Although I’ve been a comedian for more years than anyone (especially my audiences!) cares to remember, I would never say I’m an expert on humour.
(A) because I’m not and (B) because this year we’ve seen the opinions of experts working in the same field and with access to the same information varying wildly.
But the majority of people working in the humour business agree that the jokes inside Christmas crackers are without exception…terrible.
The only good thing about them is that they’re environmentally friendly.
The same old jokes are recycled every year, whether your crackers were purchased from a large department store or a pound shop.
I’d swear the jokes I found in last year’s crackers were the same ones I first read as a little lad.
Talking of pound shops (other shops are available but may not be open under current restrictions), I used to wonder what happened to all the 99p shops – and then the penny dropped!
No. I didn’t find that one inside a cracker!
So, I was interested to see that the TV channel Gold recently ran a competition to find brand new Christmas cracker jokes – the best of which would net the winner a cheque for £1,500 and a box of crackers with his or her jokes inside.
Not all the jokes can be repeated here, because if they were there wouldn’t be any room left for my ramblings. But I can reveal the winner, which made me chuckle…
“What is Dominic Cummings favourite Christmas song?”
“Driving Home For Christmas!”.
Another one I liked was…
“How will Prince Andrew be coping with the stresses of Christmas?
“Fine. No sweat.”
You can see that Gold’s Christmas cracker jokes are all based around things that have happened this year.
So, even during this terrible pandemic that’s devastated families, finances and businesses, it is possible to find humour.
As I’ve criticised traditional Christmas cracker jokes, it’s only fair I should come up with one that you can pass judgement on.
“Why do some politicians always smell like Christmas dinner?”
“Because they’re on the gravy train!”
Merry Christmas!