I love jokes. I love listening to how they're told and laughing at the punch line. I always think - "I must remember that one." But I can hardly ever remember the full joke - its beginning, middle, pre-punch line set-up and the punch-line itself.
I'm not alone though. Once I heard a joke, a very good one, whose punch line was - 'wear the fox hat', meaning 'where the fox that?' or maybe 'where the f***'s that?'. I heard it in the Fat Cat in Bangor, North Wales at about 10:11pm and the teller, Mick, was a good friend. In the morning I tried to remember the joke. The punch line was retrieved easily but the rest was a mist of 'might have been that' or 'could have been the other'. Luckily I met Mick in town in the afternoon and asked him to tell me that wonderful joke, from last night, again. "Which one", he said. "The one that ends with 'wear the fox hat', said I. Mick looked bemused and said - "No I don't know that one". "C'mon Mick, you were right on form, it was 10:11pm at the Fat Cat." "No", he said - "I was there, but honestly, I don't know that joke". When you forget your own jokes then it's serious. Technically, the condition is called amnesia but I can't remember what's it called in joke parlance.
The best teller of jokes I know is Dr Roger Gibson of Woolwich, London. I met him in Swaziland in 1973. He had so many wonderful jokes and held the multi-cultural group at the Manzini Arms and Manzini Club in rapture, hanging on to his every word.
Recently he has taken to illustrating some of those jokes and they are one of the main features on this web-site. Of course, I remember parts of nearly all his jokes - but never the full shilling. Mostly I remember the punch-lines but how did the joke start, what was the middle and what led to the punch lines?
I left Swaziland in 1979 after six years of wonderful, partly remembered jokes and went to work in Papua New Guinea for seven years. I met up with Roger in London again and my taste for his jokes had not diminished but, of course, my recall of them was becoming patchier. Dr Gibson, however, remembered all of them and had even added to his repertoire.
In many ways this site is a vehicle for the Gibson jokes. Enjoy them as much or even more than I have. Tell us yours and we'll tell the World.
In the UK we are very lucky to have jokes and sketches told and performed by people of different cultural backgrounds. This web-site would be honoured to promote joke telling by our multicultural population - both men and women. Remember 'laughter is the best medicine'.
When you've laughed your fill do take a stroll round the gallery where many of our jesters hang their art. All kinds of other interesting paraphernalia are also available and modestly priced.