General knowledge

A young unemployed man, terribly frightened of violence and bloodshed, is forced by his father to apply for a typist's job with the army. The recruiting officer hands him a sheet of paper and asks him to show what he can do. He sits down at the table in one corner of the tent with a typewriter on it, and deliberately types as slowly and messily as he can, so that he might be rejected out of hand. To his dismay, the officer takes one look at his handiwork and barks 'You're hired'. Flabbergasted, the lad asks 'But why ... how...?' In reply, the officer says, 'Son, I've been looking at applicants for three hours now, and you are the first one who knows what a typewriter looks like! That's good enough.'

Then there were the two country bumpkins who had been invited to dinner by the lord of the manor, known for his cultured tastes. They try to be on guard, lest they should make a gaffe. Everything goes smoothly until after dinner, when they settle down with coffee and cigars. 'Tell me, my good men, how do you like Shakespeare?' asks the squire, by way of making conversation. 'Not after dinner, sir,' blurts out Jake, and gets kicked sharply in the shin by Tom for his pains. He clams up for the time being, but asks on the way home, 'Why did you kick me so hard?' 'You fool,' roars Tom, 'you nearly spoilt everything with that stupid remark. You think Shakespeare is a kind of cheese, don't you? - Well, as a matter of fact, it's a kind of wine!'

I often tell these jokes in class. Always in context, of course, only when my pupils give me the right cues with strokes of sheer brilliance. The occasions are all too frequent these days, despite the fact that many of them routinely score very high marks in school examinations...