If you take the world seriously (which I haven’t for some years now) there’s enough going wrong these days that even optimists are getting the Windex out to clean their rose-coloured glasses. Just when we thought things couldn’t get any worse – they did. People are starting to read Kafka for laughs and Cormac McCarthy is beginning to look downright light-hearted. However, rather than dwell on the obvious let’s stop for a moment, pour a beverage and relax.
Remember, August is that time of year when the local folks of Edinburgh rent their houses out for mucho dinero and bugger off to Spain; chased out of their town by the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. For those of you who’ve never heard of the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, that’s too bad because it’s the greatest mish-mash of all-things-considered in the world. The Edinburgh Fringe is actually several coexisting arts festivals that run amok, day and night, through the streets of Edinburgh for the entire month of August. It was started in the late 1940s by some university students, and even though it’s become internationally huge, it still maintains its undergraduate Alphagetti-for-breakfast air.
One of the biggest parts of The Fringe is comedy; some good, some bad, some awful. And even though humour has been outlawed by the woke crew the Fringe keeps plugging away. And after a Covid hiatus, it has produced a Top Ten list of the funniest jokes of the Festival. This is this year’s offering. So, as the world continues to spin, tune out for a second and remember we’re still the funniest species on the planet.
1. “I tried to steal spaghetti from the shop, but the female guard saw me and I couldn’t get pasta” – Masai Graham
2. “Did you know, if you get pregnant in the Amazon, it’s next-day delivery” – Mark Simmons
3. “My attempts to combine nitrous oxide and Oxo cubes made me a laughing stock” – Olaf Falafel
4. “By my age, my parents had a house and a family, and to be fair to me, so do I – but it is the same house and it is the same family” – Hannah Fairweather
5. “I hate funerals – I’m not a mourning person” – Will Mars
6. “I spent the whole morning building a time machine, so that’s four hours of my life that I’m definitely getting back” – Olaf Falafel
7. “I sent a food parcel to my first wife. FedEx” – Richard Pulsford
8. “I used to live hand to mouth. Do you know what changed my life? Cutlery” – Tim Vine
9. “Don’t knock threesomes. Having a threesome is like hiring an intern to do all the jobs you hate” – Sophie Duker
10. “I can’t even be bothered to be apathetic these days” – Will Duggan
WD Fyfe 
Some of these are great!