Friday Funny

January 13, 2012 on 6:21 pm by Michael Grey | In Humour, Random Thoughts | Comments Off on Friday Funny

One of the funniest books I own is a little volume called “Bride of Dark and Stormy”. It’s a collection of the best entries to the Bulwer-Lytton literary competition. Unlike once-funny TV shows like, say, M*A*S*H, this slim volume has never become dated and has always made me laugh.

The contest is run by the English department of San Jose State University and challenges entrants to compose the opening sentence to the worst of all possible novels. Every page of this little book is laugh-out-loud funny. Seriously.

Here are a few of my favourites:

“‘No! No! A thousand times, no!’ poor Penelope squealed as her pixyish frame disappeared beneath the lust-engorged loins of Hector the hulk, mindful all the while that she still had 997 “no’s” to go.” (p.68)

“‘I always wanted to live in Helena, Montana,’ he said with a faraway look in his eye; ‘I’d open a little bistro and call it the ‘Handbasket’ and the whole world would go there!” (p.97)

and finally:

“Peabo, the cat, washed his fur in the warm sunlight that streamed through the window, thinking to himself as he licked his soiled paws, ‘Why, it’s not so bad having a baby in the house,’ and then coughed up a hair ball and bits of a rattle.” (p.35)

As “Still Game‘s” Tam Mullen‘s wife Frances might say, “What am I like?!”.

M.