Tibballs - The Mammoth Book of Jokes 2

GEOFF TIBBALLS is the author of the bestselling Mammoth Book of Jokes and The Mammoth Book of Dirty Jokes as well as many other books including Business Blunders and Legal Blunders. A former journalist and press officer, he is now a full-time writer who lists his hobbies as sport, eating, drinking and avoiding housework. He lives in Nottingham, England, with his wife and daughters.

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Constable & Robinson Ltd

5556 Russell Square

London WC1B 4HP

www.constablerobinson.com

Previously published in the UK as Two Nuns in a Bath and in the US as The Mammoth Book of Best New Jokes, 2009

First published in the UK by Robinson,

an imprint of Constable & Robinson Ltd, 2012

Copyright Geoff Tibballs, 2012

The right of Geoff Tibballs to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

All rights reserved. This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

A copy of the British Library Cataloguing in

Publication Data is available from the British Library

ISBN: 978-1-78033-484-4 (paperback)

ISBN: 978-1-78033-537-7 (ebook)

Printed and bound in the UK

1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

Recent research by an English academic has unearthed jokes dating back to Roman times. It seems that when the Romans werent throwing Christians to the lions, they enjoyed nothing more than a good laugh. A third-century joke book written in Greek contains more than 250 Roman rib-ticklers, including probably the earliest ever doctor joke:

Doctor, asked the patient, whenever I get up after a sleep, I feel dizzy for half an hour, then Im all right.

The doctor replied: Then wait for half an hour before getting up.

And if that didnt go down a storm at the forum, there was always this ancient version of the Monty Python dead parrot sketch:

A man bought a slave who died soon after. When he complained, the slave seller replied: Well, he didnt die when I owned him.

Fast forward 1,800 years and the ideas behind many modern jokes can be traced back to the basic principles instigated by the Romans. In fact, take a trip on a cruise ship and youll hear the resident entertainer still telling many of the original gags. Meanwhile new jokes are constantly evolving. The cult of celebrity has brought about numerous jokes at the expense of the rich and famous while the fallout from the recession has meant that bankers have temporarily replaced lawyers as the people we most love to hate. Politicians come and go, but while comics have struggled to invent material on Barack Obama, happily there are still a few new George W. Bush jokes because where humorists are concerned, even though he is no longer in office, Dubya is the gift that just keeps on giving.

The vast majority of jokes in this book are brand new with the occasional classic thrown in, including the one about two nuns in a bath. I confess to having no idea how old that particular gem is. Who knows, it might originally have been a Roman bath.

Geoff Tibballs, 2009

A man called his wife from hospital and told her that his finger had been cut off on the building site where he worked.

Oh my God! cried the wife. The whole finger?

No, he said, the one next to it.

A woman was driving along the road when the car in front braked suddenly and she ploughed into the back of it.

When the driver got out, the woman saw that he was a dwarf. He said: Im not happy.

The woman said: Well, which one ARE you?

Why didnt the little boy tell his mother that he had been sucking a tube of glue?

Because his lips were sealed.

A man was annoyed when his wife told him that a car had backed into hers, damaging the front bumper, and that she hadnt made a note of the licence plate number.

What kind of car was he driving? asked the husband.

I dont know, she said. I can never tell one make of car from another.

Hearing this, the husband decided it was time for her to learn and for the next few days, whenever they were out on the road, he made her name each car they passed until he was satisfied that she could identify every make.

It worked. A week later, she bounded in with a big grin on her face. Darling, she said. I hit a Pontiac G8!

What happened when two weathermen each broke an arm and a leg in an accident?

They were worried about the four casts.

The telephone rang at dawn. Hello, Seor Ralph? This is Alfredo, the caretaker at your country house.

Hi, Alfredo. What can I do for you? Is there a problem?

Uh, I am just calling to tell you, Seor Ralph, that your parrot died.

My parrot? Dead? The one that won the international competition?

Yes, Seor, thats the one.

Damn! Thats a pity. I spent a small fortune on that bird. What did he die from?

From eating rotten meat, Seor Ralph.