Two jokes from Darren, who will soon be leaving for Australia with our daughter, Susannah.

A Bit of String

A thin piece of string went into a bar and asked the barman:

“May I have a pint of beer please?”

“No. Certainly not,” replied the barman.

“Go on, this is such a nice pub and I’m dying for a pint,” he cajoled.

“It makes no difference what you say – I’m not serving you,” the barman folded his arms across his barrel chest.

“Why won’t you serve me?” asked the piece of string in his rather high-pitched voice.

“Well, you’re a bit of string – aren’t you? I don’t serve bits of string,” he said with finality.

The piece of string, crestfallen, drooped his shoulders and walked out of the bar; but when the barman wasn’t looking he sidled back in unnoticed (which was quite easy because he was so skinny) and he went to the Gent’s. He looked at his tiny frame in the mirror and wondered what he should do. Suddenly he had a brainwave; he tied himself into a big knot and pulled at both his ends until the ends had frayed into hundreds of strands. Then he went back into the bar.

“I’ll have a pint of beer please, young man,” said the piece of string in the deepest voice he could summon up.

“No, you’re that bit of string that was in here a few minutes ago, aren’t you?” responded the canny barman.

“No,” came the reply, “I’m a frayed knot!”

The Hard Stuff

Oddly enough, in the very same bar on the same day that the bit of string tried to get a drink…

A huge lump of concrete came in and heaved himself up the bar, and he said to the bewildered barman:

“I’m the hardest hunk of concrete going and I want a pint of the best.”

Unprepared to quarrel with the hulk before him, the barman poured the beer and the customer took his beer over to a large table.

A few minutes later a lump of tarmac, as black as the ace of spades, dragged himself up the bar and said:

“I’m the hardest lump of tarmac going and I want a pint of ice-cold lager.”

The barman, who was English, resisted the urge to scoff at the tarmac for ordering the preferred drink of Australians, and he poured him a reasonably cold lager. The tarmac took a sip and shook his head (if indeed that is what the big ugly lump at the top actually was) but he was in no mood for a fight and he went over to the big table where the concrete was lolling.

A short while later the biggest imaginable piece of red tarmac squeezed through the five-foot wide doorway and went up to the barman.

“I’m the biggest, hardest chunk of red tarmac going,” he began, “give me a pint of beer pronto little man!”

The humongous red tarmac shot a quick glance over at the biggest table but went with his beer to another table and sat alone. The barman wondered why the elephantine trio did not sit together.

“Why don’t you all sit together?” the polite barman asked the slightly more agreeable hard concrete and the black tarmac.

“We ain’t sitting with him,” they answered, horrified, in unison, “He’s a cycle-path!”