A few years ago I moved to a new city, away from all my old friends, and I broke up with my girlfriend, all within a few days of one another. It was not a great week. After moping in my box-filled new flat for a few days I decided to be pro-active and head to what was now my local pub to drown my sorrows, or at least hold their head underwater for a while.

The pub, it turned out, was a rather jolly place. I enjoyed a couple of pints before heading out. As I got up to leave a man walked into the pub, looked around, and shouted out “Seventy four!” This was met with peals of laughter from the other people in the pub. It was weird, but it was my first night in the pub so figured this was some running joke, or a continuation of some ongoing conversation, or a very drawn out game of Bingo. Whatever the case, I shrugged it off and headed home.

A few days later, not having much else to do of an evening, I returned to the pub. Several hours and severaler pints later I figured I should call it a night while I could still walk home. However, this time, as I prepared to make my exit a young woman entered the pub. She looked around with a cheeky grin and called out “Forty two!” Everyone in the pub but yours truly had a hearty laugh at this. Some of the older men shook their heads in mock disapproval, but even they couldn't help but smile. Now I was curious. But I was also drunk. I decided to head home and think about all this the next day; maybe my sober brain would figure out what was going on.

I didn't get back to the pub for about another week. My sober brain hadn't had any luck working out the events at the pub but I was happy to chalk it up to a weird coincidence. That was until my third visit. This time I sat at the bar, making small talk with a few of the other customers and the landlord. I'd been sat there for about an hour when an elderly lady shuffled through the entrance. A silence quickly descended from the other customers and most of them looked at her expectantly. She paused halfway to the bar, looked around at the assembled patrons, and said simply “Three.”

There was the briefest moment of silence before the entire pub descended into hysterical laughter. Many people were laughing so hard that they were in tears. Others were sputtering out “Three” to themselves before giving up to their laughter once more. One of the customers near me even muttered “Three, classic!” to himself.

Once the pub had settled back down I decided it was time to get to the bottom of all this. I turned to the landlord and asked him why people walked into the pub and said random numbers, and more to the point why these numbers were so funny.

“Well you see it's like this,” he told me. “A lot of the people who come in here are, well, they're funny people. We get stand-up comedians and comic actors, we get writers for comedy shows, we get jokesmiths and improv comedians. Basically we end up with a lot of jokes. Course, after a while you've heard pretty much every joke on the circuit, so people start telling the same ones over and over again. Some of them stop being so funny after a while, but the best jokes never get old. You get me?”

I nodded to confirm that I got him, and he continued. “So anyway, eventually we realised that we'd whittled it down to about a hundred jokes that just never got any less funny, no matter how many times you heard them. So obviously any time someone felt like telling a joke, it was one of these hundred. But after a while we didn't really need the whole joke. Someone would come in and say ‘Two gorillas escape from a zoo’ and everyone would start laughing because they knew in five minutes the punchline would be ‘Then he said: So whose toothbrush is it?’

“So we figured, why not just number the jokes, so if you want to tell the one about the badger who accidentally becomes pope you just yell out ‘Eighty!’ and save a whole bunch of time. You see?”

I saw, and thanked the landlord for the information. It was a weird little tale, scarcely believable really. And yet I had seen the evidence for it so I didn't doubt what the landlord said was true. Not long later I realised something else: in this pub anyone could be funny. In this place, number = mirth, like some diabolical equation for humour. I had to give it a try.

I waited for a general lull in conversation around the pub for my moment to strike. Then, standing up, I called out “Hey, everyone!” Dozens of faces turned towards me, and I triumphantly yelled “Nineteen!”

Silence met me head on, like a really quiet express train. Nary a titter came from the assembled crowd. I heard an embarrassed cough from somewhere; I didn't even know coughs could sound embarrassed, but there it was. After what felt like five minutes, but was probably more like four, conversation started to creep back into the pub and I managed to slink red-faced back onto my barstool. The landlord handed me a stiff drink in an effort to revive my spirits, and I looked at him with questioning eyes.

“I don't get it,” I said, “what happened? Is nineteen not a funny joke?”

“No, no,” said the barman, “it's a good one.”

“Then what went wrong? Why did no one laugh?”

“Oh you know,” responded the barman while polishing a glass. “It's the way you tell them.”

---



---

For those who don't know, I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue is a radio show. In fact it's the funniest radio show there is. That's a fact. And I'm a scientist so that makes it a scientific fact. That's how these things work. Don't believe me? Well tough, it's a fact. And I'm a scientist so that makes it a scientific fact.

The problem with trying to put a radio show in a book is that it doesn't quite fit. It's the radio waves you see, they're the wrong wavelength to appear on the paper. It's a science thing, you wouldn't understand. Unless you're a scientist, in which case you'd realise I was making this stuff up so please don't let on, okay?

Okay. The book contains quips, sketches, and other esoterica from forty years of I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue. It's funny because the source material is funny. But it's really not a patch on the recordings of the radio shows, or even (for twelve weeks a year) the radio shows themselves. After all, only a small part of jokes' humour comes from what is told, the rest comes from the way you tell them. ( )

A few years ago I moved to a new city, away from all my old friends, and I broke up with my girlfriend, all within a few days of one another. It was not a great week. After moping in my box-filled new flat for a few days I decided to be pro-active and head to what was now my local pub to drown my sorrows, or at least hold their head underwater for a while.

The pub, it turned out, was a rather jolly place. I enjoyed a couple of pints before heading out. As I got up to leave a man walked into the pub, looked around, and shouted out “Seventy four!” This was met with peals of laughter from the other people in the pub. It was weird, but it was my first night in the pub so figured this was some running joke, or a continuation of some ongoing conversation, or a very drawn out game of Bingo. Whatever the case, I shrugged it off and headed home.

A few days later, not having much else to do of an evening, I returned to the pub. Several hours and severaler pints later I figured I should call it a night while I could still walk home. However, this time, as I prepared to make my exit a young woman entered the pub. She looked around with a cheeky grin and called out “Forty two!” Everyone in the pub but yours truly had a hearty laugh at this. Some of the older men shook their heads in mock disapproval, but even they couldn't help but smile. Now I was curious. But I was also drunk. I decided to head home and think about all this the next day; maybe my sober brain would figure out what was going on.

I didn't get back to the pub for about another week. My sober brain hadn't had any luck working out the events at the pub but I was happy to chalk it up to a weird coincidence. That was until my third visit. This time I sat at the bar, making small talk with a few of the other customers and the landlord. I'd been sat there for about an hour when an elderly lady shuffled through the entrance. A silence quickly descended from the other customers and most of them looked at her expectantly. She paused halfway to the bar, looked around at the assembled patrons, and said simply “Three.”

There was the briefest moment of silence before the entire pub descended into hysterical laughter. Many people were laughing so hard that they were in tears. Others were sputtering out “Three” to themselves before giving up to their laughter once more. One of the customers near me even muttered “Three, classic!” to himself.

Once the pub had settled back down I decided it was time to get to the bottom of all this. I turned to the landlord and asked him why people walked into the pub and said random numbers, and more to the point why these numbers were so funny.

“Well you see it's like this,” he told me. “A lot of the people who come in here are, well, they're funny people. We get stand-up comedians and comic actors, we get writers for comedy shows, we get jokesmiths and improv comedians. Basically we end up with a lot of jokes. Course, after a while you've heard pretty much every joke on the circuit, so people start telling the same ones over and over again. Some of them stop being so funny after a while, but the best jokes never get old. You get me?”

I nodded to confirm that I got him, and he continued. “So anyway, eventually we realised that we'd whittled it down to about a hundred jokes that just never got any less funny, no matter how many times you heard them. So obviously any time someone felt like telling a joke, it was one of these hundred. But after a while we didn't really need the whole joke. Someone would come in and say ‘Two gorillas escape from a zoo’ and everyone would start laughing because they knew in five minutes the punchline would be ‘Then he said: So whose toothbrush is it?’

“So we figured, why not just number the jokes, so if you want to tell the one about the badger who accidentally becomes pope you just yell out ‘Eighty!’ and save a whole bunch of time. You see?”

I saw, and thanked the landlord for the information. It was a weird little tale, scarcely believable really. And yet I had seen the evidence for it so I didn't doubt what the landlord said was true. Not long later I realised something else: in this pub anyone could be funny. In this place, number = mirth, like some diabolical equation for humour. I had to give it a try.

I waited for a general lull in conversation around the pub for my moment to strike. Then, standing up, I called out “Hey, everyone!” Dozens of faces turned towards me, and I triumphantly yelled “Nineteen!”

Silence met me head on, like a really quiet express train. Nary a titter came from the assembled crowd. I heard an embarrassed cough from somewhere; I didn't even know coughs could sound embarrassed, but there it was. After what felt like five minutes, but was probably more like four, conversation started to creep back into the pub and I managed to slink red-faced back onto my barstool. The landlord handed me a stiff drink in an effort to revive my spirits, and I looked at him with questioning eyes.

“I don't get it,” I said, “what happened? Is nineteen not a funny joke?”

“No, no,” said the barman, “it's a good one.”

“Then what went wrong? Why did no one laugh?”

“Oh you know,” responded the barman while polishing a glass. “It's the way you tell them.”

---



---

For those who don't know, I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue is a radio show. In fact it's the funniest radio show there is. That's a fact. And I'm a scientist so that makes it a scientific fact. That's how these things work. Don't believe me? Well tough, it's a fact. And I'm a scientist so that makes it a scientific fact.

The problem with trying to put a radio show in a book is that it doesn't quite fit. It's the radio waves you see, they're the wrong wavelength to appear on the paper. It's a science thing, you wouldn't understand. Unless you're a scientist, in which case you'd realise I was making this stuff up so please don't let on, okay?

Okay. The book contains quips, sketches, and other esoterica from forty years of I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue. It's funny because the source material is funny. But it's really not a patch on the recordings of the radio shows, or even (for twelve weeks a year) the radio shows themselves. After all, only a small part of jokes' humour comes from what is told, the rest comes from the way you tell them. ( )

A collection of "rounds" from the popular Radio 4 "antidote to panel games", such as Late Arrivals, Film Club/Songbook, and Uxbridge English Dictionary (i.e. pun-based silliness), interspersed with humorous pieces such as extended versions of the local history sections typically used to open the show when it's recorded in regional theatres.

There are also a few pieces that are clearly NOT culled from the actual broadcast shows, but written specially; notably essays on the lives of famous historical players of Mornington Crescent.

In amongst all this are large, colour photographs of the cast, taken during recordings and backstage beforehand.

At the end is a genuine account of the origins and history of the show itself.

Generally very funny and inventive, though one or two small areas veer too far towards the puerile, a couple more go on a little too long, and there are some minor typos. ( )

'I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue' is a BBC Radio 4 comedy programme which began in 1972. This 'best of...' collection was published to celebrate forty years on air, in 2012. This book is aimed at the shows fans who will love the double entendres and silly jokes, but perhaps, like me, will miss the music, the audience and the general banter which this book can't replicate. ( )