"A triumph of stupidity over common sense"

Messers CURTIS and ELTON, before they became Infected with the Curse of NOT BEING FUNNY, expressed all that is Good about Politickal Humour in their Televised Play, Blackadder the Third.

(With added Hollandish surtitles for your Convenience).

I Don't Mind If I Do*

As the rest of the world seems to be going back to the worst aspects of the 1980s, I've decided to trump them. You may have noticed, from my George Formby and Gracie Fields tracks, that I'm going back to the 1940s - the good bits, not the death camps.

This morning I'm listening to 40s radio comedy, specifically It's That Man Again and Much Binding in the Marsh. ITMA was a wartime sketch show, one of the first to mock public figures - 'That Man' was Hitler. Much Binding was set on an RAF base which became a country club after the war, and features much cross-class humour and pop culture references which are still actually funny.

Listen in to some (not many survived as the BBC couldn't afford to record much) here.

*Colonel Humphrey Chinstrap of ITMA turned every question into an offer of a drink.

Politics-free post

For light relief, some totally untopical humour. I love Joyce Grenfell - her monologues and appearances in comedies like St. Trinian's. Followed by Sandy and Julian from Round the Horne - they specialised in polari, the romany-inflected gay slang which allowed them to say pretty much anything on prime-time 1960s radio.

Sucking Satan's…

Just because it crossed my mind (and hey, what's blogging for if not that?): a quote from Stewart Lee. For non-soccer fans, Gary Lineker was a famously nice and successful striker who now infests our screens offering bland commentary and advertising crisps. Lee is officially the 41st best stand-up comedian ever.

We now know that crisps make little children fat. Why does Gary Lineker choose to advertise crisps? He can't need the money, he's on television all the time. His family run a fruit & vegetable stand in Leicester market, "Lineker's Fresh Fruit & Veg" - he could advertise that. He could help to save human lives. But instead he chooses to advertise crisps. Why does he advertise crisps? It can only be that Gary Lineker is sexually aroused by the idea of obese children dying. 

Reading a blog are ya? Yeah, bit tossy innit mate?

Sorry, infected by the Drive By Abuser book Cynical Ben's just sent me for Easter, along with one of his custom CDs (no tracklist though). Drive-By Abuser is one of the Modern Toss characters who had misery and cynicism to our lives. He slides past on a scooter uttering unnecessarily passive-aggressive comments on everyday activities.

Here's 'Ornithologist', in honour of Ben and Dan:

Hiding in bushes yeah?
spying on birds
ticking 'em off in a little book?
Still, there's no law against it is there?
be different if it was people though wouldn't it?
you'd be banged up
with all the fucking perverts

Oh my aching sides

Morning all. Slightly fuzzy today, but a lot to do: 2 PhD theses to read, a Renaissance literature class to prepare and my friends Cruel Brother are playing at the Chindit tonight.

Last night's Comedy Night at the Little Civic was excellent. Lots of people there and some very funny acts. Jim Smallman told tales of alcoholism, teaching and audience interaction which made up for his baseball cap, and Tony Law offered a routine which mixed self-reflexive stuff - like Stuart Lee - with occasionally surreal outbursts. He also seemed to imply that Michael Macintyre's routine is made up of other comedians' lines! Canadian humour, eh?

In between was a local act who swung between unfunny observation and very funny asides. I particularly liked his suggestion that Pete Docherty is the only celebrity not to have a shortened name like SuBo or JLo.

There's another one on April 1st, appropriately. Recommended.

Swoon to Ada Lovelace (and Babbage)

What's cool? A Canadian woman's ongoing steampunk comic of Babbage and Ada Lovelace, early Victorian inventors of computing and crimefighters (ahem), that's what. Babbage was a proper academic (i.e. he never managed to build any of his Difference Engines, despite raising the cash) and Ada was the first geek software developer. And Byron's daughter.

Start here - the original strip.

Laugh riot, Victorian style

Ms. E-mentor's Victorian Vision caption competition reminded me of one of my favourite cartoons, by JW Taylor and published in Punch, the famously unfunny British 'humorous' magazine, now happily defunct.

This is the only online version I can find - sorry it's so tiny, but click on it for a slightly larger version. I'll have to scan my larger one in.

'We like the plot, Miss Austen, but all this effing and blinding will have to go'

What a relief Walden's a fictional university, eh readers?

I love Doonesbury. Click on the image for a larger version.