Who needs twitter? As if sms text messaging with mobiles wasn't bad enough? Or is it that the whole world has gone crazy, and will lap up any 'cool new app' just for the heck of it? Is there one human being on this planet, who, despite having a laptop and/or a good mobile phone, and constant messaging and email facility at hand, still 'cannot do' without something as utterly witless and non-new as twitter?
Thursday, July 23, 2009
Friday, July 17, 2009
Laugh for the day
A good friend sometimes sends me hilarious stuff for posting on this blog. Here’s another installment.
These howlers are supposedly from a book called 'Disorder in the American Courts' and are things people actually said in court, word for word, taken down and now published by court reporters who had to suffer the torment of staying calm while these exchanges were actually taking place.
ATTORNEY: Can you describe the individual?
WITNESS: He was about medium height and had a beard.
ATTORNEY: Was this a male or a female?
WITNESS: Unless the circus was in town I'm going with male.
ATTORNEY: Doctor, how many of your autopsies have you performed on dead people?
WITNESS: All of them. The live ones put up too much of a fight.
ATTORNEY: How was your first marriage terminated?
WITNESS: By death.
ATTORNEY: And by whose death was it terminated?
WITNESS: Take a guess.
ATTORNEY: Are you qualified to give a urine sample?
WITNESS: Are you qualified to ask that question?
ATTORNEY: Do you recall the time that you examined the body?
WITNESS: The autopsy started around 8:30 p.m.
ATTORNEY: And Mr. Denton was dead at the time?
WITNESS: If not, he was by the time I finished.
ATTORNEY: This myasthenia gravis, does it affect your memory at all?
WITNESS: Yes.
ATTORNEY: And in what ways does it affect your memory?
WITNESS: I forget.
ATTORNEY: You forget? Can you give us an example of something you forgot?
ATTORNEY: Now doctor, isn't it true that when a person dies in his sleep, he doesn't know about it until the next morning?
WITNESS: Did you actually pass the bar exam?
ATTORNEY: The youngest son, the twenty-year-old, how old is he?
WITNESS: He's twenty, much like your IQ.
ATTORNEY: Were you present when your picture was taken?
WITNESS: Are you shitting me?
ATTORNEY: She had three children, right?
WITNESS: Yes.
ATTORNEY: How many were boys?
WITNESS: None.
ATTORNEY: Were there any girls?
W ITNESS : Your Honor, I think I need a different attorney.
ATTORNEY: ALL your responses MUST be oral, OK? What school did you go to?
WITNESS: Oral.
ATTORNEY: Doctor, before you performed the autopsy, did you check for a pulse?
WITNESS: No.
ATTORNEY: Did you check for blood pressure?
WITNESS: No.
ATTORNEY: Did you check for breathing?
WITNESS: No.
ATTORNEY: So, then it is possible that the patient was alive when you began the autopsy?
WITNESS: No.
ATTORNEY: How can you be so sure, Doctor?
WITNESS: Because his brain was sitting on my desk in a jar.
ATTORNEY: I see, but could the patient have still been alive, nevertheless?
WITNESS: Yes, it is possible that he could have been alive and practising law.
P.S.: If someone like Khushwant Singh is happy to take inputs from friends who write in, I shouldn’t be embarrassed. Do send me things you have really enjoyed, readers, if you want me to publish them on my blog.
These howlers are supposedly from a book called 'Disorder in the American Courts' and are things people actually said in court, word for word, taken down and now published by court reporters who had to suffer the torment of staying calm while these exchanges were actually taking place.
ATTORNEY: Can you describe the individual?
WITNESS: He was about medium height and had a beard.
ATTORNEY: Was this a male or a female?
WITNESS: Unless the circus was in town I'm going with male.
ATTORNEY: Doctor, how many of your autopsies have you performed on dead people?
WITNESS: All of them. The live ones put up too much of a fight.
ATTORNEY: How was your first marriage terminated?
WITNESS: By death.
ATTORNEY: And by whose death was it terminated?
WITNESS: Take a guess.
ATTORNEY: Are you qualified to give a urine sample?
WITNESS: Are you qualified to ask that question?
ATTORNEY: Do you recall the time that you examined the body?
WITNESS: The autopsy started around 8:30 p.m.
ATTORNEY: And Mr. Denton was dead at the time?
WITNESS: If not, he was by the time I finished.
ATTORNEY: This myasthenia gravis, does it affect your memory at all?
WITNESS: Yes.
ATTORNEY: And in what ways does it affect your memory?
WITNESS: I forget.
ATTORNEY: You forget? Can you give us an example of something you forgot?
ATTORNEY: Now doctor, isn't it true that when a person dies in his sleep, he doesn't know about it until the next morning?
WITNESS: Did you actually pass the bar exam?
ATTORNEY: The youngest son, the twenty-year-old, how old is he?
WITNESS: He's twenty, much like your IQ.
ATTORNEY: Were you present when your picture was taken?
WITNESS: Are you shitting me?
ATTORNEY: She had three children, right?
WITNESS: Yes.
ATTORNEY: How many were boys?
WITNESS: None.
ATTORNEY: Were there any girls?
W ITNESS : Your Honor, I think I need a different attorney.
ATTORNEY: ALL your responses MUST be oral, OK? What school did you go to?
WITNESS: Oral.
ATTORNEY: Doctor, before you performed the autopsy, did you check for a pulse?
WITNESS: No.
ATTORNEY: Did you check for blood pressure?
WITNESS: No.
ATTORNEY: Did you check for breathing?
WITNESS: No.
ATTORNEY: So, then it is possible that the patient was alive when you began the autopsy?
WITNESS: No.
ATTORNEY: How can you be so sure, Doctor?
WITNESS: Because his brain was sitting on my desk in a jar.
ATTORNEY: I see, but could the patient have still been alive, nevertheless?
WITNESS: Yes, it is possible that he could have been alive and practising law.
P.S.: If someone like Khushwant Singh is happy to take inputs from friends who write in, I shouldn’t be embarrassed. Do send me things you have really enjoyed, readers, if you want me to publish them on my blog.
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
Books, anyone?
The teacher was expounding on the myriad benefits of reading, and trying to get his class of very young children interested. ‘Every one of you has books at home, don't you? Try naming some...’
Every child named a few, only little Johnny at the back of the class kept mum. ‘Hello, Johnny, what about you? Don't you have any books at home? Of course you do... try hard to remember,’ encouraged the teacher.
Little Johnny’s brow puckered with furious concentration. A few seconds passed, then his face lit up. ‘Yes, there’s one,’ he cried, ‘the telephone directory!’
At a more ‘high-class’ level, the affluent housewife goes shopping for her husband’s birthday gift. After-shave, cuff-links, sunglasses, ties, whatever the shopkeeper tries to tempt her with, ‘He’s got one of those,’ comes the dissatisfied reply. On the verge of giving up, the man suggests ‘Why don’t you give him a book, then?’ Pat comes the reply, ‘Oh, but he’s got one of those too!’
I used to think that these were wicked exaggerations, but then I read about a woman coming out of the cinema after watching Tagore’s Chokher Baali, and commenting to her friend, ‘Did you know that the book version is already available?’ And I meet such people all the time these days… the same people who are very proud of being ‘highly educated’, and who have hardly ever read anything in their lives except textbooks and crambooks. How easy it has become to be educated these days. Used to be a time, not too long ago, when no man dared to give himself such airs before three or four decades of concentrated reading…!
Every child named a few, only little Johnny at the back of the class kept mum. ‘Hello, Johnny, what about you? Don't you have any books at home? Of course you do... try hard to remember,’ encouraged the teacher.
Little Johnny’s brow puckered with furious concentration. A few seconds passed, then his face lit up. ‘Yes, there’s one,’ he cried, ‘the telephone directory!’
At a more ‘high-class’ level, the affluent housewife goes shopping for her husband’s birthday gift. After-shave, cuff-links, sunglasses, ties, whatever the shopkeeper tries to tempt her with, ‘He’s got one of those,’ comes the dissatisfied reply. On the verge of giving up, the man suggests ‘Why don’t you give him a book, then?’ Pat comes the reply, ‘Oh, but he’s got one of those too!’
I used to think that these were wicked exaggerations, but then I read about a woman coming out of the cinema after watching Tagore’s Chokher Baali, and commenting to her friend, ‘Did you know that the book version is already available?’ And I meet such people all the time these days… the same people who are very proud of being ‘highly educated’, and who have hardly ever read anything in their lives except textbooks and crambooks. How easy it has become to be educated these days. Used to be a time, not too long ago, when no man dared to give himself such airs before three or four decades of concentrated reading…!
Friday, July 10, 2009
Brilliant!
I just heard that the honourable minister for health in our government of West Bengal has been boasting that our government hospitals routinely accommodate three patients to a bed, besides dozens lying on the floor, so great is the demand for their services - which, according to the minister, only goes to show how wonderful the state health service must be.
I suppose it takes a minister in India to be that blase and shameless. I put this in the humour blog because if I don't laugh, it can only make me cry!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
.JPG)
