Yes, yes, yes, I'm now going to be looking for a specialist therapist
who can help me with that intense sense of inferiority I'm feeling
about not getting PSV (or whatever the vehicles are now referred to
as) entitlement on my license...
....but something has occurred to me as cultural-linguistic factor in
the arena of jokes--be they as told by a comedian (one-to-many) to an
audience or in various one-to-fewer settings such as from behind bars.
I'm sure most regular posters will have heard this particular one
before but I'm not sure it's ever been here as a topic. Here's a
paraphrase of it:
Tommy and Jonny have been out on the beers to the extent they've left
themselves with a long walk home and no money for a taxi. On their way
home they walk past a 'bus depot and Jonny suddenly has a great idea.
--I know, he says, why don't we nick a 'bus?
--Ooh, I don't know, says Tommy, can you actually drive one?
--Can't be that difficult, it's not like they have preselection boxes
these days.
So Jonny goes off and finds a way into the depot. By the time he gets
back ol' Tommy's fallen fast asleep. Jonny gives the horn a bip.
--C'mon on then Tom! let's go!
Tommy rouses himself from his sleep and looks at his watch.
--Cor, BeJuggingJason Jonny, it's nearly 4AM. They'll be coming in to
get the early 'buses running soon. What took you so long?
--Oh, it's the way they park them here. All the ones near the doors
were the B and D routes, and they all go to the wrong side of town. It
took me all my time to find the 37C service we need go past your
place...
Now, given that I heard this joke a number of years ago--the turn of
the '80s, approximately, but am not really of the tram or trolleybus
era, I am wondering whether the joke would've worked so well for so
many people if that era, of railed and guided municipal trans****t, had
not happened. Indeed, whether it would've been thought up.
I'm not expecting definitive answers, or indeed any at all, but anyone
who might be able to comment authoritatively on what sector it came
into currency from (E.g., Blackpool summer season, or Glasgow CIU
circuit, if it originated in cabaret/stand-up) or can recall hearing a
version and reliably narrow it down to a particular year, is
particularly invited to follow up.
Follow-up has been set to news:uk.culture.language.english
G DAEB
COPYRIGHT (C) 2007 SIPSTON
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