British Witticisms

"WIT IS THE SALT OF CONVERSATION, NOT THE FOOD"
-William Hazlitt

Now this small bit of news is about the famed British Wit.

The first name that comes to mind automatically is Sir Winston Churchill who was once told by a angry (and allegedly not-so-good-looking) Lady Nancy Astor:
“Winston, if you were my husband, I'd poison your tea.”
“Nancy,” he replied “if I were your husband, I'd drink it.”

Or when accused of being drunk by the MP Bessie Braddock he is said to have replied: "Yes Madam, I am drunk and you are Ugly. But I shall be sober in the morning."

Now take the famous poet/playwright Oscar Wilde who said this (and correctly so) of women:
“As long as a woman can look ten years younger than her own daughter, she is perfectly satisfied.”

Even tragedy didn’t diminish his ability for mirth. Paying a condolence visit to an acquaintance he said,

“To lose one parent, Mr Worthing, may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness.”

But he was also cleverly self deprecating; “I am so clever that sometimes I don't understand a single word of what I am saying."

Even as he lay dying, penniless in a French hotel, he looked around at the dingy room and said: “The curtains are so ugly. Either they go or I do.” Those were his final words.

The comedian Spike Milligan, was one step better, when he had engraved on his tombstone the epitaph

"I told you I was ill".

Top Gear presenter, Jeremy Clarkson, never afraid of stirring up controversy, once famously said

"Speed has never killed anyone, suddenly becoming stationary… That's what gets you."

Former prime minister Margaret Thatcher, more renowned for her steely personality than her humour too had her moments. She once quipped:

"Being powerful is like being a lady. If you have to tell people you are, you aren't."

Brevity, as someone once said, is the soul of wit and the best comebacks and one liners are the shortest ones.

Now Dame Judi Dench who plays M in the Bond flicks has added another classic to that repertoire of British wit.

The Guardian reports that last week Dame Judi Dench was crossing a road in London on her way to rehearsal for a new project when she was almost run down by a speeding taxi.

The taxi driver (again in true British tradition) put his head out the window and shouted,

“You stupid c**t!.”

Judi's fast reply-

“That's Dame C**t to you!”

How can you NOT love her!

Amen.

Have lovely weekend.

Luv

Vish