When I interviewed comic Tim Vine for an article this week about the art of the one-liner, he told me how wary he was of fans sending him their own jokes. If he ever uses similar ones himself, he'll be accused of stealing. Here's hoping he hasn't looked at the comments my article inspired, in which readers traded dozens of their favourite one-liners, and road-tested their own. Judging by this veritable mountain of puns, the tradition of Tommy Cooper and Bob Monkhouse is alive, well and as corny as ever. Here's a selection of the finest:
"Armchair travel is a waste of time. It took me three months just to get up the stairs in it" charliepiper
"Somewhere between murder and suicide . . . is Merseyside" octoberisms (credited to Milton Jones)
"I opened a colonic irrigation clinic last summer. It was going fine until the hosepipe ban" barenib (Jones again)
"A shop assistant dared to ask me why I needed 20 pots of Tipp-Ex this morning . . . Big mistake" 2nafish
"So this guy says, I'm gonna wipe the floor with your face. I say you'll regret that. He asks why. Because you won't be able to get into the corners very well" Garetko (later credited to Emo Philips)
"Conjunctivitus.com – that's a site for sore eyes!" stubbg
"I was an accountant from the age of 20 to the age of 30, before I was sacked for no apparent reason . . . What a waste of 14 years that was" timoc (provenance – like that of so many great jokes – unknown)
