Can a pun be sublime? Can a trio of puns be even better? You decide by reading the intro to a piece by Arminta Wallace in Saturday’s Irish Times.
A lengthy caption to an archive photograph of an attempt to rescue a horse from the River Liffey in Dublin, it began:
“You’ve heard of horses for courses – but this is ridiculous. What makes a horse decide to take to the river for a late-autumn swim? Just foaling around? Trying to stirrup some trouble? Or maybe exploring an equine halter ego”.
Halter ego! Every sub-editor would be proud to have coined that one. Surely it merits some kind of award.
You will be relieved to know that the horse was rescued by “the combined efforts of the Garda, members of the Dublin Fire Brigade, staff from the Dublin Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, local residents and a man in a boat”.
The headline, “Ropey rescue bid after horse goes overboard”, was a little more pedestrian than Wallace’s collection.
And the diarist at the UK Times has been publishing some punning headlines too. The best of the bunch thus far concerned the death of a pest-control officer, “No more Mr Mice Guy”. Invented or real? Whatever the case, brilliant.
Sources: Irish Times/The Times
