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Sunday 7 September 2008

Christmas funny books

Stocking fillers

The author blurb on Dr Mardy Grothe’s Viva la Repartee tells us that he is the author of Oxymoronica and Never Let a Fool Kiss You or a Kiss Fool You, and that he is ‘a regular broadcaster’. (Must be eating his All-Bran.) It does not tell us his nationality, but I suspect it is American, because he writes ‘mustache’ instead of our ‘moustache’ and ‘snicker’ instead of the ‘snigger’ more common in Britain. Also, it is a real downside of this book that among the smart retorts from the sporting world, masses are from baseball, but only one from our sort of football, and one from Welsh rugby. In 1969, when I wrote a book on posters, the American publisher demanded that I illustrate as many American posters as French ones. Considering that France had Lautrec, Chéret and other masters, while the best the United States could offer was the less inspired Will Bradley, that was a daft instruction — as daft as it would have been to insist that a writer on jazz should include as much French jazz as American. More recently, I have been concluding negotiations for a book on ‘Bad Taste’. Once again, there is the parrot-cry: ‘Is America adequately represented?’ I have been able to reply: ‘In this field, America leads the world.’

However, it is only in the sports section that Grothe falls down. In the rest of the book, he is very cosmopolitan and has corralled for us some delicious ripostes. Field-Marshal Lord Montgomery — usually the butt of jokes rather than the origin of them — scores high marks. One day he hopped into a London cab. ‘Where you headed, mate?’ asked the driver. ‘Waterloo.’ When the cabbie looked back and asked, ‘Station?’ Monty replied: ‘Certainly. We’re a bit late for the battle.’

For many years a Franciscan priest named Andrew Agnellus advised the BBC on religious affairs. When a producer sent him a memo asking how he might ascertain the official Roman Catholic view of heaven and hell, Agnellus wrote back: ‘Die.’

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