5,000 Great One Liners E-Book

• Herausgeber: The Robson Press
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2012

Beschreibung

My mate told me that I just don't understand irony. Which was ironic because we were at a bus stop at the time. A dyslexic man walks into a bra. An onion just told me a joke. I don't know whether to laugh or cry. A priest, a rabbi and a blind man walk into a bar and the bartender says, 'What is this, some kind of joke?' I got chatting to a lumberjack in a pub. He seemed like a decent feller. I'll never forget what my granddad said to me just before he kicked the bucket. He said, 'Grandson, how far do you think I can kick this bucket?' Whether told in the rugby clubs of Wales or the gentlemen's clubs of London, their sharpness and simplicity unites us all. Short, sweet and wickedly clever, they hold a special place in the annals of comedy, and as the Twitter age heralds a resurrection of the art form, there seems no better time to celebrate the immortal one-liner. In this riveting read, Times diary columnist Grant Tucker does just that, bringing together 5,000 of the funniest one-liners ever told in one definitive volume. Laugh-out-loud funny, 5,000 Great One-Liners has all the quips, zingers, puns and wisecracks you'll ever need - and a whole lot more.

Leseprobe

CONTENTS

Title PageFOREWORDTHE JOKESCopyright

FOREWORD

I have always found one-liners the cleverest form of comedy: the way they can garner a laugh with just a few short words inspires my untold admiration for those who make it an art form. Once a staple of many comedy acts, the one-liner was perfected by two of my personal favourite stand-ups, Bob Monkhouse and Les Dawson. Who can forget Monkhouse’s classic “I want to die like my father peacefully in his sleep, not screaming and terrified like his passengers”? Sadly, neither of these comedy legends is still with us today, but their legacy is being continued by a new generation of comedians. I’m sure if Bob or Les were with us now they would look proudly upon modern comics who are helping to introduce young audiences to the beauty of the one-liner. In recent years, the quick-fire gag has enjoyed a resurgence not only among the big-name stars, but also among us ordinary folk, and this is thanks partly to social media. Twitter in particular has given new life to the format, challenging us to condense our jokes to fit the 140-character limit. Some of the funniest one-liners I’ve ever read have been the creation of the Twitter hive-mind, and have been retweeted and retold around the world, being constantly refined and refreshed along the way.

This book has taken many months to put together, but I hope you will agree it was worth it. It brings together 5,000 of the best one-liners I have ever heard or read, and is designed entirely to make you chuckle. I have picked up these jokes in a huge variety of venues in all parts of the country, from the rugby clubs of Wales to the gentleman’s clubs of London, but one thing they all have in common is that they are timelessly funny. I’m sure many of these jokes were told long before I was born, in the corners of pubs up and down the country, so I cannot take credit for them all. What I would rather do is to thank every person who has ever told a joke, every person who has ever made anybody else laugh. Laughter is one of the most beautiful things in the world: it lends colour to our daily life, it helps us get over the most tragic situations, and it can unite people from all different backgrounds, colours and creeds, bringing them together in fits of laughter over a shared experience.

In that spirit, I would like to thank some of the people who have made my life that little bit better through the power of laughter. Namely, my dad, Carl Tucker, who is always the first to crack a joke in any situation; my friend Huw Anslow, who has the ability to turn the most serious moments into a joke; my friend Ryan Bourne, whose impressions will forever keep me entertained; and my work colleague Holly Smith: all I need to do is look at her and she can make me laugh. Jeremy Robson, my publisher, also deserves a special mention. He is one of the best in the publishing business, but despite that he is also one of the nicest people you could ever wish to meet.

Finally, I would like to thank my long-suffering editor Olivia Beattie for her patience during this mammoth project. I can’t imagine it was as much fun for her to edit this book as it was for me to write it. But despite several deadline extensions, and numerous changes, she has created a brilliant book out of what was originally a quite incomprehensible manuscript!

I do hope that this book gives you the same entertainment and moments of laugh-out-loud hilarity that it gave me when writing it.

Grant Tucker

London, August 2012

UPDATE: I forgot to mention my mum, Michelle Tucker, in the last edition and she has been hating on me ever since. So here’s to you, Mum. You are the best.

Grant Tucker

London, January 2016