Jokes

I met a comedian a long time ago. We were both staying at a camping site in South Wales, me with my family of wife and young kids on holiday, him on the way to another gig in the valleys. He was not at all funny as I expected him to be when he told me what he did for a living; he was a good conversationalist, telling me about the various places where he did his stuff. He said "I have an advert in Stage Magazine - seen me? My catchword is 'Cease'." He never told me what that meant. He told me that there was a club in Cardiff which had a low cealing and thus, he said, can't think why, you couldn't get a laugh; then there was another place in The Rhondda where you could get heaps of laughs. "High ceiling?" I asked, but he didn't catch on to my little "joke", or didn't want to.
But there, perhaps I didn't tell it right. Because you see "it's the way you tell 'em" ain't it?
Certainly some of my favourite comedians of "the old school" i.e. of a long time ago, didn't tell many jokes but relied for laughs on the creation of an amusing character. Robb Wilton did his "The day war broke out, my wife said to me...." act. I don't think there a single joke in the act. Max Miller told jokes, of course - dirty jokes often (not as dirty as they are now though). Then there was a very well spoken man who told stories about himself and the various pickles he got himself into.
The best joke at Edinburgh this year was, so they say, this one: "I've just come back from a 'Once-In-A-Life-time' holiday; I tell you what - never again."
This brings to mind a joke by Bob Monkhouse: "When I told everyone I wanted to be a comedian, they all laughed. Well, they're not laughing now."
Here is a joke from last week's Spectator, from "The Wiki Man", Rory Sutherland: "A toursit is exploring the coast of a minor Greek island when he arrives at a charming fishing village, a model of contented prosperity. Freshly painted boats bob at their moorings... On the hillside there is a handsome church. Enchanted, our traveller asks several passers-by to recommend a good bar for a drink. Each time he is told that the best place is the "Taverna of Dimitri the Sheep-Shagger". He visits and in the course of a few drinks befriends the patron Dimitri who is a charming, educated and accomplished man. A few drinks later he feels emboldened to raise the topic of the host's name. Dimitri leads him outside and places an avuncular hand on the traveller's shoulder. 'You see those boats?' he sighs. "I built them all myself with my bare hands. But do they call me Dimitri the Boat-Builder? No. The church and the orphanage on the hillside. That's my work too. But do they call me Dimitri the church builder? Never! I even built the harbour wall. And do they call me Dimitri the harbour-maker? They do not. You shag one damn sheep....."