Humour is Different in Britain…
You’ve doubtless seen the video of, and been outraged by, the woman in Britain who picked up a cat and threw it into a garbage can. She claims it was ‘a joke.’ Okay, maybe it’s being a comedian, but I’m not clear on the punch-line. Too subtle? Is it a reference to Lady Gaga or Justin Beiber or someone else I’m not up on?
Maybe it’s just me, but the joke would be much better if she’d continued down the street and then a huge cat, like a lynx or a tiger, leapt from another garbage can and tore her head off, or something hilarious like that. Chomp, chomp, chomp.
“Ha ha ha! Look kids, the bad ladies learning a lesson.”
“Yay! Go Tiger Go!!!”
Reminds me of all the people I’ve met over the years who say something incredibly insulting, mean or cruel and then say, “Hey, can’t you take a joke?” I think I can. But apparently not this one.
Maybe what the cat flinging lady in England meant by “A Joke” is that it’s a joke in the same sense that… “The way the health care system deals with ADHD in this country is a joke.”
One more thing: Is it leaped? Or leapt?
3 Responses to “Humour is Different in Britain…”
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There’s a strange reaction to animals in this country (England). Clearly this woman crossed the line by a long way, but there was an advert that involved a bird flying into a kitchen window – splat – and no-one objected to it. Or rather, not enough people objected to it to get it taken off the telly. (Interestingly, I have no idea what the product was, just the fact that this poor birdy got a headache). And our out-take shows are filled with unfortunate things happening to helpless animals, and I don’t mean the presenters.
On the other hand, in the league table of charities, the amount of money given to charities that look after elderly donkeys is many many times that given to those who help human beings with learning disabilities – now that’s what I call a sick joke.
As to the joke about ADHD treatment, we have a wonderful game over here. It’s called the postcode lottery, and applies to ALL healthcare. If you live in the right place, you get the Ritalin (for example) and if you live 100 yards away, but in a different borough – tough; no Ritalin. I’m lucky – we’re in a borough with the right attitude and my kid gets the medication. And that’s why we’re never moving!!
Not to be laughing at cruelty to animals, but one of my favourite Frantics radio scripts I wrote was about a horse race, and the announcer was getting frustrated with the ‘colour’ guy who was praising every horse, and saying how much he liked it, even though they sounded increasingly awful, until he came to Polo, who was actually dead, with a dead jockey, “…she’s a million to one to win, place or twitch, but I don’t know, she could surprise people…”
It’s not a joke if there’s no-one around to see it. And, clearly, that horrible excuse for a human being was unaware that there was a surveillance camera filming the area, because if she’d thought anyone would have seen what she did, she wouldn’t have bloody done it.
It’s also not a joke to place a helpless creature in a position where it could die, because of what you did to it.
It’s cases like this that make you wish the pillory hadn’t been abolished.
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As for “leaped” or “leapt”, it seems to be a UK thing, with regional variances. Kind of like “learned” and “learnt”. I generally use “leapt” and “learnt”, but that may just be because I’ve been exposed to so much British comedy—none of which involves anything remotely like what that woman did, with the possible exception of one sketch by Hale & Pace, in which they raised the notion of outrageous animal cruelty, but said they’d never actually do such a thing. Even so, they took considerable heat for the sketch.