As it is neither summer nor holiday here in Berlin, as is it neither Friday nor even close to the weekend, I decided to investigate the origins of the (legendary) British sense of humour to brighten up this gloomy day.
This unexpectedly lead me to a very amusing discussion with an English colleague of mine. I ended up discovering the origin of pictures of cats on the internet and at the same time I thought it would be relevant to publish an extract here. This is totally not an excuse to post pictures of cats, though.
It all started with me complaining (again) about my sense of humour being (once more!) misunderstood:
"Me: it's always bad when you have to explain a joke.
When you assume people will get your humour and they don't.
Then you start questioning your humour.
My colleague: Don't do it!
Just joke your way out of a bad situation.
Me: always
My colleague: Keep on joking yourself deeper and deeper into that hole
and if people still don't get it
claim it's irony
or an impression.
That's the English defense:
we didn't become literally the funniest nation on earth with out learning a few tricks.
This is when it became interesting
Me: That is so true!
English are the funniest nation in the world.
How did you get that far?
What happened to you folk? Were you bored on your island?
(playing the flattering French female to investigate undercover)
My colleague: It's simple really:
we took all the energy and time we could have invested in learning to cook, or good dentistry, or learning how to dress ourselves
and put it towards learning how to do a bloody good invasion
after than we felt a bit ashamed
so after we'd seen the error of our ways in 1895 we decided to invent comedy
as our gift to the world
we also invented the internet, as a method by which we could spread comedy in all its forms
including as a selection of pictures of cats.
Then he added:
My colleague: Anyway, you learnt a good deal about world history
so I guess it's all worth it."
And thus I can unveil the secret relationship between Waterloo, Monty Python's Flying Circus and the billions of cat memes polluting my Facebook news feed daily (not that I hang out much on Facebook while I am at work, but you know what I mean ;-) ).
If you too found my colleague's analysis succinct yet amusing and want to learn more from him he is writing under the pseudonym Adam Harris on moviepilot.com.
Have a look!
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