Life in the Australian Army

Letter home from a soldier from Eromanga (a small town west of Quilpie in the far south-west of Queensland).

Dear Mum & Dad,

I am well. Hope youse are too. Tell me big brothers Doug and Phil that the Army is better than workin' on the farm - tell them to get in bloody quick smart before the jobs are all gone! I wuz a bit slow in settling down at first, because ya don't hafta get outta bed until 6am. But I like sleeping in now, cuz all ya gotta do before brekky is make ya bed and shine ya boots and clean ya uniform. No bloody cows to milk, no calves to feed, no feed to stack - nothin'!! Ya haz gotta shower though, but its not so bad, coz there's lotsa hot water and even a light to see what ya doing!

At brekky ya get cereal, fruit and eggs but there's no kangaroo steaks or possum stew like wot Mum makes. You don't get fed again until noon and by that time all the city boys are buggered because we've been on a "route march" - geez its only just like walking to the windmill in the back paddock!

This one will kill me brothers Doug and Phil with laughter. I keep getting medals for shootin' - dunno why. The bullseye is as big as a bloody possum's bum and it don't move and it's not firing back at ya like the Johnsons did when our big scrubber bull got into their prize cows before the Ekka last year! All ya gotta do is make yourself comfortable and hit the target - it's a piece of piss!! You don't even load your own cartridges, they comes in little boxes, and ya don't have to steady yourself against the rollbar of the ute truck when you reload!

Sometimes ya gotta wrestle with the city boys and I gotta be real careful coz they break easy - it's not like fighting with Doug and Phil and Jack and Boori and Steve and Muzza all at once like we do at home after the muster. Turns out I'm not a bad boxer either and it looks like I'm the best the platoon's got, and I've only been beaten by this one bloke from the Engineers - he's 6 foot 5 and 15 stone and three pick handles across the shoulders and as ya know I'm only 5 foot 7 and eight stone wringin' wet, but I fought him till the other blokes carried me off to the boozer.

I can't complain about the Army - tell the boys to get in quick before word gets around how bloody good it is.

Your loving daughter,

Sheila.

Gloves of Love

A young man called Peter from London wanted to buy a Christmas present for his new girlfriend Maggie. They hadn't been seeing each other for very long and she lived in Scotland.

Peter consulted his sister and decided, after careful consideration, that a pair of good quality gloves would strike the right note - not too romantic and not too personal.

Off he went with his sister to Harrods and they selected a dainty pair of fur-lined quality leather gloves. His sister bought herself a pair of sexy knickers at the same time.

Harrods had a free gift wrap offer but the assistant mixed up the two items, the sister got the gloves and Peter unknowingly got the knickers. Good old Pete sent these off in a parcel with the following letter.

Dear Maggie,

I chose these because I've noticed that you are not wearing any when we go out in the evenings. If it had not been for my sister I would have chosen the long ones with buttons but she wears shorter ones (which are easier to remove).

These are a very delicate shade but the lady I bought them from showed me the pair she'd been wearing for the past three weeks and I hardly noticed any marks.

I had her try yours on for me and she looked really smart in them even though they were a little bit tight on her. She also said that they rub against her ring, which helps keep it clean. In fact she hasn't needed to wash it since she began wearing them.

I wish I was there to put them on for you the first time, as no doubt many other hands will touch them before I have a chance to see you again.

When you take them off remember to blow into them a little because they will naturally be a little damp after wearing.

Just imagine how many times my lips will kiss them during the coming year.

I hope you will wear them for me on our next date.

All my love,
Peter.

P.S. My mum tells me that the latest style is to wear them folded down with a little bit of fur showing.

Lost in Translation

A brief report of the following incident has already appeared in this newspaper, but reader Mitchell Smyth passes along a useful elaboration from Britain's Sky News and The Daily Telegraph. It concerns a communications snafu in Swansea, the southwest Welsh birthplace of Dylan Thomas and Catherine Zeta-Jones. A large road sign was erected near a supermarket at the intersection of Clase Road and Pant-y-Blawd Road. It read:

"No entry for heavy goods vehicles. Residential site only."

Below was the official Welsh translation:

"Nid wyf yn y swyddfa ar hny o bryd. Anfonwch unrhyw waith i'w gyfieithu."

At least, the Swansea Council assumed that was the translation. What the Welsh part actually said was:

"I am out of the office at the moment. Please send any work to be translated."

The council had sent the English message to its in-house translation service, but the translator was away from the office. The computer sent back an automated e-mail response in Welsh, which the council wrongly took to be the translation it had requested. The sign was posted before a Welsh-speaker noticed the mistake and contacted the Welsh-language magazine Golwg, which quickly published a photograph of the sign as an example of good intentions gone bad. The council said sorry, which in Welsh must look something like sry.

Coitus Corruptus

Judge to prostitute : "So when did you realize you were raped?"

Prostitute, wiping away tears: "When the cheque bounced."

Irish Alzheimers

Murphy showed up at Mass one Sunday and the priest almost fainted when he saw him. Murphy had never been seen in Church in his life.

After Mass, the priest caught up with Murphy and said, "Murphy, I am so glad ya decided to come to Mass, what made ya come?"

Murphy said, "I got to be honest with ya Father, a while back, I misplaced me hat and I really, really love that hat. I know that McGlynn had a hat just like me hat, and I knew that McGlynn comes to Church every Sunday. I also knew that McGlynn had to take off his hat during Mass and figured he would leave it in the back of Church. So, I was going to leave after Communion and steal McGlynn's hat."

The priest said, "Well, Murphy, I notice that ya didn't steal McGlynn's hat. What changed your mind?"

Murphy said, "Well, after I heard your sermon on the Ten Commandments, I decided that I didn't need to steal McGlynn's hat after all."

The priest gave Murphy a big smile and said, "After I talked about "Thou Shalt Not Steal" ya decided you would rather do without the hat than burn in Hell, right?"

Murphy slowly shook his head and said, "No, Father, after ya talked about "Thou Shalt Not Commit Adultery", I remembered where I left me hat."

Beggars Belief

Ahmed and Hamid are both beggars at several motorway services in England. Ahmed drives a Mercedes, lives in a mortgage-free house and has a lot of money to spend. Hamid only brings in two or three pounds a day. Hamid asks Ahmed how he manages to bring home a suitcase full of £10 notes every day.

Ahmed says, "Look at your sign. It says, 'I have no work, a wife and six kids to support.' Britons who read that do not feel as if they have accomplished anything by giving you money; you will still have no job and a large family. Now look at my sign."

So Hamid looks at Ahmed's sign which reads: "I only need another £10 to move back to Pakistan."

Madge the British Madonna

When Madonna first moved to the UK after marrying Guy Ritchie, she said she wanted to feel more English.

Having divorced Guy, she is now an unmarried mum with three kids from two different fathers.

Mission accomplished.

The Sideshow: Kitty Flanagan

Scotsman's Stool

Pungent Puns

1. Two TV antennae met on a roof, fell in love and got married.
   The ceremony wasn't much but the reception was excellent.
2. A jumper cable walks into a bar.
   The bartender says, "I'll serve you, but don't start anything."
3. Two peanuts walk into a bar, and one was a salted.
4. A dyslexic man walked into a bra.
5. A man walks into a bar with a slab of asphalt under his arm, and says: "A beer please, and one for the road."
6. Two cannibals are eating a clown.
   One says to the other: "Does this taste funny to you?"
7. Patient: "Doc, I can't stop singing 'The Green, Green Grass of Home.'"
   Doctor: "That sounds like Tom Jones Syndrome."
   Patient: "Is it common?"
   Doctor: "Well, It's Not Unusual."
8. Two cows are standing next to each other in a field.
   Daisy says to Dolly, "I was artificially inseminated this morning."
   "I don't believe you," says Dolly.
   "It's true - no bull!" exclaims Daisy.
9. An invisible man marries an invisible woman.
   The kids were nothing to look at either.
10. Deja Moo: the feeling that you've heard this bull before.
11. I went to buy some camouflage trousers the other day but I couldn't find any.
12. A man woke up in a hospital after a serious accident.
    He shouted, "Doctor, doctor, I can't feel my legs!"
    The doctor replied, "I know, I amputated your arms!"
13. I went to a seafood bar last week... and pulled a mussel.
14. What do you call a fish with no eyes? A fsh.
15. Two fish swim into a concrete wall.
    One turns to the other and says, "Dam!"
16. Two Eskimos sitting in a kayak were chilly, so they lit a fire in their craft. Unsurprisingly it sank, proving that you can't have your kayak and heat it too.
17. A group of chess enthusiasts checked into a hotel, and were standing in the lobby discussing their recent tournament victories.
    After about an hour, the hotel manager came out of her office, and asked them to disperse.
    "But why?" they asked, as they moved off.
    "Because," she said. "I can't stand chess-nuts boasting in an open foyer."
18. A woman gives birth to identical twins, and gives them up for adoption. One of them goes to a family in Egypt, and is named Ahmal. The other goes to a family in Spain; they name him Juan. Years later, Juan sends a picture of himself to his birth mother. Upon receiving the picture, she tells her husband that she wishes she also had a picture of Ahmal.
    Her husband responds, "They're identical twins! If you've seen Juan, you've seen Ahmal."
19. Mahatma Gandhi, as you know, walked barefoot most of the time, which produced an impressive collection of calluses on his feet. He also ate very little, which made him rather frail and with his odd diet, he suffered from bad breath.
    This made him a super-calloused fragile mystic hexed by halitosis.
20. A dwarf, who was a mystic, escaped from jail.
    The call went out that there was a small medium at large.
21. And finally, there was the person who sent twenty different puns to his friends, with the hope that at least ten of the puns would make them laugh.
    No pun in ten did.