And I thought to myself, what am I doing, and aren’t puns great.

In the newspaper, I felt sorry for the pupils in one article when safety experts recommended that ‘school bus passengers should be belted.’ Their situation became more serious when I read that a new bridge on route to school was being ‘held up by red tape.’ What about the unlucky passengers who were ‘hit by canceled trains’ – bet they were chuffed to bits. But it’s a good job you can rely on the constabulary at times like that, because it was later reported ‘police found safe under blanket.’ Bless them.

Don’t groan, that’s not the right hat he chewed? The poor pun gets a hard time, I think.

It’s all about form over content. Look at this chilling headline, ‘Iraqi head seeks arms’, it would be even worse if he found his body and legs as well.  If you have nothing to say then a pun is worth the effort, because as you know a little aardvark never hurt anyone.

Also, the pun is a master of compression and allows you to offend two people at once: ‘Keegan is not fit to lace George Best’s drinks.’ 

The pun was not always held in such low regard. Shakespeare was the greatest of punsters: ‘Lie further off yet, do not lie so near.’ err, nope didn’t get that one. Not sure what he was writing with when he wrote that, 2B or not 2B?  Freud thought the unintentional pun was a reflection of someone’s deepest desires, it’s when you say one thing but mean your mother.

So next time you read a headline in a newspaper – for example, this one I just saw by local writer Juan Smith about bicycles in hospitals ‘Cycle-path in Asylum’ or this one about a tense courtroom incident ‘Convicts Evade Noose: Jury Hung’ by Juan’s identical twin brother Amahl, don’t groan inwardly, don’t tut and definitely don’t go in to complain to both writers. No need, if you’ve seen Juan you’ve seen Amahl.

You may groan now.

That’s it once again.

To finish, I’ll tell you about last week when I took my daughter for a tiny little walk in the hills with the dog. After 30 minutes or relatively flat walking, my daughter suddenly fell to the ground, on her knees, and reached desperately up to the sky

Not sure whether she was enjoying it or not. It was only a tiny hill as well, I couldn’t get over it.

Have a good weekend.

Take care and all the best,

Ian