives some of the disadvantages of conventional loos: 'And splashback is always unpleasant. I've heard that if the Queen is away from home and needs to go, one of her minions drops a banana from a certain height into the toilet bowl. If it splashes, another lavatory must be found.'
Magic!
This US pilot flying over
Afghanistan looked out of the cockpit to his right and was surprised
to see a bearded, turbanned figure with a Kalashnikov sitting on a rug
keeping pace with him. The pilot looped the loop to get behind the
Muslim gunman and opened fire, sending the rug down in flames.
Moments later another bearded, turbanned figure sitting on his rug
with his Kalashniknov appeared on the left. Again the pilot looped the
loop and shot down the Muslim gunman.
Ten minutes later he got a furious radio call from base. 'You fool,'
shouted the voice. 'You've just shot down two Allied Carpets!'
Dreamtime
George W. Bush has a high level
meeting with Saddam Hussein in Switzerland.
Saddam said, 'You know, I had a dream last night that I visited the
US and everywhere I went there was a sign on every front door that
said, "We love Saddam Hussein." '
George W. said, 'That's funny. I also had a dream last night. I
dreamed that I was in Iraq and that I visited every city including
Baghdad. The streets were beautifully paved and clean, there were so
many beautiful modern skyscrapers, the people were beautifully dressed
and looked well fed. The children were just as healthy-looking as
could be, the stores had beautiful displays in the windows and
appeared to be well stocked. There was also a sign on the front door of
every home, store, and skyscraper.'
'Well, what did the signs say?' asked Saddam.
'I don't know,' replied George W., 'I can't read Hebrew.'
Mailshot misfire
The Financial Times reports that a PR group recently mailed the top brass at all the prestigious organisations in London to invite them to a seminar. The Royal Festival Hall was among the targets, but staff there were somewhat surprised that the invite was addressed to "Majesty T Queen, South Bank Centre".
Heavy breathing ...
> How does BT make your phone
emit that
> "You've not hung up" sound? It's very loud
> and adjusting your phone's volume doesn't do
> anything. It's a funny sound which unfortunately
> sounds like a car alarm.
I wish that Eurobell would use this signal when the phone is left off
the hook. My dog has recently worked out what the phone is for. When I
make a call, or sometimes when a call comes in, and I am in my studio,
my dog goes into my bedroom and takes the receiver off the hook. If I
don't notice the slight snuffling sounds as I am talking, I find that
I can put the phone down in my studio, and then no-one can make a call
in, and I cannot make any calls out until I check the bedroom and put
it back on the hook. It is rather embarrassing because she has also once
or twice tried pushing the preset buttons for friends' numbers, and so
they have had these these strange heavy breathing calls.
[From an exchange in a newsgroup on the internet]
Unintentionally funny
The Financial Times made an
unintended joke in a boring report on 22 August about a trade dispute
between Canada and the United States:
"... Canada, which has been at loggerheads with the US over softwood
lumber trade ..."
Another paper on 25 August had the following headline:
"Indepedent financial advice under threat"
And which paper was this? Naturally, The Independent! Can't
even spell their own name ...
OTT
In the Terminal 1 building at JFK
airport, New York, there is a men's washroom containing a modest five
cubicles, four urinals and four washbasins. Outside, a sign warns
potential patrons: "Occupancy by more than 2556 persons is dangerous
and unlawful."
[From the New Scientist]
New newsgroup
The New Scientist reports
that there is a newsgroup called:
alt.2eggs.sausage.beans.tomatoes.2toast.largetea.cheerslove
It's as cheerful as the name suggests. Well worth a lurk.
Computer abuse
There are computer programs
available that offer counselling for those who are unable to control
their urge to abuse computers – although this assumes you can get the
computer to work in the first place.
I tried one some years ago. The computer's opening question was: "So
you think you have a problem?" I replied: "Not really." This was
followed by a computer crash that required the attention of our data
manager who, it turned out, had a major problem with people who had no
problem but created problems for him.
[A letter in the New Scientist]
Are you a professional?
The following short quiz, consisting
of four questions, is designed to test whether you are qualified to be
a 'professional'. Click on the links to get the answer and the next
question.
Q1. How do you put a giraffe into a refrigerator?
Click here for the answer and the next
question.
Eh?!
Instructions on the packaging of a
pair of DeFeet Wool-E-Ator athletes' socks: 'Machine wash cold. Tumble
dry low. No chlorine bleach. Do not eat.'
[From the New Scientist]
Amateur archaeologist triumphs yet again!
[The apparently genuine letter
below, from a senior official at the prestigious Smithsonian
Institution in Washington DC, was sent to an enthusiastic, ingenious
and persistent archaeologist who digs his back garden and sends any
finds to the Smithsonian with his own ideas of what they are and
complete with his own scientific labels. The letter is a lesson to us
all in how to handle cranks in a kindly, urbane, but firm way.]
Dear Mr Williams
Thank you for your latest submission to the Institution, labeled
"93211-D, layer seven, next to the clothesline post ... Hominid skull".
We have given this specimen a careful and detailed examination, and
regret to inform you that we disagree with your theory that it
represents conclusive proof of the presence of Early Man in Charleston
County two million years ago. Rather, it appears that what you have
found is the head of a Barbie doll, of the variety that one of our
staff, who has small children, believes to be "Malibu Barbie".
It is evident that you have given a great deal of thought to the
analysis of this specimen, and you may be quite certain that those of
us who are familiar with your prior work in the field were loath to
come to contradiction with your findings. However, we do feel that
there are a number of physical attributes of the specimen which might
have tipped you off to its modern origin:
1. The material is molded plastic. Ancient hominid remains are
typically fossilized bone.
2. Cranial capacity of the specimen is approximately 9 cubic
centimeters, well below the threshold of even the earliest identified
proto-hominids.
3. The dentition pattern evident on the skull is more consistent with
the teeth-marks of the common domesticated dog than it is with the
ravenous man-eating Pliocene clams you speculate roamed the wetlands
during that time. This latter finding is certainly one of the most
intriguing hypotheses you have submitted in your history with this
institution, but the evidence seems to weigh rather heavily against it.
Without going into too much detail, let us say that:
A. The specimen looks like the head of a Barbie doll that a dog has
chewed on.
B. Clams don't have teeth.
It is with feelings tinged with melancholy that we must deny your
request to have the specimen carbon-dated. This is partially due to
the heavy load our lab must bear in its normal operation and partly
due to carbon-dating's notorious inaccuracy in fossils of recent
geologic record. To the best of our knowledge, no Barbie dolls were
produced prior to 1956 AD, and carbon-dating is likely to produce
wildly inaccurate results.
Sadly, we must also deny your request that we approach the National
Science Foundation Phylogeny Department with the concept of assigning
your speciman the scientific name Australopithecus spiff-arino.
Speaking personally, I, for one, fought tenaciously for the acceptance
of your proposed taxonomy, but was ultimately voted down because the
species name you selected was hyphenated and didn't really sound like
it might be Latin. However, we gladly accept your generous donation of
this fascinating specimen to the museum. While it is undoubtedly not a
Hominid fossil, it is, nonetheless, yet another riveting example of the
great body of work you seem to accumulate here so effortlessly.
You should know that our Director has reserved a special shelf in his
office for the display of the specimens you have previously submitted
to the Institution, and the entire staff speculates daily on what you
will happen upon next in your digs at the site you have discovered in
your Newport backyard. We eagerly anticipate your trip to our nation's
capital that you proposed in your last letter, and several of us are
pressing the Director to pay for it. We are particularly interested in
hearing you expand on your theories surrounding the "trans-positating
fillifitation of ferrous ions in a structural matrix" that makes the
excellent juvenile Tyrannosaurus Rex femur you recently discovered
take on the deceptive appearance of a rusty 9-mm Sears Craftsman
automotive crescent wrench.
Yours in Science
Harvey Rowe
Chief Curator – Antiquities
German plant repels pesky pets
A German gardener has developed a
plant that smells so bad it discourages animals from leaving unwanted
'gifts' on lawns. Dieter Stegmaier is to present the city of Stuttgart
with 1000 of the 'get lost' plants.
[From The Independent, 9 June 2001]
Rural Logic
Getting off the train at Crewkerne
in Somerset, a London businessman found no cabs or buses available,
leaving him a mile's walk to the office where he was due. Furious, he
asked the ticket collector why the station wasn't in the town.
'Arr, we thought about putting it there,' came the reply, 'but it
seemed better to have it on the railway.'
Department of Useless Instructions
The envelope used for returning the federal income tax form in the US bears the instruction: 'If you are filing electronically, do not use this envelope.'
Des(s)ert rats
These two blokes are lost in the
Sahara desert. They're desperate for water, but just as they think
they're about to die, they chance upon a village where market day is
in full swing. They go to the first stall they see and ask if they can
buy some water.
"No," replies the Bedouin stall owner, "I only sell fruit. Try the
next stall."
So off they go to the next stall and again they ask for water.
"Sorry," says the merchant, "But I only sell custard."
"Custard?" one of the blokes says to the other, "What kind of place
is this?"
By now desperate, they go to the next stall, only to be told, "Sorry,
but I only sell jelly."
Hearing this, one of the blokes turns to the other and says, "This is
a trifle bazaar."
Real Dilbert Quotes
A magazine recently ran a "Dilbert Quotes" contest. They were looking
for people to submit quotes from their real life Dilbert-type
managers. Here are the finalists:
1. "As of tomorrow, employees will only be able to access the
building using individual security cards. Pictures will be taken next
Wednesday and employees will receive their cards in two weeks." (This
was the winning quote from Fred Dales at Microsoft Corp. in Redmond,
WA.)
2. "What I need is a list of specific unknown problems we will
encounter." (Lykes Lines Shipping)
3. "E-mail is not to be used to pass on information or data. It
should be used only for company business." (Accounting manager,
Electric Boat Company)
4. "This project is so important, we can't let things that are more
important interfere with it." (Advertising/Marketing manager, United
Parcel Service)
5. "Doing it right is no excuse for not meeting the schedule.
6. No one will believe you solved this problem in one day! We've been
working on it for months. Now, go act busy for a few weeks and I'll
let you know when it's time to tell them." (R&D supervisor,
Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing/3M Corp.)
7. "My Boss spent the entire weekend retyping a 25-page proposal that
only needed corrections. She claims the disk I gave her was damaged
and she couldn't edit it. The disk I gave her was write-protected."
(CIO of Dell Computers)
8. Quote from the Boss: "Teamwork is a lot of people doing what I
say." (Marketing executive, Citrix Corporation)
9. My sister passed away and her funeral was scheduled for Monday.
When I told my Boss, he said she died on purpose so that I would have
to miss work on the busiest day of the year. He then asked if we could
change her burial to Friday. He said, "That would be better for me."
(Shipping executive, FTD Florists)
10. "We know that communication is a problem, but the company is not
going to discuss it with the employees." (Switching supervisor,
AT&T Long Lines Division)
11. We recently received a memo from senior management saying: "This
is to inform you that a memo will be issued today regarding the memo
mentioned above." (Microsoft, Legal Affairs Division)
12. One day my Boss asked me to submit a status report to him
concerning a project I was working on. I asked him if tomorrow would
be soon enough. He said, "If I wanted it tomorrow, I would have waited
until tomorrow to ask for it!" (New business manager, Hallmark
Greeting Cards)
13. As director of communications, I was asked to prepare a memo
reviewing our company's training programs and materials. In the body
of the memo in one of the sentences I mentioned the "pedagogical
approach" used by one of the training manuals. The day after I routed
the memo to the executive committee, I was called into the HR
director's office, and told that the executive vice president wanted
me out of the building by lunch. When I asked why, I was told that she
wouldn't stand for perverts (paedophiles?) working in her company.
Finally, he showed me her copy of the memo, with her demand that I be
fired – and the word "pedagogical" circled in red. The HR manager was
fairly reasonable, and once he looked the word up in his dictionary
and made a copy of the definition to send back to her, he told me not
to worry. He would take care of it. Two days later, a memo to the
entire staff came out directing us that no words, which could not be
found in the local Sunday newspaper could be used in company memos. A
month later, I resigned. In accordance with company policy, I created
my resignation memo by pasting words together from the Sunday paper.
(Taco Bell Corporation)
Callcentres and psychiatry don't
mix
Brrr, brrr ... "Hello, welcome to the Psychiatry Hotline. If you are
obsessive-compulsive, press 1 repeatedly. If you are co-dependent,
please ask someone else to press 2. If you have multiple
personalities, press 3, 4, 5 and 6. If you are paranoid-delusional, we
know who you are and what you want; just stay on the line so we can
trace the call. If you are schizophrenic, listen carefully and a
little voice will tell you which number to press. If you are
manic-depressive, it doesn't matter which number you press: no-one
will answer."
Car for sale
Advert in a Irish newspaper:
For sale, 1985 blue Volkswagen Golf, only 15 miles, only first gear
and reverse used, never driven hard, original tyres, original brakes,
original fuel and oil, only 1 driver, owner wishing to sell due to
employment layoff, photo attached.
Don't try this at home!
Only in America
A man from Charlotte, North Carolina, having purchased a case of very expensive cigars, insured them against, among other things, fire. Within a month, having smoked his entire stockpile, the man filed a claim against the insurance company, stating that the cigars were lost 'in a series of small fires'.
The insurance company refused to pay, citing the obvious reason that the man had consumed the cigars in the normal fashion. The man sued – and won.
In delivering the ruling the judge, agreeing that the claim was frivolous, stated nevertheless that the man held a policy from the company in which it had warranted that the cigars were insurable and also guaranteed that it would insure against fire, without defining what it considered to be 'unacceptable fire', and was obliged to pay the claim. Rather than endure a lengthy and costly appeal the insurance company accepted the ruling and paid the man $15,000 for the rare cigars he had lost 'in the fires'.
After he cashed the cheque, however, the company had him arrested on 24 counts of arson. With his own insurance claim and testimony from the previous case being used against him, the man was convicted of intentionally burning his insured property and sentenced to 24 months in jail and a $24,000 fine.
[From 'Global Village', a weekly posting from cyberspace]
An official advert in the Financial Times, Monday 12 February 2001, p. 37:
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