jokes – Crasstalk

A good joke well told is a thing of beauty, even when it keeps piling outrage upon the obscene upon the inconceivably lewd, as anyone who has seen The Aristocrats will attest. This crazed masterpiece of comedy showcases both a classic joke and the many ways its various retelllers embroider it. If your head doesn’t explode in the first fifteen minutes or so, you will be transported to a world of funny you never even suspected.

It’s my experience that most of the very best and funniest jokes aren’t really appropriate to tell at Thankgiving dinner; they’re irreverent, or raunchy, or so totally over-the-top you’ll never be invited back. But here’s one that really isn’t. Your grandmother — or even a Mother Superior — is unlikely to take umbrage … but everyone will laugh.

Les Trois Freres Francais

Bon, bien alors: we ‘ave three little French boys, zey are brozzers. Zere is Jean – he is ze tout petit, il n’a que sept ans … he has only seven years of age. Zen come Louis, who has eight years; and finalement zere is Pierre, ze ainé — zis is in English I think, ze “eldest”. Pierre has nine years.

Trois ecoliers — Jean, Louis, and Pierre

So, ze three young garcons are walkeen down ze street, and le petit Jean, he is liking to peep in ze windows as zey pass by. And at one window, he look in and zen shout to his brozzers: “Ey, Louis, Pierre, come look!! Ze lady and gentleman, zey are fighteen.”

Alors, Louis look also in ze window, and he say, “Jean, you are still a bebé, and per’aps not even French; zis lady and gentleman, zey are not fighteen, zey are makeen love.”

So, Pierre – he has nine years – he peep in ze window also, zen turn to Jean et Louis, and say wiz utter Gallic scorn, “And very badly, too”

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Now, we ‘ave skip 70 years to see again Jean, Louis, et Pierre, who are now debonair boulevardiers of long standing . And when we find zem at the Café Royale, zey are discussing savoir-faire.

“Oh”, says Jean (he is, souvenez-vous, the youngest brozzer), “Oh,” he says, “I have not for nozzing spent 73 years as a Frenchman: of course I know what is savoire-faire. It is when you come home, find your wife in bed wiz anozzer man, and you say, ‘Oh, pardonnez-moi!”

“Ahh, Jean, mon p’tit frangin,” replied Louis, “‘ave you learned nozzing whatever since that day so long Savoir faire! ago when you sought ze lady and gentleman were fighteen?? Once more, you are incorrect; allow me.”

“Savoire-faire,” Louis said, “is when you come home and find your wife in bed wiz anozzer man, and you say ‘Oh pardonnez-moi, please continue.’

“Helas, mes frères,” says Pierre, “I fear our papa et maman must have adopted you two in Belgique; surely you cannot truly be French. So I shall explain to you yet again:

“Savoir-faire is when you come home and find your wife in bed wiz anozzer man, and you say ‘Oh, excuse me, please continue – and he continues …

zen he has savoire faire.

Many of us have no doubt seen the classic Monty Python sketch “The Funniest Joke in the World”.

Herewith, p_mouse, raconteur extraordinaire, presents his candidate for “The Most Literate Joke in the World.”

His entry is fully prepared to take on all comers, of which he hopes there will be many.

One bibulous evening in the ’20s, not long before they were all sent down for one transgression or another, four young Oxonians were strolling through Christ Church Meadow lost in idle discussion of collective nouns: a pod of whales, a murder of crows, an exaltation of larks, et cetera et cetera and so forth.

As they left that bucolic Arcadia behind and reentered the streets of Oxford Town, they were approached and propositioned by a quartet of ladies of the night. Being of another persuasion altogether, the lads politely declined the offer and went on their way.

“A propos collectives,” said the first, Sebastian, a charming youth for whom the world was his oyster, “I think I should describe those wenches as ‘a bed of trollops’.”

“Bravo,” said the second, by birth Aloysius but known to all and sundry as Pooh-Bear, “Yet dare I say my whimsical taste runs more to ‘a jam of tarts.'”

“Of course,” said the third, blanching at the very idea of heterosex but determined to outdo his peers, “the correct terminology must needs be ‘a flourish of strumpets.'”

“Oh bugger it, Anthony,” said Charles, the last, a quietly observant sort of chap who had never in life come less than Double-First, “what else could they possibly be but An Anthology of English Pros??

"More plonk, Charles??"