English Humour for Beginners

by George Mikes

  George Mikes

  * * *

  ENGLISH HUMOUR FOR BEGINNERS

  Illustrated by Walter Goetz

  Contents

  PART ONE: THEORY

  Does it Exist?

  If it’s Good it’s English

  What is ‘English’?

  The Irish Joke

  What is Humour?

  What Humour Really is Not

  Cruel or Kind?

  Changing or Permanent?

  Three Faces of English Humour

  Political Jokes

  Dirty Jokes

  Jewish Jokes

  PART TWO: PRACTICE

  Nonsense

  Limericks and Clerihews

  The Wittiest Englishman?

  Farewell to English Humour

  Follow Penguin

  About the Author

  George Mikes was born in 1912 in Siklós, Hungary. Having studied law and received his doctorate from Budapest University, he became a journalist and was sent to London as a correspondent to cover the Munich crisis. He came for a fortnight but stayed on and made England his home. During the Second World War he broadcast for the BBC Hungarian Service, where he remained until 1951. He continued working as a freelance critic, broadcaster and writer until his death in 1987.

  English Humour for Beginners was first published in 1980, when Mikes had already established himself as a humorist as English as they come. His other books include How to be an Alien, How to Unite Nations, How to be Inimitable, How to Scrape Skies, How to Tango, The Land of the Rising Yen, How to Run a Stately Home (with the Duke of Bedford), Switzerland for Beginners, How to be Decadent, How to be Poor, How to be a Guru and How to be God. He also wrote a study of the Hungarian Revolution and A Study of Infamy, an analysis of the Hungarian secret political police system. On his seventieth birthday he published his autobiography, How to be Seventy.

  PENGUIN BOOKS

  ENGLISH HUMOUR FOR BEGINNERS

  Praise for George Mikes:

  ‘In all the miseries which plague mankind, there is hardly anything better than such radiant humour as is given to you. Everyone must laugh with you – even those who are hit with your little arrows’ Albert Einstein to George Mikes

  ‘Bill Bryson is George Mikes’ love-child’ Jeremy Paxman

  ‘Mikes is a master of the laconic yet slippery put-down: “The trouble with tea is that originally it was quite a good drink” ’ Henry Hitchings

  Praise for How to be a Brit:

  ‘An instant classic’ Francis Wheen

  ‘I love it and read it cover to cover. Also has good tips for talking about the weather, not that we need them’ Rachel Johnson

  ‘This is the vital textbook for Brits, would-be Brits, and anyone who wonders what being a Brit really means. Pass me my hot-water bottle, please’ Dame Esther Rantzen

  ‘Wise and witty’ William Cook, Spectator

  ‘Brilliantly comical’ Pico Iyer, The New York Times

  ‘Full of the very best advice that any would-be Brit should need (and for those of us who have forgotten exactly how it is to be ourselves) it’s a jolly good read’ Telegraph

  ‘Very funny’ Economist

  Part One:

  * * *

  THEORY

  Does it Exist?

  English Humour resembles the Loch Ness Monster in that both are famous but there is a strong suspicion that neither of them exists. Here the similarity ends: the Loch Ness Monster seems to be a gentle beast and harms no one; English Humour is cruel.

  English Humour also resembles witches. There are no witches; yet for centuries humanity acted as though they existed. Their cult, their persecution, their trials by the Inquisition and other agencies, went on and on. Their craft, their magic, their relationship with the Devil were mysteries of endless fascination. The fact that they do not exist failed to prevent people from writing countless books – indeed libraries – about them. It’s the same with English Humour. It may not exist but this simple fact has failed to prevent thousands of writers from producing book upon book on the subject. And it will not deter me either.

  We shall have to spend a little time on definitions. The trouble with definitions is that although they can be illuminating, witty, amusing, original and even revolutionary, there is one thing – and perhaps one thing only – which they cannot do: define a thing. This is more true in the case of humour than in the case of anything else. We shall come to that later. But we shall still have to try to answer such questions as: What is English? What is Humour? What is English Humour? Is English Humour the humour of a nation or just a class? What have cockney humour and Evelyn Waugh in common?

  Before going into details, I should like to say a few words in general. If English Humour is the sum total of all humorous writing that has appeared in the English language then, in that sense, English Humour does exist. So do Bulgarian, Finnish and Vietnamese humours. England – or Britain, or the British Isles – has produced eminent and brilliant funny men from Chaucer, through Dickens, Oscar Wilde and W. S. Gilbert to P. G. Wodehouse and Evelyn Waugh. And, if the question is whether the English people can laugh and make good jokes, then again the answer is yes.

  But this is not what champions of English Humour have in mind. They allege that the English possess a sense of humour which is specifically English, unintelligible to, and inimitable by, other people and – needless to add – superior to the humour of any other nation. That is a debatable point. But a point worth debating.

  In other countries you may be a funny man or a serious man; you may love jokes or hate them; you may think clowns and jesters the cream of humanity or crushing bores. You may, of course, have the same views in Britain, too. Yet Britain is the only country in the world which is inordinately proud of its sense of humour. In Parliament, in deadly serious academic debates, even in funeral orations, Shakespeare is less often quoted than Gilbert or Lewis Carroll. Every after-dinner speech – be it on the sex-life of the amoeba – must end with a so-called funny story. You may meet here the most excruciating bores, the wettest of blankets, the dreariest sour-pusses all of whom will be extremely proud of their sense of humour, both as individuals and as Englishmen. So if you want to succeed – indeed, to survive – among the British you must be able to handle this curious and dangerous phenomenon, the English Sense of Humour; to stand up to it; to endure it with manly or womanly fortitude.

  In other countries, if they find you inadequate or they hate you, they will call you stupid, ill-mannered, a horse-thief or a hyena. In England they will say that you have no sense of humour. This is the final condemnation, the total dismissal.

  On the following pages I shall explain what English Humour is, i.e. what it is if it exists at all; what the English think it is; how to be humorous in England; what insults and insolence one must pocket lest one should be declared humourless, i.e. not a member of the human race.

  If it’s Good it’s English

  My first suspicion that there is no such thing as English Humour arose early. A few weeks after my arrival in 1938 a few people told me that I had a very English sense of humour. That was obviously a compliment. Even more obviously it was utter nonsense. I had just arrived from Hungary where I had been bred and born; I had never read one single book in English because my English was not good enough; I had seen altogether three Englishmen in my life, none for longer than for five minutes. How, where and why should I have acquired an English sense of humour?

  I observed, however, that only my good jokes were greeted with this high praise. No dud joke, witless observation or silly pun ever merited the comment. No one ever said: ‘Your sense of humour is absolutely lousy but, I must say, it’s very English.’ The pattern about my hu
mour followed the general pattern: if it was good it was English; if it was abominable it was foreign.

  But soon enough contrary doubt assailed me, too. Perhaps, after all, there was a special English sense of humour. I heard the following joke in those early days.

  Two men are standing on the platform of Aldgate East underground station – two cockneys, as they must be in any Aldgate East story – at 11.30 at night. There is only one other person there, a shabbily dressed individual at the other end of the platform.

  ‘D’you know who that chap over there is?’ asks one of the men.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘’E’s the Archbishop of Canterbury.’

  ‘Don’t be a fool.’

  ‘I tell you ’e is. The Archbishop of Canterbury.’

  ‘Look, Bert, what would the Archbishop of Canterbury be doing at ’alf past eleven at night, waiting for a train at Aldgate East? Dressed like that?’

  ‘I ’ave no idea what ’e is doing. But I’ve often seen his pictures and it is ’im all right.’

  ‘I bet you anything ’e ain’t the Archbishop.’

  ‘A quid?’

  They bet a pound and Bert walked over to the other man and spoke to him.

  ‘’Scuse me, but do you ’appen to be the Archbishop of Canterbury?’

  ‘Am I who?’ the man asked darkly, and did not seem to be amused.

  ‘The Archbishop of Canterbury.’

  ‘You — off, but quick. Mind your own bloody business and go to — hell.’

  Bert walks back to his friend and declares: ‘The bet is off. You can’t get a straight answer out of him.’

  I thought this joke was quite amusing but, much more to the point, very English. Why? First, there is this lovely nonsensical element. Bert’s friend had a good point there: what would the Archbishop of Canterbury be doing at an East End underground station, shabbily dressed, at half past eleven at night? The courtesy of the question, addressed to the third man, is very English, too. So is the betting. But what makes it a really English joke is its pseudo-fairness. If there is one accusation the English resent as much as not having a sense of humour, it is that they are not fair. Meet an English murderer in jail. He will readily admit that he has slain seven people in the pursuit of his trade. But accuse him seriously of being unfair in some concrete matter – of jumping a queue, for instance – and you will be the eighth victim. In connection with British justice – also claimed to be the best in the world – there is a saying: it is not enough that justice should be done, it must be seen to have been done. This really means never mind justice, the main thing is that your decision should look just. This joke reflects the same mentality. Bert – in the jokes of other countries – would have come back and said: ‘The chap is a foul-mouthed lout, it cannot possibly be the Archbishop of Canterbury. You win.’ That would have been right but stupid. To say: the bet is off etc is very English and very clever.

  What is ‘English’?

  And now back to definitions. ‘English’ in this book means English, Welsh and Scottish but not Irish – so I should, perhaps, call this book British Humour for Beginners. But who on earth has ever heard of ‘British’ humour? I am sure even the fiercest Scottish nationalist will agree that English humour is English humour.

  I know very little about a specific Welsh sense of humour but as probably more Welshmen – or people of Welsh origin – live in England than in Wales, I take it that they are, on the whole, sufficiently anglicized to be absorbed by English humour-imperialism.

  About the Scots I am going to make a daring statement which may cost me my life. I know they are a separate nation; I know that many of them plan to become even more separate. I have, in fact, a soft spot for the Scots, have always got on splendidly with them and, like all Hungarians, find it easier to learn Scottish English with its harsh consonants than the softer English variety with its unclean vowels (even in the speech of the highly educated classes). If you observe the Scots from within the United Kingdom you can easily perceive the differences between them and the English. But observed from the Continent of Europe they resemble the English much more than they care to. Unless they wear a kilt – and who wears kilts nowadays except Sunday-Scots in Trafalgar Square during the tourist season, or visiting English manufacturers of plastic mugs in the Highlands, plus one Hungarian I know – well, unless they wear a kilt they are, in the eye of the foreign observer, totally indistinguishable from the English. What does a man from Frankfurt or Warsaw see when he looks at the English and the Scots? People who speak the same language; people with the same manners, the same shyness and reserve (at least when abroad), the same arrogance (at least when abroad), the same feeling of superiority. And the fact that the Scotsman feels superior to the Englishman as well as to the rest of the world while the Englishman tends to ignore the Scot means little to the man of Frankfurt.

  Yes, I repeat – even if I am stabbed to death in the streets of Glasgow – that to foreign eyes the Scots are almost indistinguishable from the English.

  Nevertheless, we have all heard about the taxi in Aberdeen which got involved in a regrettable accident and eighteen people were injured in it.

  Or we have all heard jokes like this one:

  The Scotsman (in the distant past) arrived in London with three pieces of luggage. He asked the porter at the station what his charges were.

  ‘Fivepence for the first piece, threepence for the others.’

  ‘Very well, I shall carry the first one, you the second and the third.’

  In other words, what about the proverbial meanness of the Scots? Surely, writing a book on humour, one cannot ignore the Scottish joke?

  I think one can. First of all, jokes of this kind are monotonous. Secondly, they are jokes about the Scots, not by the Scots, so they have little to do with the Scottish sense of humour. Thirdly, the Scots used to be poor and the (then) rich English mistook their poverty for meanness. According to my own experience the Scots are, in fact, particularly hospitable and generous.

  I doubt (as I have already explained) that there is such a thing as an English sense of humour, consequently the – say – Welsh sense of humour would be a sub-species of a non-existent genus. But that would be in the true English nonsense tradition. Until the nineteen seventies there was a coin in circulation in Britain called the half crown. There was no crown, but this disturbed no one. The English were quite happy with a fraction of a non-existent unit. In mathematics half of nothing is nothing. In humour and in British fiscal matters (the two are often identical) half of nothing is quite something.

  The Irish Joke

  There are two clocks on a tower in Dublin. An English visitor points out to an Irishman that the two show different times. The Irishman replies: ‘What’s the point in having two clocks if both show the same time?’

  Or: An Irish traveller dies on a boat and has to be buried at sea. Later the Captain reports with regret that twenty sailors died digging his grave.

  These are typical Irish jokes. Like most Irish jokes they try to make the point that the Irish are stupid – the other Irish jokes try to prove that they are lazy.

  When I first came to England my English was quite sufficient to get along with in Budapest, so I thought it was good, but I found that London English differed quite considerably from Budapest English. But whatever mistaken ideas I may have had about my knowledge of the English language I was aware of knowing very little about the British people – not exactly an advantage for a working journalist. I and my Hungarian colleagues knew that the Scots lived up there, somewhere in the North; we knew – from a famous nineteenth century allegorical poem by János Arany – that the Welsh existed, although we were not sure which parts of the island they lived in; and we knew – we loved our Bernard Shaw in Hungary – that the Irish occupied John Bull’s other island (or to put it more precisely, that John Bull occupied that other island which the Irish regarded as their own). That was more or less the sum total of our ethnological knowledge.

&nbs
p; Our greatest and most urgent preoccupation was to learn English and to acquire some knowledge about the peoples of these islands. It was a sensational event when one of our colleagues decided to visit Ireland. When he came back we besieged him with questions. What were the Irish like? He was puzzled.

  ‘They are an amazing lot. They are exactly like the Hungarians but they all speak fluent English.’

  I have yet to hear a better description of the Irish. Now, forty years on, I still think that definition holds good. Consequently, the Irish are near my heart and I have always resented the sneering racist flavour of Irish jokes.

  So what about these jokes? Are they all right or is my resentment right?

  I think both are wrong.

  The Irish probably are lazy but this fact points to their intelligence not to their stupidity. A small minority of people are lucky enough to make their living by doing things they like doing – but even they do not like everything they have to do and do not always like working. The majority simply have to sell their labour, their expert knowledge, their skill, their time or just their physical strength. That is a bargain and most of them keep the contracts they have made. But why on earth should people like dull jobs? And if they do, why should this be the sign of intelligence and not stupidity?

  Besides, who are the English to laugh at the Irish, or at anyone else for that matter, because they are lazy? They are intelligent enough to be lazy themselves. And why should they laugh because the Irish are supposed to be stupid? I have mentioned Shaw, an Irishman who for seventy years called the English the stupidest race in the world and made a good living on it, most of his money contributed by the English themselves. Once upon a time, immediately after the war, the Germans used to work very hard but they had good reasons and a good purpose for it. The mood did not last long. They have come to their senses and today they are as lazy as the rest of us.