Stewart Lee’s 41st Best Stand Up – Tom O’Connor

In the amazing book Stewart Lee How I Escaped My Certain Fate The Life and Deaths of a Stand-Up Comedian. Stewart Lee transcribes (and dissects)  a routine of his, which features (among other things) his mother recounting a Tom O’Connor joke. This shows that sometimes you don’t need jokes to be funny, just repetition, persistence and absurdity. Nice. The mention of quilts is because Stewart’s mum makes The Quillow, a quilt that turns into a pillow.

If you get the chance to borrow SLHIEMCFTLADOAS-UC from someone, do because his observations on the shows he transcribes and then lazily calls a book are brilliant. In fact, if you in the slightest bit interested in stand up, this is the best book on the subject that has ever been written. If you’re interested.

It seems perverse not to share the entire set of the Stewart Lee show 41st Best Stand Up here… so I have. Watching all of these, in sequence, which I have already messed up a bit, will enrich your life.

Crap Gags

You know those jokes that are so bad they’re good? Well me and some pals have been coming up with some so bad they’re bad gags… I mean it, these gags are terrible, some don’t even make any sense, not logically and not even in the topsy turvy world of humour. These aren’t funny, not at all…. we love them.

Why is a truck, that carries dustbins, just in the hot months of the year, like a terrorist?

Because it’s all summer bin laden (osama bin laden)

Why is a stick, from tasmania with a fan on the end brilliant?

Because it’s a fan taz stick (fantastic)

Why is the man who works in a bank forgetful?

Because if you ask him what his job is he says he’s a bank-er!

Which country has the most current affairs coverage?

Newsy land (New Zealand)

If you’re anxious about your pens what do you use to sort them in order of big and smaller?

A pen sieve

What do you call a lot of zips in a row?

A zipline

Who invented maths?

The ancient geeks

Which continent has lots of ants and fleas on a boat?

Ant-ark-tick-a (Antartica)

What office equipment is quite aggressive?

A hole punch

What stationary demands money?

Paper

Why was the heater scared of rady?

Because Rady-ate-her (radiator)

What food do wizards like to eat when they are at the beach?

Sand-witches (sandwiches)

What do you call a drawing of a bad characteristic?

A portrait (A poor trait)

What do you call a carving of a much-arrested musician’s rude bits in smoked wood?

A hickory Docherty dick

Which club did the racist pigeon and the racist chicken set up?

The Coo Clucks Klan (The Ku Klux Klan)

Why did the hippy fall over and burn his hands and knees?

He was tripping on acid