To end, a joke involving an East Friesian. In German jokes, the residents of East Friesia, the northern-most part of Germany, are stupid.

An East Friesian buys a BMW in Munich [in Bavaria]. In just four hours he reaches his home town with the new car. There he realises that he has forgotten something at friends in Munich.

“I’ll quickly drive back,” he says to them, “wait for me.”

After 20 hours he finally arrives back in Munich.

“Why did the trip take so long – the journey home was really quick?” asked his friends.

The East Friesian replies, “These Bavarians! They install six gears, but only one reverse gear.”

For the last two days I have selected jokes based on German stereotypes. Today, the Scots.

“Why has your Scottish boyfriend finished with you?” Hanna asks her friend Maja.

“Ah,” Maja sighs, “he got to know a girl whose birthday is on Christmas Eve.”

A Scottish man comes into the townhall and says, “I would like to change my name.”

“Why is that?” enquires the official.

“I have found a full box of business cards!”

The jokes over the year have featured several Chuck Norris jokes. Thanks to Wikipedia, I discovered that Chuck Norris was a star in martial arts and other action films. The jokes are normally absurd hyperbolic claims about Norris’s toughness and abilities. Here are some examples.

Chuck Norris can make a Happy Meal cry.

Chuck Norris drinks his coffee black – without water!

Chuck Norris has caught all the Pokémon – with a landline phone.

Chuck Norris knows the last digit of pi.

A rabbit goes into a pub, puts two Euros into the slot machine and wins on every go. He puts another coin in and again wins every time.

The other guests noticed this and started watching the rabbit. After he had several more winning runs, one guest asked him how he was doing it.

The rabbit said, “Haven’t you heard of the lucky rabbit’s foot?”

The final words of the butcher: “Throw me the large knife over.”

Mrs Bremer comes back from holiday in a bad mood.

“What happened then? Didn’t you have a good rest?” asks her neighbour.

“Not at all,” says Mrs Bremer. “I took the wrong things with me again.”

“What was that?” enquired the neighbour.

“My husband, the kids, . . .”

A man comes into the fishmongers.

“Throw me over two trout, please,” he says to the fishmonger.

“Do you really want me to throw them?” she asks.

“Yes, ” says the man. “Then I can say at home that I caught them.”

“How big does a penguin get?” Ulf asks his colleague Konrad.

“About 50 cm,” Konrad estimates.

“Are there larger ones?” Ulf asks.

“Well, a king penguin might be some 90 cm,” ventures his colleague.

“Are they the biggest of all?” Ulf replies.

“No, emperor penguins can grow to be 1.20 metres high and there aren’t any bigger than that, ” Konrad explains.

At that, Ulf’s shoulders drop and he says dejectedly, “I think I ran over a nun on the way into work . . .”

Shaking his head the Texan tourist looks at the Eifel Tower and says to his wife, “Darling, this is the sixth time we’ve come here and the guys still haven’t found any oil!”

How much extra space is there in the EU after Brexit?

1 GB

“For our first wedding anniversary you can get me something beautiful for my hands, my neck or my ears,” said the young wife seductively.

“That’s a great idea, ” said the husband. “Which soap do you like?”

A man goes into a shop and says to the man behind the counter, “It says above your door, <<Bought>> and <<Sold>>. What exactly to you buy?”

“Old junk, ” says the shopkeeper.

“And what do you sell?”

“Valuable antiques.”

After a year off, the Twelve Jokes of Christmas is back. I have selected the best (yes, really, they are the best of the bunch!) jokes from my German Joke-a-Day calendar.

Every year, some of the best jokes in the German calendar cannot be translated. Often this is because they rely on a clever word play in German that doesn’t work in English. Here is one that almost works in English with a bit of help:

No matter how dense (“dicht”) you are, Goethe was denser (“dichter” / “Dichter”).

Egal wie dicht du bist, Goethe war Dichter.

The comparative in German is formed by adding -er to the end of an adjective: dense-denser, dicht-dichter.
The word play in German comes in because Dichter is also the word for poet – and Goethe was Germany’s great poet and writer.
It is no coincidence that a poet in German is a “Dichter”. Compared to normal writing, poetry uses relatively few words to say a lot – in other words, the writing is denser than normal writing.

Too much analysis . . . I guess no one is still laughing now.

We finish with a joke involving an East Friesian. In German jokes, the “stupid” folk live in East Friesia, the northern-most part of Germany.

An East Friesian is on holiday in Munich. In the hotel lobby he spies a mirror. “That’s quite something,” he thinks to himself, takes the mirror off the wall and sends it to his parents. “Look how nice the people in Munich are – they even hung a picture of me in the hotel,” he writes.

When the parcel arrives the father sees himself in the mirror and sighs: “Oh, look how old our son has become . . .” The mother is looking over his shoulder and says, “No wonder with that old hag at his side.”

A Frenchman, German and hypochondriac go into a bar.

“I’m tired and thirsty. I must have a glass of wine,” said the Frenchman.

“I’m tired and thirsty. I must have a beer,” said the German.

“I’m tired and thirsty. I must have diabetes,” said the hypochondriac.

“How do you manage it that your employees are always punctually in the office?” asked one managing director jealous of the other.

“It’s quite simple,” said the other, “30 employees, 15 parking spaces.”

Guest: “Waiter, my steak smells of schnapps!”

The waiter takes three steps back and asks, “How about now?”

Little Paul asks his father, “Dad, who is cleverer, fathers or sons?”

“Fathers, of course,” answers his father.

“So who discovered the Theory of Relativity?” continues little Paul.

“That was Albert Einstein, my son.”

“Not his father?”

“They send us out in this awful weather to repair doorbells,” complained the electrician, “and then no-one answers the door!”

In German jokes, the Scottish are always portrayed as stingy and keen to save money at all costs. Just to show there is nothing mean here, here are two Scottish jokes for today!

Two Scots are having a conversation about what they want to give their wives for Christmas.

“My Betty is getting a new coat and a chain,” says McMill.

“You’re spending so much this year?” asks McMoney.

“Sure, it’s a lot,” replies McMill, “but once her bicycle is working again, she’ll save the money for the bus.”

“The youth of today have no manners,” moaned an elderly man loudly in the bus.

“But the lad just offered you his seat,” said the man sitting next to him.

“Sure,” replied the elderly man, “but my wife is still standing!”

A policeman was standing in the street, wearing one white and one black boot.
A police car drove past and stopped. “Colleague,” called the driver. “You have one white and one black boot on. Go home and get dressed properly.”

“I can’t do that,” said the policeman, “I’ve only got one white and one black boot there as well!”

Little Fitz goes into the pet shop. “How much are the goldfish?” he asks the owner.

“22 Euros each,” the owner answers.

“Hmmm,” mummbles little Fritz, “I don’t suppose you have any silverfish?”

“Why are you an hour late for rehearsal?” barked the director at the principal actor.

“I had to do the washing up,” the actor explained.

“Washing up?! That would never have even crossed my mind!” screamed the director.

“Nor mine. It was my wife’s idea!”

One snowman said to the other, “Strange. Can you smell carrots too?”

We finish with a joke involving an East Friesian. In German jokes, the “stupid” folk live in East Friesia, the northern-most part of Germany.

An American, Frenchman and East Friesian are sitting at the bar and discussing the word phenomenal.

The Frenchman says, “I find it phenomenal that one can climb in an aircraft in Paris and fly once round the whole world!”

The American says, “I find it phenomenal that one can get in an atomic submarine in the USA, submerge and travel round the whole earth before emerging again in the USA.”

The East Friesian says, “I find my thermos flask phenomenal. In the Summer I fill it with a cold drink and in the evening it is still cold. In the Winter, I fill it with hot tea and in the evening the tea is still warm!”

“But what’s phenomenal about that?” asks the American.

“How does my thermos know whether it is Summer or Winter?”

A Scotsman has invited a French acquaintance for a meal. There is cheese on the table.

“In France one serves the cheese always at the end of the meal, ” explains the Frenchman.

The Scotsman replies, “it’s the same here.”

Two school friends meet each other again after a long time.

“Edith,” says one of them, “you look like there’s been a famine!”

“And you Marga,” retorts Edith, “you look like you are the person responsible.”

Mr Klein comes to the doctor. “Doctor,” he says agitatedly, “something is not right with me! I’ve got pain everywhere. When I press my finger against my belly, it’s painful. When I hold the top of my head, it’s painful. Even when I tap on my leg, it’s painful.”

“No wonder, ” says the doctor after having a quick look. “You have broken your finger.”