Jokes and Stories from this months issue.

* SEEN IN A resort noshery: 'Special Today - Bunker and Mash'. (A new dish at Berny's Inn?)
THINGS SAID IN COURT (courtesy of Crown Court clerk John Rooney):
Q: "What gear were you in at the moment of impact?"
A: "Gucci sweats and Reebok shoes."
Q: "What was the first thing your husband said to you when he awoke that morning?"
A: "Where am I, Cathy?"
Q "And why did that upset you?"
A: "My name is Susan."
Q: "Did you blow your horn or anything?"
A: "After the accident?"
Q: "Before the accident."
A: "Sure, I played for ten years. I even went to school for it."
Q: "Trooper, when you stopped the defendant, were your red and blue lights flashing?
A: "Yes, sir."
Q: "And did the defendant say anything to you when she got out of her car?"
A: "Yes, sir, she did."
Q: "And just what did she say?"
A: " She said: 'What disco am I at?'"
Q: "Now, doctor, isn't it true that when a person dies in his sleep, he doesn't know about it until the next morning?"
Q: "Where you present when your picture was taken?"
Q: "Was it you or your younger brother who was killed in the war?"
Q: "How far apart where the vehicles at the time of the collision?"
Q: "You were there until the time you left; isn't that true?"
Q: "How many times have you committed suicide?"
Q: "So, the date of the conception of your baby was 8th August?"
A: "Yes, that's right."
Q: "And what were you doing at that time?"
Q: "You say that the stairs went down to the basement?"
A: "Yes."
Q: "And these stairs, did they go up also?"
Q: "How was your first marriage terminated?"
A: "By death."
Q: "And by whose death was it terminated?"
Q: "Is your appearance here this morning pursuant to a deposition notice which I sent to your attorney?"
A: "No, this is how I dress when I go to work."
Q: "Doctor, just how many autopsies have you performed on dead people?"
A: "All my autopsies are performed on dead people."
Q: "Quite so. Doctor, before you performed the autopsy, did you check for pulse?"
A: "No."
Q: "Did you check for blood pressure?"
A: "No."
Q: "So, then it is possible that the patient was alive when you began the autopsy?"
A: "No."
Q: "How can you be so sure, Doctor?"
A: "Because his brain was sitting on my desk in a jar."
Q: "But could the patient have still been alive nevertheless?"
A: "I suppose it is possible that he could have been alive and practicing law somewhere."
* THE ZATOPEKS remain unique in Olympic history. Emile, of course, has become famous as "The bouncing Czech", who won three Olympic gold medals at the 1952 Games in Helsinki (5000, 10,000 metres and marathon). Less well known, however, is the fact that his wife Dana (Ingorova) was born on the same day as her husband (19 September 1922); and that when Emile won the 5000 metres on 24 July 1952 in Helsinki, Dana captured the women's Javelin title. What are the odds on two people with the same birthdate marrying each other, and then winning Olympic gold medals on the same day? Do I hear several million to one? The Zatopek family boasted five individual Olympic golds, surely a record. Emile also won the 10,000 metres at London in 1948, where he was silver medallist in the 5000m. Aged 34 in 1956, he was still fit enough to place 6th in the Olympic marathon in Melbourne, where Dana was 4th in the spear event. At the Rome Games in 1960, Dana was back in the fray once again, taking the Javelin silver medal at the age of 38. The Zatopek family's Olympic total: five gold medals, and two silvers.
* CHINA HAS been blighted by a locust plague recently. The authorities came up with a remarkable deterrent. In fact, they 'quacked it' by flooding the infected area with ducks. These birds are voracious eaters that thrive on a diet of locust flesh. And when the ducks had done their duty in ridding parks and fields of the insect menace, they were themselves bumped off and served up to customers in Beijing restaurants. That's gratitude for you. Make mine a crispy one, please.
* A MIDDLE-AGED couple in Austria got into a bitter argument, which ended when the man drove away in his car. Unfortunately his wife's mobile telephone was on the seat next to him, and he ignored her demands to hand it to her. The wife threw herself on the bonnet of the vehicle and held on there for several kilometres as her husband sped along at speeds up to 60 km/hour. The irate husband only stopped when another motorist observed what was happening and swerved in front, forcing him to brake. The wife fell off onto the road and broke an ankle. Her husband now faces legal charges for his reckless behaviour.
* A DOG-OWNER in Los Altos, California has filed charges against a local supermarket because a cat in the store attacked his dog. The latter creature, a large mastiff weighing over 30kgs, was attacked by the tabby cat as both owner and dog entered the premises. The fierce feline clawed and bit the dog twice on the nose before making off. The dog-owner's lawyers claim that, as the cat receives food and milk in return for keeping the store-rooms clear of rats and mice, it is technically "employed" by the supermarket, and thus subject to litigation as a member of staff.
* AN ENGLISHMAN received many complaints about his canine, a noisy creature that kept neighbours awake by barking at night, and also attacked their pets. One day, he was tending the roses in his back garden, when his dog bounded over with the pet rabbit from next door in his mouth. The rodent was very muddy and very dead. Alarmed by what his neighbours might do in revenge, the man thought fast. He removed the rabbit from his dog's mouth, washed it and then dried the fur clean with a hair dryer. He then sneaked over the fence and deposited the dead rabbit back in its hutch. An hour later, when his neighbours returned from shopping, he heard cries of dismay and looked over the fence. "What's the trouble?" he queried as innocently as he could.
"Oh, 'Bugs' the rabbit is dead", he was told.
"Sorry to hear that", rejoined the man. "Was it a heart attack?"
"Yes. He died three days ago, and we buried him. Now he's somehow got back into his hutch."
"Incredible!" said the man. "Must go. I think I hear my telephone ringing."
A man we know sent his wife to hospital for plastic surgery. The surgeons cut all her credit cards in half.
* OVERWEIGHT INTERNET surfers became quite excited recently when they spied a claim that a visit to the legendary hedonistic resort city of Pattaya, Thailand, could get rid of all that unwanted flab in a single holiday. It is not known how many suckers duly sent off $10 for the information; but it simply stated that you just had to hire a motorbike, and proceed to ride around town drunk, waiting for the inevitable crash. The city crematorium then takes care of your excess weight problem.
* QUOTES: "Lovers are jealous. Husbands are just ridiculous". (Graham Greene, The End of the Affair) "Why did summer go so quickly? Was it something that you said?" (Windmills of your mind)
* SOME HISTORIANS believe that the sign for 'zero' (0) evolved through ancient Greek mathematicians, who used to count pebbles on the sand. When one was removed, a circular impression was left; and hey presto! - We have the Zero symbol. Nonsense, say proponents of Arabic scholars, whom they claim made use of the symbol hundreds of years before the Greeks, possibly by enlarging the full stop sign. So take your pick. Personally, I like the 'pebbles in the sand' theory.
* THE TRIAL of Jeremy Thorpe, former leader of the British Liberal Party, for conspiracy to murder in 1978 followed the most serious charge ever levelled at a British politician. Thorpe and three of his friends were charged with conspiring to murder a man named Norman Scott between 1973 and 1975. The West Country Liberal MP had first met Scott in 1961 when the latter was a young stable lad in his Somerset constituency. The pair had subsequently engaged in a torrid homosexual affair. Now years later, Norman Scott was pestering Thorpe and threatening to blackmail the Liberal leader.
The alleged 'hit man' was a former airline pilot, one Andrew 'Gino' Newton. In court, Newton stated that on accepting the contract, he was instructed to proceed to Barnstaple, Devon, and rid the world of Norman Scott. Newton (whose knowledge of Britain's geography was hazy at best), then took a train to Dunstaple, Bedfordshire, where he tried to find Scott's address in a local telephone directory. When he was finally able to locate Scott's correct residence near Minehead, Somerset, Newton telephoned Scott and arranged to meet him. He hid a large file inside a bunch of flowers, planning to club his victim to death after luring him to a remote location. But Scott failed to turn up for their meeting. Newton then illegally purchased a handgun, and stalked his target. One wet evening, he trailed Scott walking his dog near Porlock Hill. Newton closed in and finally cornered Scott at gunpoint but at the last second lost his nerve and shot Scott's Labrador instead of his intended victim. The ace 'hit-man' then drove off in his hired car, leaving Scott crying in the rain over the dead body of his faithful four-legged friend 'Rinka'. Unable to collect the remainder of his contracted fee, Newton then confessed to investigating police officers, and turned Crown's evidence in exchange for having the firearm charges against him dropped.
No, the trial was not scripted by the 'Monty Python' team, but it might just as well have been. After some more of this litany of absurdities, the presiding judge threw the case out. Jeremy Thorpe and his pals were free, but the former Liberal leader's political career was over. During the subsequent local bye-election, the satirist Aberon Waugh ran against Thorpe on behalf of the 'Dog Lovers of Porlock Party'. Whilst Waugh garnered a handful of votes from wags and irate animal lovers, Thorpe lost his Parliamentary seat by a landslide to the local Conservative candidate. He then faded from public life, branded forever in open court as a predatory homosexual.
Among much other lurid evidence, Scott revealed details of Thorpe's voracious sexual appetite. Jeremy, he said, had been in the habit of picking up men in St James' Park for lunch-hour trysts in the toilets at the House of Commons. Jeremy Thorpe, a brilliant man of great charm and wit, had a fatal weakness that he could not control, and no British Member of Parliament could hope to survive such sleazy public revelations. And what of Norman? Wags renamed him "Scott of the Arse-antic", as he became the butt of countless dirty jokes.
davidcox@loxinfo.co.th

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