Peter Risdon » Humour

Australian genius

Peter Risdon — Tue, 12 Jul 2011 07:53:24 +0000

Here.

Via.

Social media and politicians

Peter Risdon — Thu, 07 Jul 2011 09:10:16 +0000

Obama asked people to submit questions via Twitter. Iowahawk asked some.

Letter to The Times

Peter Risdon — Wed, 06 Jul 2011 13:33:24 +0000

From Alfred Wintle, dated 6th February 1946:

From Lt. Col. A.D. Wintle.
The Royal Dragoons
Cavalry Club
127 Piccadilly W.1.

To the Editor of The Times.

Sir,

I have just written you a long letter.

On reading it over, I have thrown it into the waste paper basket.

Hoping this will meet with your approval,

I am
Sir
Your obedient Servant

Via.

Order yours today

Peter Risdon — Wed, 16 Mar 2011 13:39:29 +0000

Tim Blair spotted this:

Kenneth Cole

Peter Risdon — Thu, 03 Feb 2011 22:34:05 +0000

The PR disaster of the century, you might have noticed, was the tweet from Kenneth Cole Fashion:

Millions are in uproar in #Cairo. Rumor is they heard our new spring collection is now available online at http://bit.ly/KCairo -KC

Now there’s a spoof twitter account, @KennethColePR. And very good it is too:

You’re gonna want to Abu Ghraib one of our hoodies before they’re gone.#KennethColeTweets less than 20 seconds ago via web

Hey, Pope Benedict – there’s no way to fondle our spring shoes inappropriately! #KennethColeTweets 18 minutes ago via web

Of course there are no gays in Iran, they’re all shopping at my new outlet in Dubai. Holla! #KennethColeTweets 24 minutes ago via web

Black Pants Down – Our new looks are more slimming than a Somali diet! #KennethColeTweets 35 minutes ago via web

Jeffrey Dahmer would have eaten up our spring collection!#KennethColeTweets

PJ talk

Peter Risdon — Thu, 06 Jan 2011 18:57:01 +0000

Here’s a short clip of extracts from a talk P.J. O’Rourke gave to intelligence squared:

You’ll have heard may of the lines before, but there’s some new stuff. The full video (for members) or audio (for all) can he enjoyed at the i² website.

Also see a transcript of a recent interview at Bloomberg.

The art of the riposte

Peter Risdon — Fri, 26 Nov 2010 13:11:26 +0000

First Sarah Palin. A lot of things about her worry me, but this is a great response to the press coverage of her slip of the tongue about Korea:

My fellow Americans in all 57 states, the time has changed for come. With our country founded more than 20 centuries ago, we have much to celebrate – from the FBI’s 100 days to the reforms that bring greater inefficiencies to our health care system. We know that countries like Europe are willing to stand with us in our fight tohalt the rise of privacy, and Israel is a strong friend of Israel’s. And let’s face it, everybody knows that it makes no sense that you send a kid to the emergency room for a treatable illness like asthma and they end up taking up a hospital bed. It costs, when, if you, they just gave, you gave them treatment early, and they got some treatment, and ah, a breathalyzer, or an inhalator. I mean, not a breathalyzer, ah, I don’t know what the term is in Austrian for that…

All taken from Barak Obama speeches. As she goes on to say, there’s significant inconsistency in the way gaffes are reported. Media organisations are partisans, not dispassionate recorders of events.

And here, via Snoopy, is a very funny response to the Irish crisis:

Israeli NGOs horrified by the developing humanitarian crisis in Ireland have organized a flotilla called Viva Dublina. A spokesman for Viva Dublina said: “We are horrified by the developing humanitarian crisis in Ireland!” Viva Dublina has been loaned one of the world’s largest luxury cruise liners by an Israeli shipping mogul to act as a flotilla from Ashdod to Dublin. The mogul wrote a letter to Ha’aretz saying: “I am horrified by the developing humanitarian crisis in Ireland!” The ship will be used to return the useless junk and out of date medications sent on flotillas manned by anti-Israeli Irish activists that are currently clogging the warehouses in Ashdod after Hamas refused to accept the “donations”. Egypt has asked if the flotilla can stop in El Arish to take similar “donations” that are clogging the warehouses there. Egypt says it prefers to use its warehouses to store kassam rocket parts and Mercedes-Benz sedans for Hamas.

Deep inflation

Peter Risdon — Fri, 29 Oct 2010 15:24:23 +0000

How many UK bloggers would not have spent the odd month in jail, if they were subject to this:

After being kept in a cell and then placed on bail he was ordered to appear in court on December 3 charged with displaying contempt towards a public servant, an offence which is punishable with a prison sentence of up to a month and a €10,000 (£8,700) fine.

And all for what was really quite a good joke:

A Frenchman was locked up for two days and is facing criminal charges for sending a joke email to Rachida Dati, the former Justice Minister, asking for “an inflation”.

Ms Dati is the French MEP who confused the word “inflation” with “fellatio” during a radio interview.

Perhaps it would be wise to lay off the jokes about French politicians, now we have a European Arrest Warrant.

Slime mould, whale snot and fruit bat fellatio

Peter Risdon — Fri, 01 Oct 2010 11:48:56 +0000

It’s that time of the year again… The Ig-nobel prizes have been announced.

Here’s one for Chris Dillow:

… researchers who demonstrated mathematically that organizations would become more efficient if they promoted people at random

They got it right

Peter Risdon — Tue, 21 Sep 2010 12:48:13 +0000

They really did:

PYTHON: Vice-Pope Eric? What is the Catholic position?

VICE-POPE: Well I’ve never personally, er… so I wouldn’t…

PYTHON: No, no, on sex and marriage.

VICE-POPE: Oh. Well our main worry at this stage is intra-marital sex.

PYTHON: Oh. Sex within the marriage.

KRASZT: I missed that.

VICE-POPE: Oh yes! You see, it’s within marriage, people tend to forget, that most of this carnal knowing takes place.

PYTHON: But that isn’t wrong from a Catholic point of view?

VICE-POPE: Well, actually… it is. Yes. I mean we don’t often come straight out with it because our problem is that… like it or not, sex, at this moment in time, is still the best method we’ve got of reproducing ourselves. I mean we certainly recommend virgin births where possible, but we can’t rely on them, so for purely practical reasons we’ve been forced to turn a blind eye to intra-marital sex for the time being. But only of course for outnumbering purposes; not for fun.

KRASZT: Which is why you will not allow any form of contraception.

VICE-POPE: Exactly.

FRAMPTON: But you allow the rhythm method!

VICE-POPE: Ah, but only because it doesn’t work.

PYTHON: But are you not worried that the population explosion may lead to greater poverty, disease and eventually war?

VICE-POPE: Well you must remember, our concern is for the next world. So the quicker we can get people there the better.

FRAMPTON: Your vice-holiness, can you advise me how I should tell Eddie about sex. Whenever I try to bring the subject up casually, he becomes embarrassed.

VICE-POPE: Well, frankly, it’s not easy. I mean, take the sex act. Please. (LAUGHTER) Well, none of us can work out what God must have been thinking of when He dreamed it up. I mean… you know what these people actually do, do you? It’s a mind-boggler isn’t it! Going to the lavatory is bad enough but…

KRASZT: That’s not a sin though.

VICE-POPE: Only if indulged in to excess. Voluntarily that is. Bona fide diarrhoea is morally impeccable, but, if deliberately self-induced, can be a venial one.

PYTHON: To return to sex. (CHEERING)

STALIN: What about Communism?

PYTHON: Later, later. Vice-Pope, did Christ himself say anything about sex being sinful?

VICE-POPE: Apparently not, no. This was obviously an oversight on his part, which fortunately we have been able to rectify, with the help of the teachings of Paul…

PYTHON: The Pope?

VICE-POPE: No, no, the saint. The woman-hater.

PYTHON: Oh, the pouf.

VICE-POPE: So they say, yes. Anyway, we’ve managed to pass this off as Christ’s teaching, rather successfully as I think you will admit.

ALL: Absolutely. First class job.

FRAMPTON: Had me fooled.

VICE-POPE: So that even where sex has been… well, permitted, the guilt’s been in there, doing its job.

FRAMPTON: Does this necessity to sub-edit Christ sometimes worry you?

VICE-POPE: Not really. After all, you can’t treat the New Testament as gospel. And one must remember that Christ, though he was a fine young man with some damn good ideas, did go off the rails now and again, rich-man-eye-of-camel for example, which is only to be expected, because he came from a difficult background… an under-privileged Jewish family, his father, God, God the Father that is, was all over the place, in addition to which He wasn’t married to Christ’s mother.

FRAMPTON: But Joseph was.

VICE-POPE: Yes, but Mary was a virgin you see, so the marriage could never have been consummated and so was not legally valid.

PYTHON: So, either way, Christ was a bit of a bastard?

VICE-POPE: Yes, an almighty bastard of course but… This sort of thing helps to explain, too, why he became polygamous in his after-life; all nuns being brides of Christ, as you know.

KRASZT: But with certain exceptions, you accept his teaching?

VICE-POPE: Oh yes, it’s been an invaluable basis for our whole operation really. Of course people accuse us sometimes of not practising what we preach, but you must remember that if you’re trying to propagate a creed of poverty, gentleness and tolerance, you need a very rich, powerful, authoritarian organisation to do it.