Things that have made me laugh so much I couldn't breathe

Table of Contents

1. Things that have made me laugh so much I couldn't breathe
2. Things that have made me chuckle
3. Context 

Sometimes stuff just strikes you as funny, here's what did it for me. I'm sure I've forgotten LOADS!

1. Things that have made me laugh so much I couldn't breathe

Mitsubishi car advert - polar bear mascot can't stay on his feet

@abuttguy's "Male writers writing female characters" (shared by Scott Baiowulf)

This thing by @ScottBaiowulf on how male authors write female characters made me choke on my coffee. pic.twitter.com/9ZsG9cR7MJ

— Dan Hassler-Forest (@DanHF) December 29, 2016

 

Woman amused by sock mask

Let everyone in the world enjoy this pic.twitter.com/4T5pYR73TT

— Nick Murphy (@nickmurftweets) May 14, 2020

Man seeks mercy from hotel that banned him after seagulls trashed his room

Huffpost story

Table-cat memes

This reminds me of my favorite table cat memes 🤣😂🤣😂 pic.twitter.com/gSFxc9W81p

— gαmєr mσm (@GamerMom_) August 2, 2020

Zak McFlimby's response to Marshall amplifiers - from b3ta

 


















See original and context here.

Mark Twain's 'The Awful German Language' 

On the challenges of learning a language whose rules appear to be out to get you, with suggestions for improvement. 

"In the next place, I would move the Verb further up to the front. You may load up with ever so good a Verb, but I notice that you never really bring down a subject with it at the present German range--you only cripple it. So I insist that this important part of speech should be brought forward to a position where it may be easily seen with the naked eye. "

https://faculty.georgetown.edu/jod/texts/twain.german.html 

The Clbuttic Mistake: when obscenity filters go wrong

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/2667634/The-Clbuttic-Mistake-When-obscenity-filters-go-wrong.html (£)

The Simpsons (1): Call of The Simpsons

The Simpsons (2): Homer jumps Springfield Gorge

To craunch a marmoset

The entirety of Stephen Pile's Book of Heroic Failures killed me age 10 and the bit I remember the most was the chap who took it upon himself to create a Portuguese-English conversational book having only a French-English dictionary and an Portuguese-French phrasebook.

As paredes têm ouvidos (Portuguese original)
The walls have hearsay (English translation)
The walls have ears (correct, idiomatic translation).

My mum telling jokes

She couldn't do it. Every joke had the punch-line "Oh no, wait a wee minute - that can't be right" and Dad and I would be laughing so much anyway it didn't really matter.  

Guy Goma being interviewed by the BBC

His facial expressions!

 

Misc

I have also laughed myself silly seeing Boothby Graffoe (London) and Miles Jupp (Edinburgh Festival) live.

2. Things that have made me chuckle

Cats hiding behind food

 I'm afraid I saved the pictures without making a note of who took them. 

Gye gye cruel world

*Finally* found the "Gye gye cruel world" cartoon by Tony Husband. My mum kept a notebook of newspaper articles / clippings that had amused her and we'd giggle merrily at them when I was home from school / uni etc. pic.twitter.com/cXiU5zvR7b

— Joctober (@JoBrodie) June 29, 2020

Peter O'Hanraha-hanrahan on The Day Today

Patrick Marber should be on the telly more, his comic timing is *chef's kiss*. That little 'German' at 0.48. Dead :)

Alan Partridge after eating a chocolate mousse

The out-take version is also fabulous.

All of Monty Python especially...

The matter-of-fact way in which John Cleese says "The plumage don't enter into it" in The Dead Parrot sketch.

The mere idea of the All-England Summarise Proust competition. 

Ripping Yarns

When the camera pans back and Terry Jones realises what's going on. Hahahaha. 

The radio ventriloquist

My mum told me about this when I was little. Laughed for days. I assume she meant Peter Brough. 

 

Bob Katter, same sex marriage and avoiding death by crocodile 

 

Blackadder - Unaccustomed as I am to public speaking

Remember watching this with my mum and howling with laughter

Every Street in Manchester closed. No, wait I mean...

"Every Street in Manchester city centre." I laughed far too much about this. pic.twitter.com/0ILNnWfiYc

— Marnanel Thurman 🐿️ Black Lives Matter (@marnanel) March 7, 2015

 

Bus ping

I once had to get off the 380 bus early after I got the giggles. The bus had had an upgrade and now had a new STOPPING sign at the front that lit up in orange whenever anyone pressed the button. There was new music too - a gently falling three tone ping-ping-ping motif which accompanied the bus press and the illumination. Unfortunately the first four letters (STOP) of the sign didn't light up properly. So whenever someone pressed the button the sign just lit up as PING while the musical accompaniment pinged along - I lost all sense of reason every time someone pressed the button (and also in anticipation when I could see someone was about to) and had to get off and walk the last few stops.

Help Bury animals

I always assumed this pic was a photoshop. THIS CHANGES EVERYTHING. https://t.co/J4MraOeZUk

— Angry People in Local Newspapers (@angrypiln) September 4, 2020

I'm on a horse (moo)

Man puts 3.5m dinosaur in the family garden to prank his wife...

...she takes the dog out for a midnight wee and gets quite a surprise

The Leamington Courier

Face swap baby nose

The Telegraph

Lawyer on conference call with kitten filter

Pakistan Minister gets cats' ears filter during live press conference

 

3. Context

Being very easily amused I spend quite a lot of my time giggling or rather trying not to giggle, particularly when I'm in public where giggling by yourself just unnerves everyone. 

Finding something amusing and trying not to laugh seems to set off some horrendous feedback loop, where I find myself giggling not just at the thing that's made me laugh in the first place but also at the terrible predicament I'm now in (where I'm not supposed to laugh) and finding that funny as well.

I once heard that people tend not to laugh by themselves as much as they do in public and I'm sure it's true - laughter has an important social function - but I certainly laugh out loud by myself at funny television programmes and articles / books (I wouldn't read Bill Bryson in public again after losing it on a tube train during one of his tall stories).

What we find funny is so personal so I can easily imagine people reading the examples above and not even managing to raise a chuckle for some of them. Of course now that I've laughed at these in the past I probably will never laugh at them in quite the same way again.
 

A homeopath has done a rap dissing skeptics :)

This must have seemed like a good idea at the time ;)

Homeopaths are in cahoots
Dissing skeptics in a "rap"
We shan't be quaking in our boots
- it's, as expected, crap ;)https://t.co/7XaJAmqWbI #homeopathy

— Jo Brodie (@JoBrodie) September 25, 2018

You can enjoy the full thing on YouTube, lyrics below the player. Not exactly the high watermark of homeopathic discourse...



Lyrics
Well the skeptics reckon it’s placebo
Is Homeopathy – but what do they know?
They’re bound to go extinct just like the dodo
They need to get back out in the gazebo
See them as they strut they think they’re well hard
Arnica won’t help them if their bed’s hard
I think it’s time they put their feet up backayard
Someone do us a favour and give 'em a mouthguard

All they ever says is it’s placebo
All they ever says - it’s placebo
Denialists attracting all the dweebos
See me now we’re givin you the heave-ho

We’re s'posed to disagree but be agreeable
Well that ain't gonna happen in the foreseeable
Cos all I hear you chatting is so feeble
"There’s no evidence, it’s totally unbelievable"
Seeing as you’re dying of pneumonia
Don’t come begging me for no bryonia
That homeopathic helpline ain’t gonna phone ya
You’ll be lying there alone and getting lonelier

All you ever says is it’s placeboAll you ever says - it’s placebo
Denialists attracting all the dweebos
See me now we’re givin you the heave-ho

They talk like that and I’m not even joking
If I was their mum I’d ask what they’d been smoking
Denialists – they need a damn good poking
What I want to know - who even let that bloke in?
Wastemen getting bankrolled by big pharma
I pity them next life that’s heavy karma
Don’t call them coconuts – call them bananas
They're pure haters and they love to stir up dramas

Well stir it up come on, make us famous
Homeopathy is nothing - but it’s dangerous?
I think you’re in a muddle now - don’t blame us
Just make your mind up boys you’re sounding brainless

Cos all you ever says is it’s placebo
All they ever says - it’s placebo
Denialists attracting all the dweebos
See me now we’re givin you the heave-ho

Them makin out it’s snake oil and we bought it
Tell me it’s placebo and I just ‘thought it’
Get down off your high horse and start to walk it
Listen up and we can start to sort it
There’s many a path and many a way to trek
So fix yourselves up and start to show respect
If all you can do is spread your toxic texts
See an Osteopath cos you’re a serious pain in the neck

Cos all you ever says is it’s placeboAll they ever says - it’s placebo
Denialists attracting all the dweebos
See me now we’re givin you the heave-ho

So listen up you all here’s what we think
It’s time you drew your pension - index linked
But tell us why you want to cause a stink
And who is paying you to pen and ink?

This medicine that’s permanent and gentle
Including physical, emotional and mental
Sustainable and so environmental
Homeopathy brings health that’s incremental
But maybe that won't profit all your cronies
GSK and Astrazeneca phonies
Your emperor’s new medicine’s balonies
You’re tellin more lies than mr blair – that’s Tony
So fix yourselves up and face the final answers
Your dirty game is up – you dodgy chancers
I’m not being funny but you’re at the end of your run sirs
You’re gravestones will say "all just back up dancers!"

So there’s our rap to the gradgrind skeptic band
Methinks they do protest too much eh fam?
That muggle medicine will soon run out of sand
We’re here to help but till then just talk to the hand.

Post for @garwboy

This post is non-canonical and is logically equivalent to Twitlonger except I decided to put it here :)

Some suggestions
ABSW has a Christmas party and might like to hear your amusing and entertaining stories, mind you if it's vastly critical of the media probably it won't go down awfully well given that it's the Association of British Science Writers (of which I'm a member).

The British Science Association (nee The BA) has an annual Science Communication Conference coming up in May - I don't know how much of the programme is in place but they do often end with a bit of entertainment after the final plenary. You could be that entertainment...

The Science Media Centre, based at the RI, hosts half-day sessions for scientists to hear more about working with the media. The purpose of these is to encourage scientists to get involved, and early on in their careers, and communicate their work via the media. If your stories include things about what not do to, that might work. I believe Wellcome may also host something similar, and possibly the Royal Society - but I might be wrong.

Cancer Research UK do their own in-house training for their own scientists in talking about the research that the scientists do and which Cancer Research UK fund - they may not need any further input but you can but ask.

You could ignore the media-mediator concept entirely and just go to the science departments in universities or to the professional societies and give them a presentation discouraging them from talking to the media - however I wouldn't seriously suggest this as being a good idea, and would actively discourage you from doing this myself, somewhat ironically.

I don't know of any publications that would be particularly interested in this, with the emphasis being 'I don't know' rather than implications that they wouldn't be interested. I'm guessing they wouldn't rush to publish stuff that might be a bit 'insulting' to them but depends how you're pitching your material.

That's all I can think of at this precise moment...