HUMOUR
Two elderly gents from a retirement home were sitting on a bench under a tree when one turns to the other and says, “Slim, I’m 83 years old now and I’m just full of aches and pains. I know you are about my age. How do you feel?” Slim says, “I feel just a new born baby, Stan.” “Really”, says Stan. “Like a new born baby? How so?” Slim replies, “Yep. No hair; no teeth, and I think that I just wet my pants.” *An elderly couple had dinner at the home of another couple, and after eating; the wives left the table and went into the kitchen. The two old gents were talking at the really great there. I would recommend it highly.” The other man asked, “Oh really? What’s the name of the place?” The first man thought long and hard, and finally said, “What’s the name of that flower that you give to someone as a token of love? You know the one that is red and has thorns on the stem?” “Do you mean a rose?” said the other man. “Yes, that’s the one”, replied the first man. He then turned towards the kitchen and yelled out, “Rose, what’s the name of that restaurant we went to last night?” *Hospital regulations require a wheel chair for every patient being discharged. However, while working as a student nurse, I found one elderly gentleman already dressed and sitting on a hospital bed with a suitcase at his feet. He insisted that he did not need my help to leave the hospital. After a chat about rules being rules, he reluctantly let me wheel him to the elevator. On the way down I asked him if his wife was coming to the hospital to collect him. “I don’t know,” he replied. “She’s still upstairs in the bathroom changing out of her hospital gown and putting her make-up on.” *An old couple in their nineties both have problems remembering things. During a check up, the doctor tells them that they are physically okay, but they might want to start writing things down to help them remember. Later that night, whilst watching TV, the old man gets up from his chair. He turns to his wife, “Want anything while I’m in the kitchen?” he asks her. “Will you get me a bowl of ice-cream?”asks the wife. “Sure”, he says and heads for the kitchen. “Don’t you think you should write it down so that you can remember it?’ she asks. “No”, says the husband. “I can
remember it.” “Well, I’d like some strawberries on top also. Maybe you should write that down also?” “No”, says the husband, “I can remember that. You want a bowl of icecream with strawberries.” “I’d also like some whipped cream with the strawberries,” says the wife again. “I’m certain that you will forget that; so write it down.” The husband is irritated now. “I don’t need to write it down!” He shouts. “I can remember it! Ice-cream with strawberries and whipped cream – I got the order, for goodness sake!” He toddles off into the kitchen. Twenty minutes later he returns to the living room where his wife is sitting. He hands his wife a plate of bacon and fried eggs. She stares at the plate for a moment, and then asks, “Where’s mytoast, you old fart?” *Three old guys are out walking. The first one says, “Windy, isn’t it?” The second man says, “No, it’s Thursday!” The third man says, “So am I. Let’s go get a beer!” *An old man was telling his neighbour,“I just bought a new hearing aid. It cost me four thousand dollars, but its’ state of the art. The thing is perfect.” “Really?” said his neighbour. “What kind is it?”“Twelve thirty.” *Morris was eighty-two years old when he went to his doctor to get a physical. A few days later, the good doctor saw Morris walking down the street arm in arm with a gorgeous young model. Old Morris looked very happy. A couple of days later, the doctor met Morris in the local bar, and said, “You’re really doing great, aren’t you, you old devil? Morris shrugged. “Just doing what you said, doc: ‘Get a hot mamma and be cheerful.’” The doctor replied. “Actually, I didn’t say that. What I said was, ‘You’ve got a heart murmur, so be careful.’” ÑQUOTE “My vegetarian friend says that she only eats things that cannot walk. This of course includes fish, which of course can’t walk. Using this logic the main item on the menu will soon be Stephen Hawking!” (Zoe Lyon, at Hot Property,
Hua Hin on 19 march 2008) ÑGOLDEN CHILDREN In the fourth century BC, the Greek philosopher Plato tried to identify and channel the potential genius of child prodigies. “They are the children of God!’ he proclaimed. Plato felt that, if detectedearly enough and encouraged in the study of philosophy and metaphysics, these gifted children could change the world for the better in just one generation. In this pursuit, he tried to predict whether they would have scholarly parents. But there really is no predicting just where a child prodigy will come from. He or she may be the son or daughter of aspiring intellectual parents or of poor peasants who lead simple, uncomplicated lives. All that these Golden Children have in common is awesome, unexplained mental powers. In infancy, child prodigies usually display an astonishing command of language, literature, music or mathematics whilst normal children of similar age are still struggling to speak their first words. What we do not know is whether baby genius comes from inherited brainpower, or a chance development in the womb, or an environmental factor at birth. One possible answer stems from an American experiment to try and produce Golden Children by genetic selection. The Nobel Sperm Bank in Esconidido, California, was formed in 1980 by an eccentric millionaire named Robert Graham. It was built to provide intelligent women who wanted to be mothers of ‘superior’ babies with the sperm of Nobel Prizewinning geniuses. The aim of the sperm bank is to dramatically increase the number of highly intelligent or gifted children in future generations. The first deliberately-conceived baby genius was born in August 1982 to a 41-year-old unmarried psychologist, Afton Blake, in Los Angeles. She chose her baby’s father from a portfolio listing attributes that included good physical appearance and a high level of intelligence. The anonymous donor, identified only as ‘Number 28’ is a brilliant computer scientist at a European university and an accomplished musician and athlete. His son was named Doron, an anagram of ‘donor’. By the time Doron was four months old, psychologists testing him at the University of California’s Child Development Centre declared that the child had an IQ (Intelligence Quotient) of 200. The average rating is 100. At the age of two, Doron was developing rapidly at a much faster rate than other children of his generation. Other child geniuses, however, have
astonished the world by a marked difference to their plodding parents. One of the greatest scientists of all time was Albert Einstein, (1879 – 1955) born the son of a bankrupt businessman in Ulm, West Germany. His mother also had no outstanding talents to pass on to her son. By the time he was 14 years old, young Einstein had taught himself complex geometry and mathematics and was on the way to winning himself a place at the University of Zurich in Switzerland. In his mid-twenties he
announced the first part of his Theory of Relativity and began to unlock the secrets of the universe. Ten years later he had a scientific work published which explained the inner workings of the atom, which eventually led to the development of nuclear energy and atomic power. In 1921, he won a Nobel Prize in Physics for his groundbreaking research into the ‘photoelectric effect’. Yet there had never been a hint of genius in his parents, Hermann and Pauline. It was understandable that Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, (born in Saltsburg on 27 January 1756), might show some musical ability: his father, Leopold, was a gifted violinist. But his son outshone
his father as soon as he learned to walk. At the age of three he could pick out chords on the keyboard of a harpsichord. At four he had written a song, (‘Twinkle, twinkle little Star’), and at five he began to compose music whilst his father struggled to write down the score for him. Soon Mozart mastered the technique of writing down musical notations for himself and a year later performed before the Austrian Emperor Franz Joseph in Vienna. His compositions were published when he was seven years old, and Wolfgang gave recitals on the violin in Paris and Brussels. The following year he played to George III in London, accompanied Queen Charlotte in an aria, wrote two
symphonies and presented the score for one of his compositions to the British
Museum. His first opera, ‘Le Finta Semplicesame year he wrote an operetta, two symphonies and a Mass. At the age of 14 he was knighted by the Pope. Mozart’s jealous fellow composers, including the Emperor’s Italian court composer Antonio Saleri, were astonished to learn that Mozart could write music straight onto paper,
without corrections or any sort of musical accompaniment, as if he was taking dictation. Mozart married Constanza Weber at the age of 26, but though lauded as a musical genius throughout and the world, he proved totally unable to handle his finances. He died in abject poverty on 5th December 1791 and was buried in a pauper’s grave in Vienna. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart remains an enigmatic musical mystery; a child prodigy born into an age that was somehow unable to fully appreciate his awesome talent. There are child prodigies in sport also. The youngest British international athlete was ten-year-old diver Beverly Williams, who competed against the USA in 1967. In 1988, 11-year-old Tom Gregory made sporting headlines by swimming the English Channel. The youngest ever world Boxing champion was Wilfred Benitz, who won a Light Welterweight crown at the age of 17. Five-year-old Corby Orr from Texas, USA, is the youngest golfer to score a hole in one, and 16-yearold Tom Morris won the USA Open Championship in 1868. Germany’s Boris Becker won the men’s Singles Tennis Championship at Wimbledon in 1985 at the age of 17, though Lottie Dodd was only 15 when she won the Ladies title back in 1887.
In Olympic track & field athletics, Bob Mathias (USA) won the Decathlon at London, England in 1948, aged just 17 years and 263 days and retained his title four years later in Helsinki, Finland at the grand old age of 21. The youngest Olympic gold medalist in Track & Field Athletics however is Barbara Jones (USA), in the 4x100 metres sprint relay at Rome in 1960. She was 15 years and 123 days old. Do child prodigies really have a mysterious gift that cannot be explained? Literary genius George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) was in no doubt about the futility of genetic selection as a way of producing child geniuses. The grizzled, bearded old playwright was once approached by a beautiful young actress who suggested that, with his
brains and her beauty, they could perhaps produce a Golden Child to astound the world. Shaw wrote back to her, politely: ‘But, alas, what if the child inherits MY looks and YOUR brains?’
ÑBRUSH ARRESTED He has survived being hunted with dogs for decades, having a plethora of strange men shove their hands up his bottom, and seen off numerous rivals in every shape from rats to Teletubbies. But now Basil Brush has met his match, scuppered by the Thought Police. An episode of The Basil Brush Show is being investigated after police received a complaint of racism. A member of the public reported a scene that showed aGypsy woman trying to sell Basil Brush heather and pegs. (That capital letter is important, because if we don’t use it some woman starts emailing and accusing us of Holocaust denial). Northamptonshire Police (and I’m honestly not making this up) say: “The complaint was logged as an incident of a racist nature and our Hate CrimesUnit is investigating.” So that’s children’s TV puppet Basil Brush, being investigated by the Hate Crimes Unit. It really is enough to
make a cat laugh. Meanwhile Bridie Jones, of the England Romany, Gypsy and Irish Traveller Network, bleats: “People are not allowed to joke about blacks or Asians
any more because they would be taken to court, but when it comes to Gypsies or the Irish travelling community they We are the last group of people in this country who you can openly mock and make racist jokes about - who else is there?” Hmm, good point.
„ÑIRISH BURIAL AT SEA Mick and Paddy had promised their father, who had been a seafaring gent all his life, that they would bury his corpse at sea when he died. Eventually the old man passed away ad the boys were determined to keep their promise. They set off in a rowboat into the Irish Sea. After a while Mick says, “Do yer ‘tink dis is far enough out, Paddy?” Paddy slips over the side only to find
himself standing up to his knees in the surf. “Nah. Dis’ll never do, Mick,” he
says. “Let’s row some more.” After some more steady rowing Paddy slips over the side again, but the seawater is only up to his chest, so again they row on. Finally Paddy slips over the side again and disappears into the depths. A few minutes go by until Paddy suddenly breaks the surface of the sea near the boat. Mick calls out, “Well, is it deep enough yet, Paddy? “Aye it is”, replied Paddy. “Now hand me the shovel.”
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