Jakarta? No, she flew there.
That old chestnut of a joke got me thinking about place name puns and jokes. We learned some goodies when I was a kid at my Hogwarts-style boys only grammar school in Kent. Most of them for some reason involve wives and exotic locations, channeling the teller’s deep-seated desire to see the wife travel a long way away perhaps? Ah hem… moving on.
A classic we all knew as kids, a staple of many music hall comedy routines, goes “My wife’s gone to the Carribean. Jamaica? No, she flew of her own accord.” Yuk yuk.
I vividly remember excitedly telling that one to a friend as soon as I’d persuaded myself I’d learned it. “Got a great joke” I said. “Go on..” he replied. “My wife’s gone to Jamaica” I said, wondering what the bloody hell came next.
To my surprise, or perhaps not given the all-knowing internet, a quick google search threw up a Twitter feed called Place Name Joke. Luckily its subscribers have ignored the singularity of the name and posted a butt-load of new place name puns I’ve never heard before. So here goes with some of the better ones, which I confess aren’t all place name related. Enjoy.
“My wife’s gone to Venezuela” “Caracas?” ” No, just mildly insane.”
“My wife’s flying to Illinois today”‘ “Chicago” “No. She’s a passenger.”
“My grandad went on holiday to Egypt last year but started to lose his marbles” “Senile?” “Yes, and the pyramids.”
“I’ve been preparing my sex toys in a village just West of Market Harborough” “Lubenham?” “No. just warming them up.”
“How do you get to the local pancake and waffle restaurant?” “IHOP?” “That’s crazy, I’d walk.”
“I surprised my wife with a South American member of the camel family for her birthday” “A llama?” “Yeah, it scared the shit out of her.”