bottom burps
you might be wondering what happened to your delightfully devious diva of derision this week. alternatively, you could be out enjoying yourself at the seaside. or perhaps, and i doubt this very much, you couldn’t care less. well…. i’ve been deep in qi land. a marvellous british comedy programme where incredibly funny people sit about being quite interesting.
the premise of the game is that stephen fry asks difficult and sometimes impossible questions and the panel get points for being right but more importantly, for being interesting. points are deducted for being obvious, boring or wrong. alan davies is the regular contestant and has the dubious pleasure of getting the least amount of marks in each show, usually in the minus numbers.
it’s hard to describe to people as it often descends into a rambling and hilarious jumble of one-liners and rants blurted out in rapid succession by people with brains the size of norfolk. it often descends into delightful riffs on bottoms (both back and front), cocks, diarrhoea (arse gravy) and homosexual innuendo. but for all its public schoolboy humour, it’s actually quite interesting and very, very funny.
and you do learn an awful lot of nonsense. according to the qi elves, the chinese invented almost everything, the greeks invented most of everything else and the british did very little of anything except invent some brilliant comedy shows.
spot on.
normal blogging will resume once i stop laughing…
put this in your pipe 2
in my post the other day, listing blogs i find amusing, there were no british blogs. not one. the internet is dominated by american humour blogs and our daily lives are often overwhelmed by american culture. there are quite a few blogs dedicated to the subject of british humour but they mainly focus on how incomprehensible it is to americans.
so that got me thinking… a dangerous occupation in this heat… why is so much british humour incomprehensible to americans? here’s my thesis on the subject in one word: class
so much of what we find funny is based on class. we like nothing better than to take the piss out of upper class twits or bumbling, incompetent peasants. most of my favourite shows were based on the “class struggle”.
dad’s army,
fawlty towers,
absolutely fabulous,
to the manor born
blackadder
yes minister
are you being served
the good life
citizen smith
only fools and horses
much of monty python
and so on and so on.
[aside: i’m afraid i’ve been out of the country so long, i don’t know any of the present popular comedies very well but things like little britain and the royle family fall into this category. but let’s face it, the old stuff was so much better]
the americans do have a class system but it’s very different to ours. it seems theirs is based on income and ours on birth. we brits are not fooled by an oik making lorry loads of money and we can spot a dressed down poshie half a mile off. no. in blighty, you are born into a class and there you stay. that’s why we find people’s pathetic efforts to pass as a toff so hysterical. because it’s impossible to do.
and sorry folks, but speaking in a fake “street” accent (see catherine tate for the lingo) is fooling no-one.
deep thinking over. here’s a quick pick of some funny british blogs.
The household is made up of myself, Zoe, an oasis of calm, Coralie, a 21 year-old stroppy little cow, her twin sister, Tatiana, who bosses the Twat and me around and winds up their brother Todd, a sixteen-year old with the attention span of a goldfish.
We have borrowed Big A’s baby names book, and I am bored with reading through it. It is basically just a list of names. Which is very useful and all that, but not incredibly interesting. All I can say is: show me a kid called ‘Aaron’ and I will show you some fucking lazy parents.
i am livid
I am going Speed Dating!!
Ostensibly I am accompanying a female friend who wasn’t keen on doing it by herself, but essentially I will be a contestant (they’re called contestants, right?). I tried this once before many years ago, but got very drunk, couldn’t remember people, and subsequently ended up going on a date with someone I really didn’t like very much. This time I intend on being sober for most of it.
a beautiful revolution
Girls. I am a complete catastrophe with them. The moment I fall for a girl I do stupid things like walking into trees or setting myself on fire in restaurants, and it just all goes terribly wrong.
take one woman with low self esteem, but quite good hair. add one moronic illness. stir in some medication which causes hair to fall out. mix it all up and this is what you get…
[two asides in one post! most of the popular humour blogs i’ve found in my travels have book deals. many are on bestseller lists. am i missing something? why would someone buy the book of a blog when they can read it for free online? where are the management™ when you need them?]
put this in your pipe
it’s hard enough to get people to come to your blog and read your ramblings on a regular basis (thank you dear six (!) readers), let alone to get them to explore your sidebar. now, before you get all hot under the collar, i’m talking about that column on the left hand side of the page that has lots of links in it. because i have no witty nonsense i feel like writing today, i thought i’d hand it over to fellow bloggers to tickle your funny bone. under “funnies” (imaginative title right?) you’ll find blogs that make me laugh. i was going to say “perhaps you will too” but in some ways i hope you don’t because that would make you as silly as me. ah well, here goes…
cake wrecks
if you like cakes and you hate bad spelling, you’ll love this blog. everything from creepy dolls to chocolate penises. there seems to be no end of amusement to be had from people’s sweet disasters.
funny not slutty
if you want to know how to “how to vajazzle your vajayjay” or why “skinny women should shut up about their weight“, go and read these funny women.
how not to act old
another woman after my own heart. a huge lists of don’ts for the mature reader. things like “don’t take pictures of your freaking flowers“, don’t admit you’re befuddled by twitter, tiVo, texting — most of technology” and “stop covering up your underwear“. i giggle a lot at this stuff. probably means i’m old.
A lingering fear of mine was confirmed last night: My dog might be slightly retarded.
another female blogger! i’m beginning to see a bias in this list. this site is not only witty but has brilliant cartoons drawn by the writer herself. check out “dog“, 7 games you can play with a brick” and “this is why i’ll never be an adult“. love it.
metrodad
aha! the first man on the list! his blog is more amusing observations on life as a dad rather than outright giggles but well worth a read.
Maybe kids do really mature faster these days but whenever I think about this story, I recall being 5 years old and having a crush on my neighbor Brina. Maybe I was just a socially retarded dork back then because the only way I expressed my feelings for her were by pulling her pigtails and pushing her in the mud!
shit my kids ruined
it’s exactly as the title suggests. from fun with tampons to dodgy eyebrow “art”, this blog has me rolling my eyes every time i visit. i just wish i’d taken pictures of the crackers in the vcr (yes, i’m that old!).
oatmeal
how to describe oatmeal? i just find it funny. especially the titles. there are lots of list/top ten type articles including “6 reasons to ride a polar bear to work“, “8 ways to tell if your loved ones plan to eat you” and “10 reasons to avoid talking on the phone“. and the cartoons are great too.
the onion
if you don’t know the onion, you really should. it’s hilarious. brilliantly made news satire that will make you wet yourself. especially if you’re old mature like me.
the problem with young people today is…
i’m seeing another pattern developing in this list! this one is a good old series of rants and moans by crabby old fart. his bio reads:
This is me. Name’s Don.
I don’t care much for young people and I’m not too sure how I feel about you.
Thanks for visiting.
some of my favourite titles are:
- they eat like pigs
- they drink sissy drinks
- they dance like idiots
- they all have disorders
- they pee too much
- they mumble all the time
- they’re too tall
the complete list is in the right sidebar. just go and click on the links…
that should be enough nonsense to keep you going for the day. compiling this list has made me realise that i must do some more searching for a bit of brit blog humour. anyone got any links?
see you tomorrow…