A short rant about... Jokes

alleepally · 31-10-2004 9:52pm #1

This is from the Sunday Tribune today by Paddy Murray. Funniest bit of journalism I read this week...

Do you remember jokes? Great craic they were. "Man walked into a bar..", "Did you hear about the dog with two mickeys...?" That kind of thing. Someone would tell a joke at the end of which, everyone else, hopefully, would laugh.

Well as the lousy novelist once said: Dead. That's what they are. Jokes have been killed off by technology. You can't tell a joke nowadays without some gob****e telling you he got it by email last week or by text yesterday. If you hear a joke these days, you have to run into the street and shout about it before someone puts it up on the web or texts it to everyone they know. Almost as bad is the fact that the art of telling the joke is all but dead too. "Great gag", someone will tell you these days, handing you a phone and inviting you to strain your eyes peering at a two-inch screen. As you look, you will invariably be told: "Now, scroll down". Or worse, someone will pull from their pocket a list of gags downloaded from the internet, and begin reading. It's all too sad. Which is why when the two words "Scroll down" are said to me, I always reply. Also with two words.