I’ve been spending a lot of time writing jokes recently. Have you heard the one about the next wave of Irish immigrants? Luckily, they’ll be coming by Ryanair so they’ll be indefinitely delayed.
Okay, it probably wouldn’t pass muster on Have I Got News For You, but it’s the best I can do. At this time of year I get asked to do a lot of after-dinner speaking and audiences don’t like it if you recycle old material. They want topical gags based on that day’s headlines.
‘Sorry I’m late,’ I told the patrons of the Oxford Society at their annual dinner at the House of Commons last week. ‘I had to fight my way through a bunch of sixth-formers at the visitors’ entrance. One of them was holding up a sign saying, “Nick Clegg’s a see you next Tuesday.” He’d spelt it right so he can’t have been at a comprehensive.’
That gag didn’t get the laugh I was expecting.
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