Humour Matters (A Free eBook).pdf

HUMOUR
MATTERS
FREE
EBOOK
OH TEIK THEAM

HUMOUR
MATTERS
Copyright © 2023 Oh Teik Theam
Published by Oh Teik Theam
This book is published solely for free
distribution/circulation. It should not
be used in any way for commercial gain.

Laughter is the sensation of feeling good all over, and showing it principally
in one spot.
- Josh Billings

CONTENTS
1. Memoir of Four Watches
2. Confessions of a Punster
3. How a Punster Tells Bedtime Stories
4. Being a Picture Novel Actor Is Cool
5. Fun and Games with My Typewriter
6. All You Need Is Words
7. Much Achoo About Nothing
8. Some Bad Habits Are Just Disgusting
9. Wordplay for $1 Million
10. Photos Don’t Tell the Whole Truth
11. What’s Noise to One Man Is Music to Another
12. Annoying Neighbours
13. Being Polite Will Make Someone’s Day
14. Memorable Moments of School Life
15. The Amazing World of Kung Fu Movies
16. Write Direction for Slogans
17. Fun to Make New Year Resolutions
18. Money Talks—It Says Goodbye
19. On the Trail of Scents and Smells
20. The Beautiful Game
21. Dog Stories
22. Heteronymous Aesop
23. Talking to God
24. Puns with a Malaysian Flavour
25. Punny Limericks
26. Retirement Party for Two
27. Go Ahead, Make the Interviewer’s Day
28. Fault We Put Off Correcting
29. Dear Smart Alec
30. Punned (and Rhymed) Haiku
31. The Triumph of Mind Over Platter
32. How to Avoid Burglary Blues While on Vacation
33. How to Beat Stress
34. Four-Eyes
35. This Year, I Resolve…
36. The Food I Love Best
37. Waiting for Sur-prizes
38. Breakdown
39. Fun with Hyperboles
40. Humorous Quotations

1. Memoir of Four Watches
Time flies. Perhaps this is because so many people are trying to kill it. I have a friend
whose idea of killing time is repairing watches for his friends: He likes to retire to his
man cave occasionally to tackle the arduous task.
I had my first watch during my roguish childhood. It was only a toy watch, but at least
it gave the correct time twice every day.
There was once a time when I did not remove the watch from my wrist for a week. It
was a Linus blanket to me: I felt secure wearing it. It was more of a wristlet than a watch.
But, alas, I had to say goodbye to it one day: The strap broke for no apparent reason.
With rivulets of tears streaming down my cheeks in parallel lines (I had no wrinkles
then), I threw my faithful companion out of the window. It was the first time I saw time
fly.
I was fifteen years old when I got my second watch. It was an inexpensive one because
my father was not earning much. I had pleaded with him to buy me a watch because I got
fed up: Every time I asked someone for the time, I got a different answer.
I had hoped that my father would get a windfall so that he could buy me a watch like
the one James Coburn had in the movie Our Man Flint. That Coburn watch was an alarm
watch: It could eject an anchor-shaped device that served to prod our hero from his sleep
at a set time.
But my father did not get any windfall, and I had to settle for a second inexpensive
watch. I named this second watch River—because it wouldn’t run long without winding.
River was not a very accurate watch. There were times when it did an hour in forty-
five minutes. Maybe because of its inaccuracy, I did not regard it as a priceless treasure.
There was once when I misplaced it in the house and I had to search high and low for it.
It was indeed time-consuming.
River lasted me three years and five months. There were several times when I thought
its hours were numbered. Once, when it refused to tick, I took it promptly to the regular
repairman, prepared to listen to the news that it was beyond repair. But my repairman
friend did not give up and finally managed to make it tock.
I finally got rid of it when it showed its true waterproof nature: The water that leaked
in was not able to leak out.
My mother gave me River 2 when I did remarkably well in my school exams. It was a
beautiful watch with a shining black leather strap. But it did not tell the correct time: I
had to look at it.
Three months after I had River 2, my school principal put me in charge of the school’s
electric bell. It was just outside my classroom. I had to ring it for the whole school to hear
at fixed times.
This ringing job kept me on my toes, but there were occasions when I couldn’t
concentrate on the lessons.
Whenever I rang the bell a few minutes too early or too late, I received protests from
some of the students during recess time. The biggest protest was: Why didn’t I ring the
dismissal bell earlier when it was clear from the not-so-clear sky that a storm was
imminent?
River 2 remained with me for about five years. But I did not get rid of it. I was forced
to part with it by a lone whey-faced robber armed with a sharp object who accosted me

on a dimly lit street on an unlucky night. He scared the daylights out of me and relieved
me of my money and River 2.
I knew he was a drug addict desperate to get the stuff to get him on another trip. You
can usually tell a drug addict when you see one. In this particular case, one of his eyes
had a hungry look that yearned for the drug, while the other eye was looking here and
there for any police patrol.
For some time after the untoward incident, I dreaded hearing the song “The River of
No Return” on the radio. I decided to get another watch. I felt naked without wearing
one. Since I was already working then, I bought a better model than River 2.
River 3 (my last manual-winding watch) was both beautiful and reliable.
Let me now regale you with an amusing dream. I was walking with a friend one day
when we met a beggar and his child. To the beggar I gave fifteen cents, and to the child I
gave ten cents. At that instant, my friend asked me what time it was. I looked at River 3,
and then pointed at the beggar and his child, who were walking away from us. My friend
was puzzled, so I said, “A quarter to two.”
Well, that’s the spicy story of four wonderful watches. Time for my cuppa now.
2. Confessions of a Punster
The most memorable thing to me about the 1987 movie RoboCop was its slogan: “Part
man. Part machine. All cop.”
No, check that. The most memorable thing from the movie was that the bad guy was
killed by a pun.
At the end of the film, the bad guy, Dick Jones, grabs his boss as a hostage. When the
latter says, “You’re fired!” Robo doesn’t miss with his lethal weapon, and the villainous
Jones is hurled from the glass building like a human torpedo.
I have been an irrepressible punster since my school days, even though a pun made me
look foolish once.
When I was in Form Three, I took a subject called Religious Knowledge. One
morning, the teacher was presenting the story of Lot. She related how God told Lot to
take his wife and flee from the city. Unfortunately, she looked back and was turned into a
pillar of salt. The teacher paused, and I asked, “What happened to the flea?”
A mirthquake rocked the classroom. The teacher smiled and said, “Get out of here. I
want to see you know more.”
When I was in Form Six, I was fortunate to have a General Paper teacher who had a
penchant for punning. He reinforced my belief that the pun is the best friend of the
ambiguity-minded humorist.
If it were the lowest form of wit, why was Shakespeare such a great punster? The truth
is that puns received their tarnished reputation from bad punsters and bad puns.
During a particular lesson, when he was giving a talk on dating, my General Paper
teacher related an anecdote of a lovesick boy whose telephone conversations with his
girlfriend usually lasted a few hours and ended with a three-minute kiss on the phone.
My teacher reminded the class that a ring on the finger is worth two on the phone, and
a kiss on the phone is like a straw hat—it isn’t felt.

When a classmate of mine wanted to know how long girls should be courted, the
teacher said, “The same as short ones.”
Of all the different kinds of puns, I like the “invisible” puns and the “sound alike” puns
the best.
Take the word “case”. There’s no way of telling by looking at it whether it means a
beer, packing, disease, legal or some other kind of case. A word that has more than one
meaning is ammunition for the punster to create “invisible” puns.
“Sound alike” puns don’t look alike. They are not spelled alike. But they sound
exactly, or so closely, alike that to the ear they are easily mistaken for the same word.
There is nothing like the warm satisfaction of making other people laugh—except,
perhaps, the satisfaction of delivering a devastating insult to an unsuspecting enemy to
the point of his wishing for instant death.
For example, I was once bored to that—instant death, that is—by an adversary’s
rendition of a song, and told him plainly that when it came to singing, he did nothing
better. His ego was singed, and this incident marked the beginning of the dearth of his
singing.
I like to treat a pun as language on holiday. And my obsession with puns—and the
realization that for every pun there must be countless ways of presentation—finally
resulted in my writing my own book of puns. It was called O-Pun Sesame! A Treasury of
Puns.
The blurb of the book boasts that I have “put (my) mind to language and pulled out
punnets of juicy wit which are berry good indeed”.
One of my favourite pieces from the book goes as follows: (1) If you have the money,
why not go into the plywood business? It’s a sure veneer. (2) My friend Sue’s plywood
factory, for instance, is doing well. She inherited it from her father, who wanted to give
her a good Sue veneer.
Occasionally, puns become part of the language. For example, the “funny bone” is a
play on “humerus”, the bone that extends from shoulder to elbow.
Punning is only a small part of language, which goes to show that language is a
magnificent weapon. Though it is not steel, it sometimes cuts deeper than the metal.
I must endeavour to sharpen my tongue so that it becomes a sword that cuts and snips.
Zip, zip, hooray!
3. How a Punster Tells Bedtime Stories
If an irrepressible pun-lover were to tell bedtime stories to their children:
The Hare and the Tortoise
Thomas the Tortoise, in a moment of anger, challenged Harry the Hare to a race when the
latter boasted, “My natural fleetness is the envy of the other animals. Look at you, a
miserable and dawdling creature with your short little legs and your stubby little head.
The only way to make you fast is to take your food away!”
Freddy the Fox was chosen to be the umpire after Dennis the Dog cried off at the last
minute because he had to go somewhere “to look for the familiar old faeces,” as he put it.

At the halfway point, Harry the Hare became overconfident because he had
outdistanced his rival. And he decided to take a nap. Big mistake, for when he eventually
reached the finish line, the scene that met his eyes was one of shellebration—Thomas the
Tortoise’s supporters were tossing him in the air.
As the leporine loser slunk away in shame, the other animals chorused, “Hare today,
gone tomorrow!”
Thomas the Tortoise gave his supporters a treat. And what did they have? Fast food, of
course.
The Ants and the Grasshopper
One hot summer’s day, a Grasshopper sat under a tree and watched some Ants carrying
food to their home in preparation for the upcoming season when all work would be
“winterrupted”.
A few weeks later, the Grasshopper suddenly realized that winter was approaching.
There was not even a blade of grass, as the ground was barren.
The thought of committing insecticide occurred to the Grasshopper, but he eventually
decided to ask the Ants for food.
The Ants held a council to debate the Grasshopper’s request. It was decided by a vote
of 636 to 289 (with 57 abstentions) that the Grasshopper would be invited to share the
Ants’ food, but he had to help in the household chores.
Also, he had to promise that he would not be caught with his pans down when the next
winter came howling.
The good news was conveyed to the sluggard thus: “Well, don’t stand outside and be
miserable. Come inside and be fed up!”
The Grasshopper devoured his food. “Thanks a lot from the bottom of my thorax,” he
said. “From now on, I’m gonna be a paradigm of industry like all of you!”
The Grasshopper wasn’t such a bad insect after all. After dinner, he entertained his
benefactors with jokes from his personal repertoire. And remembering what he ate a few
minutes ago, he said, “Rotten lettuce makes a bad salad. A depressing song is a sad
ballad.”
Some of the Ants were not amused at this distasteful joke, and thought, A bad joke is
like a bad egg, all the worse for being cracked. But they perked up noticeably when the
Grasshopper started to sing: “Ant I love you so…”
4. Being a Picture Novel Actor Is Cool
I think being a picture novel actor is cool.
The best part is that you don’t have to memorize any lines. This is a blessing with
delightful ramifications.
You don’t have to worry about forgetting or bungling your lines. The director is never
going to tell you something like “You have the memory of a sieve. It’s open sesame! –
not open barley!”

And you can’t lose your voice or become hoarse. If a scene requires you to shout like a
drill sergeant—I am thinking of Al Pacino in Dog Day Afternoon—you just have to open
your mouth widely—and click! “That’s it, we’re done.”
Also, you don’t have to suffer the ignominy of your voice not being used. You’ll never
hear words like “Listen, we’re not saying you don’t have a good voice, but it is not
suitable for your character. We’ll have to use the voice of someone like Morgan
Freeman.” (Translation: “Let’s cut to the chase. You have a voice that belongs in silent
movies.”)
Here’s another thing. Let’s say that your speech bubble for a particular shot on paper
reads: “Steve’s parents gave him a smartphone for scoring straight A’s in the exam.” But
when the shot is taken, you could be saying to your co-star: “Would you like to join me
for some pizza afterwards?”
Finally, you can safely boast about your job.
“I am a picture novel actor.”
“Really? Wow, that’s cool. Very cool.”
But if you are a movie actor, you risk being insulted (even though you try to be
friendly by cracking a joke).
“Have I seen your face somewhere before?”
“No, I don’t think so. My face has always been between my ears. Ha, ha. You might
have seen me at the movies.”
“It’s possible. Where do you usually sit?”
I wonder if there’s an opening for a picture novel actor. I am keeping my fingers
crossed.
5. Fun and Games with My Typewriter
I am looking at the keyboard of my ancient typewriter (which I no longer use).
It is awesome to realize that a book is composed from just twenty-six letters.
I remember one of my first encounters with a typewriter. I had left school and was
being interviewed for the post of bank clerk.
The manager asked me how many words I could type in a minute. He did not say
whether he meant big words or small ones, so I said, “I’m not sure, but you could give
me a test,”—even though I knew it would take me half a day to type a neat grocery list no
longer than the spacebar of a typewriter.
I was asked to type a page from the book Questions in Banking Practice, a veritable
baptism of fire for a typing-impaired person. I couldn’t finish the task on time, and my
effort had enough mistakes to test the patience of a proofreader.
Two weeks later, the bank informed me that I did not get the job. If the reason for my
dismal failure was my atrocious typing, the irony was that the bank’s letter contained a
typographical error.
On the bright side, my knowledge of banking had widened by half a page. Later, I
launched “Operation Typewrite Two” (whose acronym matches my initials). I typed out
newspaper columns by writers like Russell Baker and Emma Bombeck so that I learned
to type and write at the same time.

I cleaned my typewriter every three months, paying extra attention to troublesome
letters like “A”, “O” and “M”—otherwise my typescript was likely to languish in some
editor’s slush pile. I usually tested the machine by typing “The quick brown fox jumps
over the lazy dog” or “Jackdaws love my big sphinx of quartz”. The latter sentence,
according to my old copy of The Guinness Book of World Records, is the shortest
coherent sentence to contain all twenty-six letters.
When I typed the final draft of a story, I would go very slow, but not so slow as to take
ten seconds to type a word like “snail”. I hated to have to use correction fluid on a
typescript. I liked to read a neat typewritten script, and imagined that an editor did too.
Besides leaving a one-inch margin on the left-hand side of the paper, I would also
leave a wide margin on the right to give the finished product a neat appearance.
Another reason was that I was afraid of hearing the bell: I might be tempted to take a
coffee break every time I heard it. To obviate retyping pages of my work because I left
too little margin on the bottom, I would place a narrow strip of self-adhesive paper on the
bottom left corner of the paper before I loaded it into the typewriter.
For enhanced visibility, I would sometimes draw a red line on the top edge of the paper
strip. The time saved from retyping could be used for other chores like putting the
finishing touch to another story. (A match, perhaps.)
Sometimes, I would take a break from serious typing and have fun with my typewriter.
There is this game called “Typewriter Words”: You try to form words using only the
letters from a particular row. For instance, from the row with QWERTY, we get words
like pretty, quiet and poetry. Forget about the row with Z—not a single vowel!
(“Typewriter” is the longest word that can be made using the letters on only one row of
the keyboard.)
Then there is “Half the Alphabet”—you try to find words that use letters from either
the first half of the alphabet or the second half. Thus words like “ballad”, “climbed” and
“deface” are from the first thirteen letters (“A” to “M”).
I had great fun with my portable typewriter. And every time I received a letter that
contained two of the most beautiful words in the English language—“Cheque
enclosed”—I thanked the sender from the bottom of my typewriter.
6. All You Need Is Words
As a Beatles fan, I find it fascinating that many songs by the Fab Four come to mind
when you take your pen on a magical mystery tour and all you need is words.
Here are some examples.
1. “Across the Universe” – “Where do you get your ideas?” is the question that is most
frequently asked of a writer.
Writers don’t get ideas; they recognize ideas. And there are thousands of ideas under
the sun. Or, if you prefer, across the universe.
2. “Here, There and Everywhere” – In fact, ideas are here, there and everywhere.
3. “Something” – Surely there must be something to write about!
4. “Come Together” – A big problem, however, is writer’s block, when the words just
don’t come together.

5. “Eight Days a Week” – Sometimes, much to your chagrin, the block lasts up to eight
days a week.
6. “Ticket to Ride” – Well, it is best to take a break from writing. A ticket to ride, what
say you?
7. “It Won’t Be Long” – The short hiatus from writing may reinvigorate you, and it
won’t be long before the creative juices start to flow again.
8. “Hello, Goodbye” – Even then, what you write may not be accepted by your editor.
There are some scripts that are “gone today, here tomorrow”. To put it another way:
Hello, Goodbye.
9. “The Long and Winding Road” – But you don’t give up: You are prepared to travel
the long and winding road to riches and fame.
10. “Paperback Writer” – You know in your heart of hearts that one day publishers will
beat a path to your door. A very successful paperback writer.
Yeah, Yeah, Yeah!
7. Much Achoo About Nothing
Let’s face it, while we may be able to land men on the moon and watch the workings of
individual brain cells, there is still no cure for the cold. The best we can do is to minimize
our discomfort and shorten its duration.
A person with a cold should be quarantined—no, not to keep them from giving it to
other people, but to protect them from the advice of other people on how to cure it.
A bad cold wouldn’t be so annoying if it weren’t for the advice of our friends and
family members. Whenever I have a cold, some people always behave as if they are
recent graduates of some medical school, although I don’t see any tongue depressors
hanging from their pockets.
Here is a sampling of the unsolicited advice which I have received from them:
“I have some leftover cold tablets in my drawer. Take them and there won’t be enough
germs left in you to hold a wild party.”
“You should take some chicken soup to fortify you, although I can’t think of anything
that will twentify you.”
“Don’t forget to sleep with all the windows open. I hope you won’t be as unlucky as
my boss. She slept with the windows open, and lost not only her cold but her watch and
cellphone as well.”
“Home remedies are useful. Take a tablespoon of castor oil and orange juice. I know
you don’t like orange juice, but don’t worry, the mixture won’t taste like orange juice.”
The cold is one of the things that get recycled in my house. Take the other day, for
instance. I probably got the cold from my brother, who in turn must have got it from my
mother.
Even with a muddled head, I could figure out the chain of events that culminated in my
indisposition:
1. My fingers picked up my brother’s cold virus from the doorknob of his room.
2. I touched my nose and eyes a few times every hour.
3. My brother had a cold.
4. Brother, I caught the cold too.

(My sister said, “It’s probably Chinese flu, because both of you keep saying, “Ah
Choo.”)
It’s amazing that you can catch a cold from someone who does not yet know they have
one. This means you can get a cold from your doctor when you see them for some other
ailment. And when you see them again for the cold, they will probably say: “I’m afraid
you’re beyond medical help—you have a cold.”
8. Some Bad Habits Are Just Disgusting
Habit, according to Horace Mann, is a cable; we weave a thread of it every day, and at
last we cannot break it.
One bad habit I see so often is that of people slurping on their food, making sounds
that can be heard in the next postal code. These people usually have gargantuan appetites,
and can make their food disappear in a nanosecond.
The other day, I was at a restaurant having my meal. Sitting at the next table was a
bulky young man with the appetite of a football team. He had so much food in front of
him that it would make a mass wedding feast look like a handout to a beggar.
He must have been as hungry as the grasshopper that sang all summer, for his mouth
moved as rapidly as the treadle on a sewing machine. I wouldn’t take a wager to finish
that mountain of food in a month of Sundays.
Another habit I find disgusting is drinking to excess. I once attended a dinner function
where this guy made a fool of himself. It took only one drink to make him drunk, but
everyone wasn’t sure whether it was the eleventh or the twelfth.
He staggered from table to table telling incoherent stories before liquor mortis set in,
giving the impression that he was working his way down from bottoms up. He’s the kind
of guy who, if you asked him how the party last night was, would say, “It was great—
while I lasted.”
Then there are those who don’t care a hoot about the no-smoking sign. Occasionally, a
person asks me, “Do you mind a few fumes?” I usually say, “Will you fume if I
mind?”—although I think, I don’t care if your lungs look like the inside of a vacuum
cleaner bag, or if you are five hundred cigarettes shy of a cardiac arrest.
My advice to smokers is: Give up smoking as it decreases your “lungevity”. You’ll
feel like a different person. Irritable, moody and depressed—but your lungs will be fine.
People who talk a lot are usually a source of “earitation”. As I see it, it is best to
interrupt such people in mid-sentence or roll your eyes to the heavens. It is worse when
these people are unable to keep secrets—taking them into your confidence is just like
telling your secrets to a parrot.
I made a huge mistake in confiding something to a friend several years ago. Oh, it was
no big deal—just a morsel of information about a mutual friend that could have ruined
his career.
“Please don’t worry,” said this friend I confided in. “As far as this secret is concerned,
I’ll be as chatty as Teller on Penn & Teller: Fool Us.”
In less than three hours, at least ten people approached me to talk about the secret.
Apparently, with Mr. Blow the Gaff, a secret is either not worth keeping or “too good to
keep”.

As Denis Waitley said, “Habits are like comfortable beds. They are easy to get into but
difficult to get out of.” But there’s one good thing that can be said for bad habits. If it
weren’t for them, we wouldn’t make New Year resolutions.
I am always not surprised when my list of resolutions every year turns out to be as long
as Pinocchio’s nose.
9. Wordplay for $1 Million
I recently had a vision. In the vision, I won one million dollars on a game show.
Strangely, all the questions related to wordplay. Here are some of them:
1. The phrase “old West action” is an anagram of which actor’s name?
A. Richard Widmark
B. Clint Eastwood
C. John Wayne
D. Natalie Wood
2. Which of the following is not a palindrome?
A. Madam, I’m Adam.
B. Was it a car or a cat I saw?
C. I am who I am.
D. A man, a plan, a canal – Panama
3. Fill in the blank with a pun: When the police raided the illegal casino, one of the
gamblers, a carpenter, started to make a ____for the door.
A. dash
B. lock
C. bolt
D. beeline
4. “The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog” and “Perhaps President Clinton’s
amazing sax skills will be judged quite favourably” are two examples of a ____, a
sentence which contains all twenty-six letters of the alphabet.
A. pangram
B. lipogram
C. antigram
D. ambigram
5. According to Fred Allen, “Hanging is too good for a man who makes puns; he
should be drawn and _____.”
A. coloured
B. haggard
C. quartered
D. quoted
Answers: 1. B; 2. C; 3. C; 4. A; 5. D
10. Photos Don’t Tell the Whole Truth

Hey, whoever said the camera doesn’t lie? The truth is that it does lie very often.
You want a picture taken of you at your desk for the company’s newsletter, right?
Don’t shoot yet, you say. Give me a few seconds to stack the files nicely and put all the
pencils in the holder. One more thing—let me straighten my tie. Don’t want people to
think I am a slob, see.
Or you want to take a picture of your tiny tot in his room to send to his grandparents.
Naturally you will rearrange the moat of fairy-tale books around the bed. You will also
want to take care of the puddle of juice the size of a garden pond on the carpet. You want
the room to be clinically clean and neat so that people who look at the photo will say,
“Boy, this room belongs in a magazine.”
Here’s a put-down for when someone you dislike asks you to take a picture of them:
“Look pleasant, please. You’re on candied camera! As soon the picture is taken, you can
resume your natural expression!”
And let us not forget our mental photographs. They are sometimes of the wrong kind.
Let’s say we know this man who is a former drug addict. When he was indulging in his
bad habit, we formed a negative snapshot of him in our minds.
Now he is rehabilitated and enjoying a healthy lifestyle. We should not still see the
“old photo” when we look at him.
We should forget his mistake and notice the positive change. In other words, we need
to discard the old photo and take a new one to put in our mental album.
11. What’s Noise to One Man Is Music to Another
Noise pollution is a relative thing. In a city, it’s a plane taking off. In a monastery, it’s a
fountain pen that scratches.
I have quite a few noisy neighbours. There is this teenager who likes to rev up his
motorbike engine in a manner that makes the noise of machinegun fire sound like a
popgun. Even a fool will know that this lad must be as deaf as a sack of potatoes.
There should be music in every home—except the one next door.
This next-door neighbour of mine doesn’t have to be an experienced musician to play
on my frayed nerves almost every day. Here I am trying to write a short story and he is
playing his Coldplay album at a volume loud enough to drown out an earthquake.
The ideal neighbour makes noise at the same time we do. I usually lament that I cannot
close my ears with as much ease as I can my eyes. At times, I say to myself, “I think I’ll
go to a boiler factory so I can have a little rest and quiet.”
I can appreciate that noise is sometimes unavoidable. For instance, I can put up with
the noise generated by a lawnmower, otherwise the grass will never be cut. Same thing
with a vacuum cleaner. It is gratuitous, or unnecessary, noise that irritates me.
Tolerance is sometimes called for. It’s all right if the guy next door and his friends are
having a party to celebrate his birthday and are as noisy as living skeletons having a fit on
a parquet floor. It’s not every day that a person gets to celebrate a birthday.
(Franklin P. Jones said, “Nothing makes you more tolerant of a neighbour’s noisy
party than being there.”)
If you want to complain to a neighbour about noise emanating from their place, be
certain that you have the right person. Let’s say you ring up a neighbour at 3:00 a.m. and

say, “This is Joe. Enjoy the EPL match if you must, but please keep the volume down,”
and then hang up before he could say anything. If you have the wrong person, this person
would probably call you at 3:00 a.m. the next morning and say, “I didn’t watch the match
yesterday morning,” garnishing his revenge with a maniacal laugh.
Here’s a different perspective on noise. I once read about a woman who complained
that her husband snored like a chainsaw every night. He fell seriously ill one day and
almost died. From his recovery onwards, she viewed his snoring as something that wasn’t
unpleasant. It was reassuring to her that he was alive and well beside her every night.
Each person has a different tolerance level of the babel of discordant noises around
them. Some people find an intermittent noise more irritating than a continuous one. As
William Dean Howells put it, “He who sleeps in continual noise is wakened by silence.”
And what is the use of silence in the neighbourhood if one’s emotions are in turmoil?
12. Annoying Neighbours
A good neighbour doubles the value of a house, according to a German proverb.
Unfortunately, I have a few annoying neighbours who have idiosyncrasies I have to put
up with (not that I don’t have a few idiosyncrasies of my own).
Neighbour A likes to honk his horn incessantly at the gate whenever he arrives home,
whether it is 6:00 p.m. or 11.30 p.m. He gives you the impression that he’s a person who
could find fault with the colours of the balloons at a party. He expects the two events—
his honking of his horn and the maid unlocking the door and the gate—to be as close
together as the two o’s in the word “fool”.
It would be faster if he alights from the car and opens the gate himself. He would then
be regarded as a magnanimous employer, not someone who is bent on flexing his
muscles unnecessarily, oblivious to the fact that there are babies getting some shut-eye,
sick and elderly people resting, and students studying in the neighbourhood.
Neighbour B likes to burn rubbish in the open. His favourite day for this pollution
ritual is Sunday, when you can see the spewing of thick smoke the size of the leaning
clock tower of Teluk Intan.
The smell from the burning permeates the air until late evening, making the place
unsuitable for you to hang around in. It’s safer to have your picnic in a charcoal factory,
is what I’m saying.
Then there is this neighbour I’ll call Sam—because this is his real name—who has a
bad habit of overstaying whenever he makes a visit to my house.
It’s not that I am a host whose welcome is cold enough to turn water into ice. It’s all
right if someone comes along at 6:00 p.m. and leaves at 10:00 p.m. But if they hang
around until an hour when it seems like a sizeable chunk of eternity has elapsed, then I
can only say that the visit has marred my rest.
Understand, Sam is not a person who bursts into a room like a refreshing breeze.
Listening to him for most of the time is like being fed with an empty mental spoon. It
takes him longer to relate a personal story than it would take me to explain the country’s
annual budget.

I am wary when he starts to gossip to me about other people in his “Give me a minute,
I’ll give you ten hours” style. For, when a person gossips to me about other people,
chances are that he’ll gossip about me one day.
With Sam as your prospective guest, you’ll be as excited as a fox in the hunting
season. You will certainly not stretch out your arms to allow him, as if drawn by a
magnet, to run into them.
Finally, here’s an interesting quotation by Mignon McLaughlin: “Few of us could bear
to have ourselves as neighbours.”
13. Being Polite Will Make Someone’s Day
Recently, I was again reminded that there has been a steady erosion of manners in our
society.
It was one of those exasperating situations when a young woman and I, coming from
opposite directions, jockeyed to the left and to the right one hundred times in an awkward
attempt to pass each other.
When the confusion was sorted out, I gave her an apologetic smile.
I expected her to return my gesture, but she didn’t.
Call me Mr. Sensitive, but she gave me a scowl which was at the top of the Scowl
Scale.
The only thing ever lost by politeness is a seat on a crowded bus. Sadly, some people
will only stand up for another passenger when the bus has reached their stop.
Jacques Maritain said, “Gratitude is the most exquisite form of courtesy.”
When you feel grateful for something that someone has done for you, why not tell
them about it?
If you receive, say, a dictionary as a gift, the proper response would be, “I like this gift
a lot, and I just can’t find the words to thank you.”
Have you ever noticed in heavy traffic the car on the side road trying to make its way
onto the main road?
Most drivers won’t yield a centimetre. It just proves that even the best running cars
have some jerks in them.
Tone of voice is very important. Even “You old bastard, where have you been all these
years?” can be a polite greeting if the right tone is used.
On the other hand, “Close the door, PLEASE!” can be a downright rude request if it is
made in a loud manner.
I was at a bank the other day when I decided to do a little survey.
I noted that only two persons out of the ten customers served by the teller while I was
there thanked her.
Some people think that tellers are paid employees who do not expect or deserve such
courtesies.
Behind every organization, there are ordinary humans with a job to do. To these
people, a small word of thanks can make their day.
Mark Twain said, “I can live for two months on a good compliment.”

14. Memorable Moments of School Life
Just like the hapless man who watched his cantankerous mother-in-law drive over a cliff
in his brand new car, I was tormented by ambivalent feelings on my last day in school.
While I was happy to find myself on the threshold of a new life, with countless
opportunities on the horizon (so I then thought), I was at the same time rather sad to part
company with friends and foes of so many years.
It does not require an elephant’s memory for a person to remember the highlights in
their school life. So, disregarding chronology, I will describe some memorable moments
in my thirteen years of school life.
I was in Form One when I first heard the term “free period”. This meant that there was
a cessation of knowledge acquisition and we were required to indulge in an ostensible
self-recapitulation. For instance, we were asked to go through what we were taught about
parallelograms, rhombuses and triangles the previous week. Some of us smarter ones
figured that the teacher was not in a proper frame of mind to teach.
I can remember those exciting football matches which we played when the term exams
were over. There was one match that was particularly exciting for me: It ended in a 1-1
draw—and I scored both the goals.
And there was the usual exam fever which made its presence felt, both in school and at
home. My nervous disposition on one occasion caused me to break a few dishes in our
dining room. It didn’t take a sledgehammer blow over the head for my mother to realize
that I wasn’t sufficiently prepared for the big test.
A classmate once confessed to me: “I like to look cool to impress the invigilators,
although my feelings belie my outward expression.” And one kind teacher told the class:
“Stay calm or you’d have fear written on your face and rubbish on your answer sheets.”
Whenever I did badly in a subject paper and my friends asked me the reason for my
poor performance, I always told them that I was an animal lover: I did not raise my hand
to request for more blank answer sheets because I couldn’t find it in my heart to give an
unnecessary fright to those poor geckos on the ceiling of the exam hall. This crazy
explanation never failed to put the matter at rest.
One of my favourite subjects was chemistry. I especially liked studying about gases
such as hydrogen and helium. These may be light gases, but I did not treat the study of
them lightly.
Where biology was concerned, my favourite topics were those that dealt with
organisms like the amoeba. I enjoyed drawing an amoeba: I would first darken a spot to
represent the nucleus and then make innumerable dots around it so that the whole thing
resembled some measly mass. The interesting thing about an amoeba is that it multiplies
by dividing.
I was a failure at physics. It had never been my forte. Come to think of it, I did not
even know where the strongest point of such and such a thing was.
My attitude towards most of the other subjects was perfunctory, but I did have a
special liking for English literature.
One of our literature texts for Form Five was Great Expectations. I enjoyed seeing the
movie version of this Dickens work more than reading the book, and was enormously
impressed by the performance of John Mills.

My father had great expectations where I was concerned, and took a great interest in
my academic progress. Without fail, he would ask for my report card every fortnight. He
was not impressed by my performance, and sometimes just couldn’t believe what he saw.
I didn’t have the heart to say to him: “I don’t get the highest marks in my class. Do you
get the highest salary at your office?”
Still, I was not such a bad student. There was one pint-sized boy—with the potential to
make Dennis the Menace look like a Cub Scout—who wanted to drop out of school: The
only thing he ever took up in school was space.
A story went around the school for some three weeks that the headmaster said to him:
“It’s very generous of you, but I don’t think your leaving would solve the population
crisis in the school.”
I didn’t believe the headmaster said that: There were many rumour-mongers in the
school.
One of the most memorable events was the revenge I inflicted on a teacher. When I
was in Standard Six, I fought with the teacher’s blue-eyed boy and made him cry. The
vindictive teacher made me write “I am a naughty boy” five hundred times.
After I had executed the Herculean task, she screwed the papers up into a furious ball
and—with a gleam of satisfaction in her eyes—tossed it into the waste-paper basket.
But—Ha! Ha! Ha!—I got even with her when I got home. In the quiet of my room, I
said “Teacher is a naughty woman” five hundred times.
This cathartic chore left me in a curious state of euphoria and thirst.
15. The Amazing World of Kung Fu Movies
I had practically no interest in kung fu movies until the legendary Bruce Lee kicked up
some dust at the box office with The Big Boss, which I saw fifteen times.
It could have been twenty-five times, maybe thirty-six, had the big boss in the family,
my father, not forbidden me to be seen in the vicinity of the cinema after discovering
three newly varnished wooden chairs with nine broken legs in my room. The big boss,
breathing heavily, also handed me a reprimand for having pasted a grotesque pencil
drawing of our cantankerous neighbour on the back of one of the chairs.
Bruce Lee gave extra punch to the meaning of the word “charisma” with his
commanding screen presence. In retrospect, it was a good thing he didn’t assault my
visual senses in 3-D, otherwise I might have dislocated my neck several times trying to
dodge the relentless onslaught of vicious blows and deadly kicks.
Bruce Lee was a consummate performer who gave us superb celluloid entertainment
with brilliantly choreographed fight sequences. A good example was his classic fight
with Chuck Norris at the Colosseum in The Way of the Dragon. I was captivated by the
scene: I sat on the edge of my seat, one hand gripping the armrest while the other held a
doughnut tightly. I had to pause in mid-munch every time a powerful or kick was
delivered to allow the sadist in me to fully savour the spectacle. And just as I finished my
delicious doughnut, both rim and hole, the character played by Norris expired.
The funny thing about kung fu movies is that the theme almost always centres on
revenge. The following scenario must be delightfully familiar to a kung fu movie fan: (1)
the villain and his underlings wreak havoc without due cause and kill the hero’s kung fu

master; (2) cut to the hero retiring to some hideout to hone his fighting skills (usually
under the watchful eyes of a new teacher, whose pretty daughter provides the romantic
interest), undergoing punishing rituals to strengthen mind and body: jumping from one
vertical pole to another, filling a huge tank with water using a bowl that has more
perforations than a sieve, running a gauntlet of mechanical fists, and so on; (3) dissolve to
the hero making a comeback to pulverize the villain to pulp. End of story.
Such flaws as a sketchy plot and uninspiring dialogue do not faze the kung fu movie
fan. What is important is plenty of action expressed in a multitude of fighting techniques,
where every kick or swipe of the arm is amplified into an outrageous whoosh or whop on
the soundtrack. Never mind that some of the fight scenes engender feelings of deja fu.
Characters in kung fu movies are easily provoked. Before the hero and the villain fight
with each other, the latter usually asks this question (at the same time assuming a
formidable posture): “Are you tired of living?” And he soon ends up with regret at having
asked the question.
The hero is invariably portrayed as cool and steady. His attitude, after he has
dispatched his adversary, can be put in a nutshell as: “Let us not fight but enjoy life. Life
is wonderful—without it, you’re dead!”
Kung fu comedies are also popular, and it’s a safe bet that their producers are laughing
all the way to the bank in their dreams as well.
Kung fu movie producers never seem to run out of ideas—where the titles are
concerned. So we have movies called Kung Fu of Eight Drunkards, Snake in the Eagle’s
Shadow, and Drunk Monkey in the Tiger’s Eyes.
I sometimes wonder whether kung fu movies with simple titles will ever be popular
again. Maybe one day a kung fu movie might come our way with the simple title of The
Best of Chinese Kung Fu. This may be followed by a sequel, or a prequel, that goes by
the title of Chinese Kung Fu—Greatest Hits.
Despite what I have said above, I will remain a kung fu movie aficionado until the day
I kick the bucket.
With a flying kick, perhaps.
16. Write Direction for Slogans
The other day, a friend asked for my opinion about a contest that required a slogan “in
less than five words”.
Was it all right if he wrote five words?
“The maximum number of words you can write for each entry is four,” I said.
He looked as though his doctor had just given him some bad news. “But most of the
best slogans I’ve written contain five words, and it’s just not possible to reduce them to
three or four.”
“Don’t worry,” I said, and his face lit up. “I think what the company means is in five
words or less. Wrong wording, that’s all.”
Seeing that he was not convinced, I rummaged through my contest file (okay, I am also
a slogan-writing contest buff) and extracted an entry form for an old contest.
“Look,” I said, “this contest required slogans in less than ten words.”

“So?”
“Now look at the Malay version on the reverse side of the form: Tidak melebihi
sepuluh perkataan. See what I mean?”
“Yes, but this contest I’m talking about is in only one language, and the contest
requirements and rules are only in English.”
“I’ve never come across a contest where the maximum number of words is four,” I
said. “It’s usually five, ten, fifteen or twenty—multiples of five. Five sounds so right.
Hey, if you want to have a short rest after drafting all your slogans, do you take four or
take five?”
I thought I saw him wince at my lopsided argument, and hastily added: “To play it
safe, why don’t you submit some slogans that are four words or less?”
“I suppose I’ll have to do just that,” he said. “I’m taking this contest very seriously.
I’ve never won a contest prize before.”
“Listen,” I said, “I have another idea.”
“What?”
“Why don’t you call the company? You know, find out what they really want without
shooting down their choice of word count.”
“Good idea. It won’t take me more than five minutes.”
Yeah, I thought, but if they put you on hold, it probably won’t take you less than five
minutes.
17. Fun to Make New Year Resolutions
For most people, New Year resolutions go in one ear and come out the other. Still, it is
fun to make them.
Here are some ideas:
1. Your Body
Make keeping fit a priority, especially if the only exercise you do is lifting your
eyebrows whenever you look at people with the physique of a lifeguard.
Your exercise should include shaking the head from side to side when you are offered
a second helping at dinner. “I’m aiming for a smaller waist,” you can tell your
tablemates.
Resolve to cut the fat in your diet and eat more fruits and vegetables, for the reason
that if you eat fruits and vegetables for eighty years, you won’t die young.
2. Your Mind
Sharpen your mind by reading voraciously. Why not read a book every week instead of
taking six weeks to read the Book of the Month?
3. Your Appearance
If your hair looks like you just came out of a windstorm, it is time you changed your
hairstyle.
It’s also time to revamp your wardrobe if you think people have been passing adverse
comments behind your back:
“Her skirt looks like a fabric mat under an artist’s easel.”
“His suit fits him as if it had been made for Stuart Little.”

“He has been wearing his new tie every day for the past two weeks. Is he trying to
break it in?”
4. Your Emotions
If you frequently reach a boil that would melt iron ore, resolve to cool it.
Remember the words of Publilius Syrus: “An angry man is again angry with himself
when he returns to reason.”
For a start, if a motorist cuts you off the road, avoid screaming at him in a voice loud
enough to drown out a thunderclap.
You could also refrain from making tiny circles around the temple with your
forefinger, and giving the errant driver half a peace sign.
Resolve to forgive yourself for your mistakes. It’s pointless to be your own worst
enemy.
A person who has made a mistake and doesn’t correct it, and forgive themselves at the
same time, is making another mistake.
5. Your Career
Be a more efficient worker. Your boss won’t forget your diligence on payday: They
are sure to attach a thank-you note to your salary slip.
Banish procrastination, which is a fault most people put off trying to correct.
If you pile everything up and leave it to be tackled at the last minute, the prospect of
completing it will immobilize you. The best time to do anything worthwhile is now.
6. Your Life
Keep personal documents in a proper place so that they can be retrieved without your
turning the house upside down.
Florence R. Kennedy said: “Don’t agonize. Organize.”
Write letters to long-time-no-see friends. A letter is better than a phone call because
you can’t tie ribbons round a telephone.
Do something for the environment: save water; recycle newspapers and cans; save
electricity. Take up a new hobby: learn a language; learn how to play a musical
instrument. ♫
18. Money Talks—It Says Goodbye
One of the greatest mysteries is why money is referred to as dough. Dough sticks to your
hands.
Inflation is hazardous to your wealth. The thought occurred to me the other day while I
was at the supermarket to buy a few things.
Food prices are skyrocketing. I asked a sales assistant in the food department for one
dollar’s worth of tomatoes, and she said, “We don’t sell slices.”
“Do you have overripe tomatoes?” I asked. “I’m sure they’d be much cheaper.”
She smiled and said, “You’ll have to come back in two days to try your luck.”
As I walked out of the food department, a crazy thought crossed my mind: Boring
speakers now do not have to worry about being pelted with tomatoes.
Inflated food prices may be hard to swallow, but I had another great shock when I
reached the footwear department. I had planned to get a new pair of shoes as the soles of
the pair I had were so thin I could step on a coin and tell whether it’s heads or tails.

A handsome pair on the glass rack caught my attention, but the price tag caused my
eyes to dilate in a manner that threatened injury to them.
“Would you like to buy this pair?” the sales assistant asked.
“Not at this time,” I said. “Maybe when my boss gives me a fat big bonus, I’ll be
interested.”
“It’s a good buy, considering the quality,” she said. “Genuine leather.”
“Genuinely broke,” I said. “Do you have anything below fifty dollars?”
She looked at me as though I was a congenital idiot.
I wore the new shoes, and they squeaked like a mouse all the way from the
supermarket to the barbershop, which was a stone’s throw away.
“Welcome, my friend,” the barber said, with a smile as wide as a dollar note,
lengthwise. “I have good news for me and bad news for you.”
“Let me have the good news first,” I said.
“OK,” he said. “Your hair needs cutting badly.”
“No, it doesn’t,” I said. “It needs to be cut nicely. You cut it badly the last time.”
“Ha, that’s a good one!” he said. “And the bad news is that the price of a haircut has
gone up. Still, it is very much cheaper for you to come here than to visit a hairstylist. You
know, the only difference between a hairstylist and a barber is the price.”
At this stage, I would have run out of the shop had he not succeeded in tying, with
amazing speed, a Gordian knot with his white cape around my neck.
Just to keep my barber friend talking so that I could get my money’s worth, I said,
“Very funny, but keep talking. Just don’t talk me into a shampoo and a massage.”
Experience has proved that I could sometimes gather some good ideas for my writing
from my barber, a brilliant conversationalist.
I suddenly thought of an interesting question to ask him. “What is the purpose of the
pole patterned with alternating stripes of red and white that is hung outside a
barbershop?”
“Oh, that is the barber’s pole, which functions as a business sign,” he said, garnishing
his explanation with a deep chuckle. “The pole is either stationary or revolving, and
there’s an interesting story behind it.
“During medieval times, barbers performed surgery on customers, specifically
bloodletting—the old medical practice of removing some of a sick person’s blood for
therapeutic purposes.
“The pole represents the staff gripped by a patient during surgery, and it was painted
red because it was usually stained with blood. The white spiral represents the bandage
round the patient’s arm before the commencement of the surgical procedure.”
“You are a bona fide storyteller,” I said, greatly impressed.
As I left his shop, I thought of the song “Money (That’s What I Want)”.
19. On the Trail of Scents and Smells
Stop the first person you see and ask them which of the five senses they could manage
without—sight, hearing, taste, touch or smell. This person would probably say smell:
“After all, when I have a bad cold, I can manage without smell for several days.”

However, of all the senses, smell is the most evocative. It plugs deep into your mind,
reviving memories, changing moods, and playing a big role in sexual attraction.
Babies can recognize their mothers by smell—a sense that is developed before a
baby’s birth. This is one good proof that the lip can slip, the eye can lie, but the nose
knows.
You are affected subconsciously when you are attracted to people by their personal
smells. When you are in love, you are also in love with your partner’s smell—although
the part played by the sense of touch must not be forgotten!
This reminds me of the story where a young man and his girlfriend were driving along
a quiet road. Suddenly, she said, “Darling, can you drive with one hand?”
“Sure, honey,” he said, as excited as a child in a toy store.
“Well,” she said, “you’d better wipe your nose.”
Smell is used in the animal kingdom to identify individuals, their sex, and whether they
are ready to mate. Potent body odours called pheromones act as stimuli for all types of
behaviour, but particularly sexual.
Humans also have an elaborate pheromone system. Perfume salespeople put their
business in other people’s noses as they know that spraying on a perfume makes a person
more attractive to the opposite sex. You feel good when you think you smell good.
Studies have shown that you have a better time at social occasions if you wear perfume,
as it can alter your mood. You’d be beaming throughout the evening like a contest winner
receiving a big prize, and might even react to the music like a person being attacked by
hornets.
Smell can cause memories to come back to run through your mind like a reel of colour
film. I walked past a furniture shop the other day and the smell of school desks made me
think of my first school desk. On it I wrote tests that got me one hundred marks for
arithmetic, spelling and drawing. I was the only pupil in the class who got a total of one
hundred marks for three subjects.
If you walk along a busy street, there are a thousand scents and smells that arise to
salute your nostrils, unless your nose is behaving like a running tap.
Walk past a grocery and you’ll smell the unmistakable aroma of salted fish, open sacks
of spices, and other food items all together in one whiff. The smell sticks to you like a bur
to a sheep even after you have reached home.
If you wander into a bookshop, the wonderful scents of new books welcome your nose.
The smell of the books and magazines seems to be intensified by the coolness generated
by the air-conditioner, giving the shop a unique ambience. You probably end up buying
more books than you had originally planned. This is just as well, as a poor appetite for
good books eventually leads to intellectual malnutrition.
Each shop along the street exudes a special smell, giving the place an identity. Even if
you were to close your eyes, you could recognize the smell of cloth in a tailor’s shop, or
the nose-tickling scent of curry in a restaurant.
(I once had a funny dream in which a restaurant proprietor asked me to pay him money
for smelling his food. I rattled my piggy bank in front of him and said, “I pay for the
smell of your food with the sound of my coins.”)
There are some people who just can’t stand the smell of the durian. One teacher I had
described his dislike for the fruit as follows: “Just like eating vanilla ice cream in an
unwashed latrine.”

That brings us to dirty toilets, some of which have not been cleaned since “Beat It”
climbed the charts. You want to get away from a dirty toilet as quickly as possible,
fearing that the awful smell might cling to your clothes and you end up smelling like a
skunk.
Scents and smells play a big role in your enjoyment of food. Thus, if you have a cold,
the food tastes like it has been cooked in tar. You have often been enticed to the kitchen
by the smell of food being cooked. For instance, the aroma of fish being fried may waft
from the kitchen to bring warm oozes of saliva to your mouth, so that you feel as hungry
as the grasshopper that sang all summer. You abandon what you are doing, like faking a
headache so that you don’t have to clean the windows, and make a beeline for the
kitchen.
Similarly, if any food is burnt, it is your nose that tells you first. Alas, the worst thing
about accidents in the kitchen is that you usually have to eat them.
I think some of the best smells are oranges, freshly ground coffee, vanilla ice cream,
baby powder, and perfume.
Not forgetting the smell of crisp new currency notes, eh?
20. The Beautiful Game
Football, according to the legendary Pele, is the Beautiful Game.
It’s tough being a footballer. You need to be super-fit and possess great reserves of
stamina to be, for instance, an effective half-back instead of a drawback to the team.
You have to be on your feet for ninety minutes, maybe more. You don’t go up to the
referee and say, “I don’t have enough strength to recuperate my breath, which just left
me. Could I take five?”
If you do that, he would probably say, “Better yet, take life.” A life ban is the most
severe punishment.
If your legs aren’t strong, it would be easy for an opponent to accidentally knock you
down, especially in a very physical match. Even if you are really hurt, your fans can’t
help thinking, Boy, this guy is good. Even a Best Actor or a Best Supporting Actor can
learn a thing or two from him.
You’ve got to have strong arms to execute a good throw-in. You don’t want the ball to
be “stolen” by an opponent. (The only instance when you don’t have to summon all your
strength for a throw-in is when an opponent deliberately kicks the ball out of play so that
a teammate of yours, who is writhing with pain, can receive medical attention. The
resulting throw-in by you surrenders the ball to your nearest opponent in a thankful
gesture.)
Strong arms also come into play after you have scored a goal. With one or both fists,
you have to punch the air directly above you in an expression of unadulterated delight.
And, yes, you certainly need strong arms to give a bear hug to a beaming teammate
who has just scored a goal. Most probably, in the feverish excitement, you’d seem to
want to press all the air out of him.
Even if you are totally fit, you are still susceptible to injury, which may sideline you
for, oh, six months or more. As Merle Kessler put it, “Football players, like prostitutes,
are in the business of ruining their bodies for the pleasure of strangers.”

You need a strong mind to be able to put behind you a missed penalty or an own goal,
when your face becomes as red as an Italian sunset, and it’s not because you keep
smacking your forehead with the heel of your palm.
And if your schoolboy blunder costs your team the match, you’ll have to slink off the
pitch in shame, worried that you’d be excoriated by the press and abandoned by your
fans.
Then there is the occasional temptation to attempt to score a goal yourself when the
sensible thing to do is to make a pinpoint pass to a teammate who may have a better
chance of hitting the net. The exception is when there is no one to pass the ball to, in
which case you just have to hope that an extraordinary goal results from a kick from that
almost impossible angle.
Even when your legs are in action, you have to constantly remember that football is a
team game. But it’s easy to forget, especially when the spectators are at full lung power
in a stadium filled to capacity.
Understand, it is virtually impossible for you to slalom past every opponent as if they
are all waxworks, although it is possible, through a magical combination of fancy
footwork, luck and chutzpah, to pass the ball to yourself for passing to a teammate.
Finally, there is the frustration of having to warm the substitutes’ bench when you are
off form. You are like a chess player, wondering what the next move of your coach will
be. And when your team loses, you have some thinking to do when your opponents wish
you, “Better luck next team.”
21. Dog Stories
I am rather fond of dogs, even though I was bitten by our neighbour’s dog when I was
seven years old.
When my mother complained about the untoward incident, our neighbour apologized
profusely and patted me so many times I was actually in danger of walking with one
shoulder several inches lower than the other.
He gave us his word that his miscreant of a quadruped would henceforth be ensnared
in a cumbersome muzzle when it was not being fed. The promise, however, was broken
even before my leg could heal completely. But I was not angry with him: His love for his
pet was perhaps a valid reason for his not keeping his word.
I was nine years old when we had our first puppy. We named it Doggie.
When Doggie grew up, it fell in love with the bitch that belonged to an old bachelor.
Puppy love or not, the love affair helped it forget about its fleas occasionally.
A visitor to our house said, “Fleas are good for a dog: They keep it from brooding over
being a dog.”
Doggie was not what you would call a pedigree dog, but no beggar could come near
the house without its letting us know about it: It would crawl under the bed.
My mother would ask me every night, “Did you put the dog out?”
I was in a bad mood one evening—I had lost twenty marbles to a mischievous kid from
the neighbourhood that afternoon—and when my mother asked her famous question, I
said, “Why, is it on fire?”

When Doggie was about five years old, it was killed in a road accident. On that dark
night, I found myself the cynosure of a huge gathering of curious and concerned
neighbours, whose collective outburst of anger would have ensured a nervous breakdown
for the driver of the speeding van had he not fled the scene of the accident.
The realization that I had lost a good friend, a friend who always welcomed me home
from school in a transport of joy, hit me like a sledgehammer. I did not utter a single
word, and went to sleep on tear-soaked pillows.
One curious concomitant of the tragedy was my sudden interest in the animal fables of
Aesop, and proverbs that feature animals, especially dogs.
For instance, I learned that “Every dog has its day” means that every person, no matter
how unfortunate or unimportant they are, has a time in their life when they are successful.
And “Better be the head of a dog than the tail of a lion” means that it is better to hold a
high position at a low level than a low position at a high level.
The second proverb applied in my case during my final school year, when I was
thrown out of the first table tennis team and made the captain of the second. I was
displeased, and complained vociferously to the teacher.
I did not realize then that I was barking up the wrong tree.
22. Heteronymous Aesop
Heteronyms are words that have the same spelling but different meanings because of
different pronunciations.
The Fox and the Stork
A Fox met a Stork and invited her to dinner. The Stork didn’t have the heart to refuse
(1a: verb) the invitation.
That evening, she showed up at the Fox’s place an hour late. “Sorry,” she said. “I
forgot to wind (2a: verb) my clock up.” And she gave her vulpine host a small present
(3a: noun) to assuage his anger.
The Fox brought out from his kitchen two wide, shallow dishes containing carrot juice.
“May I present (3b: verb) to you my latest culinary creation,” he said. “It is full of
flavour, with a dash of sugar and just a suspicion of garlic.”
The Fox guzzled the juice, but the Stork could not get a single drop with her long, thin
beak. She did not become angry at her host for being so thoughtless. Instead, she
requested him to give her the recipe for preparing the juice.
“No problem,” said the Fox. “Let me tear (4a: verb) a blank leaf from my notebook.”
And he took a minute (5a: noun) to write the recipe on the paper, using a pencil with a
soft lead (6a: noun).
The good-natured bird did not leave in a huff when dinner was over. She showed her
graciousness by staying back for a long time to watch a live (7a: adjective) football match
on a portable black-and-white television. And she was delighted when her team was in
the lead (6b: noun) at half time.

The next day, the Stork invited the Fox to share her afternoon meal. He accepted the
invitation and travelled along a path that wound (8a: verb) through the woods and up the
side of a hill to reach his destination.
The Stork served her guest some finely chopped meat in a glass jar with a long, narrow
neck. Her beak easily went into the jar, but the Fox could not reach his food.
“Hmmm, this tastes delicious,” the Stork said. “I’ve had this food three days in a row
(9a: noun) already. I think I can live (7b: verb) to a great age if I eat it frequently. Don’t
let your appetite desert (10a: verb) you now, Fox,” she continued, laughing with gusto.
“You should at least try a minute (5b: adjective) portion of the tender meat.”
The Fox noticed that his hostess had a tear (4b: noun) or two in her eye, and for a
moment he felt sanguine and thought that she pitied him—until she said, “Peeling onions
can make you cry. I had a mishap while I was cutting the onions,” she added. “Luckily, it
was just a flesh wound (8b: noun).”
When lunch was over, the Stork asked, “How was the food, Fox?”
Annoyed, the Fox said nothing, but he thought, No point starting a row (9b: noun) with
her. I can hardly fault her for paying me back in my own coin.
“I’m really satiated after the huge meal,” said the Stork. “When you leave, Fox, could
you please take out the kitchen refuse (1b: noun)?”
As the Fox made his way home, a sudden gust of wind (2b: noun), like a hot desert
(10b: adjective – “noun modifier”) wind, blew against his face.
23. Talking to God
Ricky (aged 11)
If you can’t make me a better boy, don’t worry about it. I’m having a good time as it is.
Kevin (aged 7)
My cat ran away two weeks ago. Could you please make it come back? Are there cats
in heaven?
Ruby (aged 9)
You must be really smart, because people pray to you in so many languages. I can only
speak and understand one language.
Gary (aged 10)
When things get dull for me, could you please fast forward the day? Thank you.
Karen (aged 10)
My father checks my school report card every week. Do you keep a report card for
everyone in the world? Just curious.
Helen (aged 14)
I have a few friends who warm me by their presence, trust me with their secrets, and
remember me in their prayers. Did you make the world round so that friendship may
encircle it?

Joanne (aged 12)
Thank you for giving me a wonderful family. And thanks also for flowers, butterflies
and rainbows. Nice work.
Justin (aged 10)
My father says that there are some people who have “visions”. If you want to contact
me, you can use my brother’s computer. He won’t mind.
Martin (aged 11)
Heaven must be very far from Earth, otherwise our astronauts would have seen it. See
you there one day.
Ginny (aged 11)
I read somewhere you make the days longer in some places. Could you make my
school holidays longer? I am keeping my fingers crossed.
Cherry (aged 10)
Is English spoken in heaven? If so, I don’t have to learn French in school.
Steven (aged 15)
What is your view on capital punishment? According to the best evidence available,
the death penalty is definitely a deterrent to crime. Not one of the killers executed in the
country has killed anyone since.
24. Puns with a Malaysian Flavour
1. When Ibrahim Pendek applied for his first job, he was put on the shortlist.
2. Overheard in Penang Road: “I don’t believe you eat this aromatic seed every day. It
does nutmeg much sense to me.”
3. Why won’t you starve on a beach in Penang? Because of the sand which is
(sandwiches) there.
4. What makes the clock tower of Teluk Intan lean? Too much dieting.
5. “Can you three Malaysian parties?” asked the History teacher of the class.
Ah Beng raised his hand and said, “MCA, DAP and cocktail.”
6. What was the turtle doing on the beach in Terengganu? About 10 metres an hour.
7. “I can’t play sepak takraw today. “I’ve hurt my foot.”
“That’s a lame excuse!”
8. “Darling, I’m taking you for a holiday at Genting Highlands because I love view!”
9. Why is the history of the Sultanate of Malacca like a wet season? Because it is full of
rains (reigns).
10. Why is a healthy boy like Malaysia? Because he has a good constitution.
11. A contractor named Leong Choon Choong built the clock tower of Teluk Intan, a
pagoda-like structure, in 1885. Once used for water storage, the 25.5-metre high tower
now passes the time by keeping its hands busy.

12. A few days before Hari Raya, Faridah asked her husband, “How many types of cakes
shall we make, dear?”
“As many as possible,” he said cheerfully. “We shouldn’t put all our eggs in one
biscuit!”
13. An Indian couple was walking in the woods when the woman’s dress got caught in
some thorns.
When she asked him if he could mend it, he said, “Love means never having to sew
your sari!”
14. There once lived a beautiful woman who bought a lipstick every week, as her loving
husband, Yusoff, lived up to the song he liked to sing: “A little bit of ’soff will wash
away the lipstick from your lips!”
15. “Why is that man over there shouting, ‘Do I ring it? Do I ring it?’ when he is ringing
his bell?” asked an American tourist of her Malaysian friend.
The Malaysian woman broke into an uproarious laugh, for the man was an ice cream
seller who was shouting, “Dua ringgit! Dua ringgit!” to attract prospective customers.
25. Punny Limericks
A limerick is a light or humorous short poem of five lines, with a rhyme scheme of
aabba.
“You don’t have to be as thin as a pole;
Losing just a few pounds should be your goal.
You will feel much better,
Look great in a sweater;
So think about practising girth control!”
He bought a gift for his girlfriend, Sue:
A skimpy bikini of sky blue.
Written with much thought,
His message was short:
“It is the least I can do for you!”
Wiping his big hands on his gown,
The blood bank chief said with a frown,
“The news is bad;
It’s very sad.
We have been caught with our pints down.”
The footloose bachelor said with an anguished groan,
“My mother keeps saying I’ve no wife of my own;
She is really upset,
But she seems to forget
I’m just waiting for the right girl to come alone.”

On a beautiful day full of sunshine,
A soldier met his pretty valentine;
Tears she shed
As she said,
“Lay down your arms and surrender to mine!”
The sailor got drunk on a bottle of alcohol,
But what he badly needed was paracetamol.
Finding his raft on a reef,
He sat up and said, “Good grief!
I am really lost—this isn’t an island atoll!”
Said the pretty and leggy nurse,
“You are my Mr. Universe;
You are so kind,
But I do mind
When your hands go from pat to worse.”
Now that her stomach looks so much flatter,
She says, “Dieting is a simple matter;
It’s easily won.
Just do what I’ve done,
And see the triumph of mind over platter.”
26. Retirement Party for Two
My dear colleagues,
we are meeting here today
to wish farewell to two good friends
who are retiring at month’s end.
As you know, Mr. Lim has been
with the firm since early beginning
and was great inspiration
to everyone during those crucial
years. He enjoyed working till
the small hours of the morning,
and his favourite expression
at that time, I am told,
was “I say, no sweat.” But we are
noting now that his eyes
are “sweating” today! And here
is giving very good news—Mr. Lim
has promised to mention our names
in his autobiography, which he will write

after a short holiday. A very much
deserved holiday, because Mr. Lim
is always rushing here and he is always
rushing there. He is one person who just
cannot sit still. Just imagine: our names
in a book! That would be very nice.
And we are sure Mr. Lim will find time
to drop into the office one day here and
one day there to see how we will
be getting along. That would be
very nice also.
Coming to Mr. Muthu, we are
also going to miss him. You know, like
his mischievous smiles, his occasional
clowning, the spontaneous smack
of his palm against his forehead
when he realizes that he has neglected
to do something—or that he has done
something which ought to have been neglected!
Of course, not forgetting the pungent
smell of his cigars. I mean, there
are little things which we take for granted.
This is true, don’t you agree?—and
can sometimes be sad. Anyway, one thing
very certain: We are not going to miss
his delicious food during his
Deepavali open house.
And now, before we sink our teeth
into the cakes here, I have
sweet pleasure to call upon
the chairman of our recreation club
to present the mementos, and
afterwards we will all sing “For he’s
a jolly good fellow!”
27. Go Ahead, Make the Interviewer’s Day
A man left his last job because he was told to do something he didn’t like—look for
another job.
There may be luck in getting a job, but there is no luck involved in keeping it.

However, you should not totally depend on luck when you are attending an interview.
As a former job hunter of considerable experience, I have compiled a list of useful tips
for tackling this important prelude to job attainment.
Rule No. 1
Be prepared, because today’s preparation determines tomorrow’s achievement.
Before the interview, imagine yourself as the interviewer and think of questions you
might ask. You will feel royally confident by getting the answers to these questions.
If you’re poor in imagination, ask a close friend to act as the interviewer and assail you
with countless questions.
Rule No. 2
Be early. You can be late for a party by three drinks, but where an interview is concerned,
do not be an hour late when the interviewer has been ready for fifteen minutes.
If you have to get up early in the morning, it is unwise to watch the Midnight Movie on
TV.
Rule No. 3
Look smart and neat. The first impression is significant. If you are a male, keep your hair
short, otherwise the interview is not going to last a long time. If you are a female, avoid
clothes that can never survive hot dancing, or those that are so tight that a male
interviewer will find it hard to breathe. As Sophia Loren said, “A woman’s dress should
be tight enough to show that there is a woman inside it, but loose enough to show that she
is a lady.”
Rule No. 4
Find out the name of the interviewer before you enter the room. Their name sounds very
nice to them, especially against a backdrop of soothing music. ♪
Rule No. 5
Smile. Smile as though you have just won an apartment in a contest, or discovered that
someone who has been badmouthing you is suffering from laryngitis.
Rule No. 6
Speak up—slowly, loudly and clearly. If the interviewer cannot hear you, they cannot
gauge you properly, let alone hire you.
Rule No. 7
Be sincere and honest: Do not bluff the interviewer. Let them know the abilities you
have, including unique ones, such as being able to solve Rubik’s Cube in less than three
minutes, or tell wisecracks that would make famous stand-up comedians slink away in
shame after hearing your performance.
Also, let the interviewer know that you are willing to learn new things—but not new
mistakes. They will usually ask for reasons for your wanting to leave your present job.
Some good reasons: (i) You like more responsibilities so that you can keep as busy as a
bee (although thoughts of your honey may come to your mind occasionally); (ii) You
want a job that promises better prospects, although your salary raise will become
effective just as soon as you do; (iii) You want to prove to your mother-in-law that you
can get another job with a higher salary.
You will invariably be asked about your previous job(s). It is an advantage to have
some work experience. Some employers fight shy of employing people just out of school
or college, forgetting the latter’s Catch-22 situation—no job, no experience; no
experience, no job.

Even if you are totally honest, do not feel proud to say that you have had several jobs
in a short period of time. The interviewer will not think that you are a versatile person
who can handle a variety of work; they are more likely to think that you are a rolling
stone that gathers no worthwhile experience.
Worse still, they may think that you are a cantankerous job-hopper who cannot get
along with other people.
There is an exception to this honesty rule. Say you have a testimonial that reads:
“…worked for us for three months. He is one of the best men our firm ever turned out.”
Never produce such a disparaging attestation at the interview.
Rule No. 8
Do not criticize your present employer, even though they once said to you, “I would
gladly pay you what you’re worth, but it’s against the minimum wage law.” Any
criticism will make the interviewer mentally castigate you as a disloyal element, and give
them the impression that you are a potential trouble-maker.
Good luck in your next interview. And when you do get the job, remember that a good
employee works for their employer as though they were self-employed.
28. Fault We Put Off Correcting
A passenger once said to the bus driver, “I want to be procrastinated at the next stop.”
The driver was puzzled. “You want to be what?” he asked.
The passenger said, “Are you ignorant? I checked the dictionary this morning, and I
found out that procrastinate means put off. So please procrastinate me at the next stop!”
Unlike the passenger who desired “procrastination” when he reached his destination,
many of us tend to procrastinate many times before we finally reach our “destination”—
the completion of a certain job or assignment.
Procrastination is the thief of time. The proverb is a quotation from the poem Night
Thoughts, by Edward Young.
Here are four tricks to conquer the habit:
No.1. Break down big tasks into small ones. For example, if you want to write a 300-page
book, you can write a page each day and the book will be completed in ten months.
Using this strategy, I read Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein in twelve days; I walked a
kilometre in three days; and I wrote a 55-word story in two days.
Joseph Heller wrote Catch-22 in seven years while holding down a full-time job. Had
he procrastinated, it might have taken him twenty-two years to write Catch-7!
No.2. Pamper yourself with a reward—a contingent reward that is only available upon
completion of the task. For instance, the reward could be a mouth-watering supper at
your favourite restaurant, John Grisham’s latest legal thriller, or a day off from your
rigorous dieting.
A mental reward will suffice if you don’t wish to spend any money—just give yourself
credit!
No.3. Never put off until tomorrow what you can get someone to do today. For example,
you can pay your kid brother or your nephew a small sum of money to wash your car.
No.4. Perhaps the most exciting trick is to put yourself in an untenable position so that
you are forced to perform a particular piece of work.

Let’s say you have been putting off having the grass cut. The solution is simple: Invite
some friends over for a barbecue party, so that you will get the mower out pronto! And
even if your friends fail to compliment you on the food, they will definitely notice the
“splendour in the grass”!
The good news for die-hard procrastinators is that there is a positive side to the habit.
Many of us, when faced with an unappealing assignment—like doing paperwork—find
one-thousand-and-one ways to put it off. Hence the key to positive procrastination lies in
putting to good use our ability to avoid responsibility.
For example, cleaning the garage would seldom take place if it weren’t for the
possibility of putting off working on our income returns till the very last minute.
And finishing the cleaning chore to our satisfaction may well motivate us to tackle the
distasteful work that we shunned in the first place (and perhaps in a few other places as
well!).
Another good thing about positive procrastination is that it allows us to gain more
information before we make a decision. Also, some problems may go away by
themselves with the passage of time!
I think now is a good time to make a WhatsApp call to this old friend of mine…
29. Dear Smart Alec
Dear Smart Alec,
I came to know a man through a mutual friend. He is kind, understanding and thoughtful.
I know he cares about me, but I am afraid of responding because I have been jilted
before. I do not want to lose him either. What should I do?
AFRAID
Dear Afraid,
There is only one way for you to keep his love—by returning it.
Dear Smart Alec,
My girlfriend’s birthday is approaching, and I don’t know what to buy for her. Could you
suggest something that is inexpensive and useful?
B40 JOE
Dear B40 Joe,
Why not get her a lipstick? This way, you can get most of it back.
Dear Smart Alec,
I like to stay at home in the evening to read or attend to my other hobbies. But my wife
enjoys going out almost every night—to the movies or the mall, for instance. We have a
few arguments occasionally, and I fear our marriage may suffer.
HOMELY GUY
Dear Homely Guy,

Compromise is the word. On some days of the week, you can make up your mind to stay
at home. On the other days, allow your wife to make up her face to go out.
Dear Smart Alec,
I am a Form 5 student. The other day, a classmate of mine requested me to lend her some
study notes which I had taken a lot of time and effort to prepare. She needed them
desperately as she had been neglecting her studies. She now regrets her stupidity. Do you
think it is fair to share the fruit of my labour with someone else?
FOOTNOTES
Dear Footnotes,
James Keller said, “A candle loses nothing by lighting another candle.”
Dear Smart Alec,
I am sixty years old. A fortune-teller recently told me that I’d die within the next fifteen
months. This has worried me greatly. Should I believe him?
STILL ALIVE
Dear Still Alive,
Break a mirror to make sure that you’ll live another seven years.
Dear Smart Alec,
I am sixty-five years old. My doctor has advised me to stop all drinks. At my age, do you
think I should forgo something that makes me happy?
BOTTOMS UP
Dear Bottoms Up,
You should follow your doctor’s advice to stop all drinks—make sure that none gets past
you. Did you know that there are more old drunks than old doctors?
Dear Smart Alec,
My wife has refused to let me make love to her because I forgot her birthday. I love her
very much, and find myself in this situation as I had a lot of work at the office. How can I
make her realize that I am truly sorry for my oversight?
FORGET FOOL
Dear Forget Fool,
Buy two presents for her. Your note should read: “Darling, how did you expect me to
remember your birthday when you don’t look a day older.”
Dear Smart Alec,
I am a 27-year-old girl, and my boyfriend is thirty. We have known each other for nine
months. My mother objects to our relationship, although I can’t think of any reason at all.
Three years ago, she broke up my relationship with another man. This cannot go on
forever, can it?
SPINSTER

Dear Spinster,
It seems your mother is afraid of losing you. Are you the only child? Have a frank talk
with her. Tell her that she doesn’t need a map or GPS to visit you when you are married.
Or perhaps she could stay with you.
Let her know that your courtship may be tense, but you are determined to make your
spinsterhood the past tense.
Dear Smart Alec,
I am a 16-year-old boy. Sometimes when my parents are not at home, I catch my elder
sister and her boyfriend kissing and necking on the sofa. Can’t they do their thing
somewhere else? What should I do?
ANGRY SPECTATOR
Dear Angry Spectator,
Get rid of the sofa.
Dear Smart Alec,
I am a 16-year-old girl, and I want to become an actress. I cannot concentrate on my
studies. Every day, I dream of myself as a big star. Do you think I should drop out of
school?
STAR
Dear Star,
Stop acting like a fool.
Dear Smart Alec,
I am a girl of fourteen. I met A six months ago, and I became his girlfriend. Although he
has now left me, I think of him often.
A few weeks ago, I met B and C at a party. They are very nice and seem to be
interested in me. I do not know which of them to choose. Could you help me?
HEADACHE
Dear Headache,
Have you heard of “none of the above”?
Dear Smart Alec,
I am interested in a schoolmate of mine who is two years younger than me. Every time I
meet her on the bus, I do not know what to say to her. A friend has advised me to use
flattery to win her affections. What do you think?
SHY BOY
Dear Shy Boy,
A little flattery may be useful, but in general your remarks should be more candid than
candied.

Dear Smart Alec,
I am a 15-year-old girl. Every now and then, I receive phone calls from boys who want to
befriend me. What should I do?
FRIGHTENED
Dear Frightened,
I knew a girl who used to accept rings from men she didn’t even know: She was a
telephone operator. In your case, you should always say to an unknown caller, “I can’t
hear you well. Could you please remove the potato from your mouth?”
Dear Smart Alec,
After many years of loneliness, I finally met a girl I could love. She seems to be
interested in me. The trouble is that she is two inches taller than me. Do you think this
could be a big problem?
VERTICALLY CHALLENGED
Dear Vertically Challenged,
Be glad that things are looking up for you.
Dear Smart Alec,
My girlfriend and I plan to marry soon. Before I met her, I had a brief affair with a
married woman. Do you think I should let my future wife know about this shameful
secret of mine?
SECRETIVE
Dear Secretive,
A person who has no secrets from their spouse either has no secrets or has no spouse.
30. Punned (and Rhymed) Haiku
A haiku is a Japanese poem of three lines, with five, seven, and five syllables
respectively.
A sportsman supreme
Always wishes the vanquished,
“Better luck next team.”
If I had a wish,
I’d love to meet a mermaid,
Who’s a deep she fish!
Bachelor boy Dick
Went on a cruise round the world
And became she sick.

“The pillory’s fast,”
Says the rotten-fruit seller.
“Buy now while stocks last!”
For a suitor’s sake,
Female twins should help avoid
A genuine Ms. take.
Rung out of slumber,
The Indian tailor answered,
“Sari, wrong number!”
“Let’s get this across,”
Says the wrestling champ. “He who
Hesitates is tossed!”
To retain the crown,
A chess champ must never be
Caught with his pawns down.
When I learned to dance,
A girl came to me and said,
“May I have this trance?”
Trodden grapes decline
To say anything except
Just a little whine.
In my neighbourhood,
Even old folks go to school:
They’re up to know-good.
In need of some dough,
A thief got into my house
Intruder window.
I remember when
I practised meditation
Every now and Zen.
Good hygiene will stay
If you and I bear in mind
That grime does not pay.
“It is quite a feat,”
Says the blind sausage maker,

“To make both ends meat!”
Charlie met a chick
At an internet café,
But they didn’t click.
Good advice, to wit:
A desert trip bag should hold
A big thirst-aid kit.
Some unmarried males
Unreasonably believe
Wed men tell no tales.
Whether girl or boy,
An unexpected babe is
A bungle of joy.
“Sorry,” said the bloke.
“No such thing as free petrol:
April Fuel joke!”
From my teacher’s lips,
I learned that sea monsters ate
Marine fish and ships.
Whatever the stone,
A ring on the finger is
Worth two on the phone.
An heir, in the main,
Is a person who lives on
A will-gotten gain.
Smiling from his heart,
The young artist said, “You know,
I am drawn to art.”
Bribing is absurd:
We can surely get things done
Without the purseword.
Elections are fun:
If you don’t know how to vote,
You just X someone.

The fat man, shamefaced,
Said to his supper, “Just think,
You’re going to waist.”
Said my colleague Blake,
“I’m no longer a vegan;
It was a missed steak!”
Finch, wren or blue jay,
Birds always drink their coffee
In a nest-café.
Before it was caught,
The skunk made the judge exclaim,
“Odour in the court!”
A farmer should heed
This apt and priceless saying:
More waste and less seed.
It is an “offence”
When your written efforts show
Little comma sense.
Gone to heaven’s love,
A dead sister is known as
Nun of the above.
The plot is just right:
Gold-digger meets zillionaire;
It’s love at purse sight!
Time to say goodbye,
So we bought our maths teacher
A delicious pi!
When I get better,
I will surely let you know
Sooner or letter.
Amid the rubble,
The stone mason found himself
In engrave trouble.
Cheating isn’t nice:
I entreat you not to make

The shame mistake twice.
Beauty shop complaint:
“I am in a big hurry;
Get straight to the paint!”
Somewhere in the wood,
Gretel ate a fruit and said,
“This tastes berry good.”
A woman named Pat
Criticized my apartment,
So I knocked her flat.
31. The Triumph of Mind Over Platter
One of life’s mysteries is how a two-pound box of candy can make a person gain five
pounds in weight. This explains the preoccupation of many people with dieting as they go
to some lengths to change their width.
The impetus to diet strikes in strange ways, usually when a person realizes that they
have become as wide as the gate of a mansion. Perhaps this person is now scared of their
own shadow, which looks like an election rally crowd.
Or perhaps some people innocent of umbrellas are following this fat person around for
shade.
So this potential dieter starts to think, Good heavens, I’ve gone from a size ten to a size
tent. I’ll have to go on a strict diet before my better half gives me this ultimatum: Lose
weight or lose me. In six weeks, I’ll take your breath away by taking a lot of my breadth
away.
Nice thinking. But the odds against a diet succeeding in most cases are three to one—
knife, fork and spoon. Let’s face it, being on a diet requires a lot of won’t power.
If you have a prodigious appetite and gobble your food like a hungry turkey, it is not
easy to fight the juicy temptation as you see the array of mouth-watering food on the
table—such as those delicious oysters floating around in the soup looking like islets on
the bosom of a sun-kissed lake.
The worst part of a diet isn’t watching your food—it’s watching everybody else’s.
How you envy those people who eat excessively and still have an optimum weight.
Dieting is no good without exercise. And the best exercise is to exercise discretion at
the dining table.
Beware of the exercise which you get from moving food from the plate to the palate.
Your dining table exercise should be shaking your head from side to side when offered a
second helping.
Gardening is a good form of exercise if you’re not afraid that soil rhymes with toil.
Weightlifting too, although many people use the wrong equipment—a knife and fork.

It’s irritating how some people who are on a diet constantly boast about how much
weight they have lost. The best way to deal with them is to say to them, “You can’t
reduce by talking about it. You’ve got to keep your mouth shut.”
32. How to Avoid Burglary Blues While on Vacation
We all need a vacation occasionally. A vacation makes you feel so good you’d want to
return to work—or so poor you have to.
Even if your vacation isn’t long, you will probably come back short. And you certainly
do not wish to discover your house has been turned upside down by burglars in your
absence.
Here, then, are some important tips on how to avoid burglary blues while you are
away.
1. A burglar alarm is anathema to burglars (it interferes with their work), so make sure
that your alarm works before you leave for your ideal holiday resort (where, you hope,
the fish bite and the mosquitoes don’t).
2. Check every lock in the house to ensure that the “spoils” of your hard work are safe.
You could hang up a drawing of a jail on every lock to deter potential burglars.
3. Stop deliveries of newspapers, milk and other regular items. Make the arrangements
in person, by telephone, or by letter—but never by a note left at the gate. The note might
fall into the hands of people who forget that a crooked path is the shortest way to a
prison.
Imagine the udder-utter chaos that will ensue if you fail to stop delivery of the milk.
Your house will become a safe “cash cow” for the lucky burglar, who might use your
landline phone to call a friend and say, “I have just become the recipient of the milk of
human kindness from some guy who has gone on vacation with his family. I wish you
were here with me now. I wonder if he’ll cry over spilt milk when he discovers the havoc
I’ve created. Ha ha!”
4. Do not draw all the shades and blinds in the house.
While it is important to lock up properly, it is also important to leave an appearance of
normal living. Drawn shades are a telltale sign to a burglar that the house is unoccupied.
It’s like having a ten-foot banner across your porch proclaiming in bold words that you
will be away for some time.
5. Why not leave the radio playing? It can be turned on and off by an automatic timer.
The ants in your pantry may also get to listen to the weather forecast, if they are
planning a grand picnic in your absence.
6. Still on the subject of timers, it is useful to turn on some lights—say, in the kitchen
and one of the rooms. It is not safe, however, to leave the lights on for twenty-four hours.
7. Inform the authorities if the street lights near your house are not working. Burglary,
like photographic film, develops in the dark.
A psychopathic burglar, if he bumps his head against a pillar in your porch, may make
threatening phone calls to your family for causing him physical pain. “I may not know
my wrongs,” he would say, “but I certainly know my rights.”
8. Passing burglars are always on the lookout for families loading a car for a vacation.
Load inside a garage (if you have one), or at least in the porch.

Perhaps you could persuade your energetic mother-in-law to act as a lookout. If
necessary, she could holler, “Yo-ho, I see a suspicious character in the neighbourhood.”
9. The rising crime rate would be slowed down considerably if we’d put as many cops
on the streets as there are on TV. Still, it’s a good idea to notify the police if you plan to
take a long vacation. Frequent police patrols in the vicinity of your house would reduce
the chances of your place being burgled.
10. Finally, remember the importance of being on good terms with your neighbours
(even though you occasionally make them angry by buying things they can’t afford).
They can report to the police if they see suspicious characters lurking around your
house. And they can collect any unexpected deliveries for you so that these need not be
left in the porch.
A friend of mine leaves a few hundred dollars on his dining table whenever he goes on
a vacation. He hopes that any burglar would be satisfied with the money. A note on
which the money rests reads: “Take the money. Please do not ransack my house. Thank
you.”
33. How to Beat Stress
Tension—what the drill sergeant shouts to his troops. Ha ha! This little joke is to loosen
you up a bit. Although stress may be inevitable in our daily lives, it can be kept under
control. Learning to cope with it is the key to a happy and fulfilling life.
It isn’t only disasters that trigger stress. Stress can be related to happy occasions like
getting married and becoming a parent. A little stress can be beneficial: It can give you
the necessary rush of adrenalin to get things done.
Strictly speaking, all stress is internal, since it is the reaction of the body to any force
that acts on it. If, for example, the temperature drops and you shiver, the cold is the
stressor and the shiver is the stress.
Each person has their own tolerance level of the amount of stress they can take. Some
people are able to thrive on stress while others can’t cope at all. The right balance of
stresses must be struck to achieve the desired creative tension.
The first step towards keeping stress at bay is recognizing the condition, when your
nerves may be tauter than a piano wire.
The following 10-point stress-busting checklist, culled from the opinions of medical
experts, tells you how to cope with stress.
1. Beware of early warning signs
Short temper, frequent headaches, stomach upsets, depression, and insomnia are signs
that you’re under too much stress. Pay attention to these symptoms, which may make you
chew your fingernails down to the elbow, and slow down before they stop you.
2. Relax
Relax your body by lying down in your old sitting-around clothes. Clench your fists
tightly, and then relax them. Do the same for the whole body, tensing and relaxing so that
you feel floppy. Take deep, slow breaths.
Relax your mind by daydreaming. Think of a situation that gives you pleasure: You
could be prancing along the sands of a sun-kissed beach on an island paradise.
If the routine of your job starts to get to you, take a minute or two off and relax.

Humour Matters (A Free eBook).pdf

Humour Matters (A Free eBook).pdf

Recommended

Recommended

More Related Content

More from OH TEIK BIN

More from OH TEIK BIN (20)

Recently uploaded

Recently uploaded (20)

Humour Matters (A Free eBook).pdf