All right, stop! Collaborate and listen.
Today's strange request, from the Venta's Strange Request Catalogue:
Tell me you favourite lolly-stick joke.
Please :)
Or your least favourite. Or merely one you remember but don't have any real opinion on.
To clarify: ideally I'd like actual, genuine lolly-stick jokes. Not some sort of post-modern, ironic take on the concept. And absolutely definitely not ones that sound a bit like lolly-stick jokes but are, in fact, funny.
(I take it there's on one here young enough to be saying "a what joke"? Although I guess there may be someone who was insufficiently based in the UK at the time.
When I was a kid, an ice lolly bought from the ice-cream van would have a joke printed on the stick. Usually it would be a question-and-answer style of joke, and the question would be on the visible, sticky-out end. Once you'd eaten the lolly, the answer would be revealed.
The jokes were always printed in pale, brownish ink, and looked like they'd been imprinted onto the stick with a John Bull printing outfit. The jokes were, univerally, terrible.
A few weeks ago, I bought the right sort of lolly from the ice-cream van in Kirtlington (stuff your expensive ices, cheap lemonade or cider lollies are where it's at) and was disappointed to find no joke. I'm not sure when jokes disappeared, but I think they were gone by the 90s.
As I finished my lemonade lolly, I said disugsutedly "my lolly-stick's got no joke". Pete observed that that sounded like the title of a song. We agreed that it would be a music-hall style number. I promised to write the song for him if he promised to sing it, which he did.
I have some ideas, but am being a little thwarted by my inability to remember many example jokes. Which is where you, my dears, come in...
)
Tell me you favourite lolly-stick joke.
Please :)
Or your least favourite. Or merely one you remember but don't have any real opinion on.
To clarify: ideally I'd like actual, genuine lolly-stick jokes. Not some sort of post-modern, ironic take on the concept. And absolutely definitely not ones that sound a bit like lolly-stick jokes but are, in fact, funny.
(I take it there's on one here young enough to be saying "a what joke"? Although I guess there may be someone who was insufficiently based in the UK at the time.
When I was a kid, an ice lolly bought from the ice-cream van would have a joke printed on the stick. Usually it would be a question-and-answer style of joke, and the question would be on the visible, sticky-out end. Once you'd eaten the lolly, the answer would be revealed.
The jokes were always printed in pale, brownish ink, and looked like they'd been imprinted onto the stick with a John Bull printing outfit. The jokes were, univerally, terrible.
A few weeks ago, I bought the right sort of lolly from the ice-cream van in Kirtlington (stuff your expensive ices, cheap lemonade or cider lollies are where it's at) and was disappointed to find no joke. I'm not sure when jokes disappeared, but I think they were gone by the 90s.
As I finished my lemonade lolly, I said disugsutedly "my lolly-stick's got no joke". Pete observed that that sounded like the title of a song. We agreed that it would be a music-hall style number. I promised to write the song for him if he promised to sing it, which he did.
I have some ideas, but am being a little thwarted by my inability to remember many example jokes. Which is where you, my dears, come in...
)