That'll be the trail of pollen that she leaves wherever she goes...

[snorgle] OK, but I promise you it wasn't worth the wait.

A man goes into a pet shop and buys a hamster -- but by the time he gets home, it's dead. Outraged, he returns to the shop.

"You're quite right," says the shopkeeper, "that's completely unacceptable. I'll be happy to give you a new one but we're out of stock until Monday. Come back then." The man looks so thoroughly downhearted that the shopkeeper decides to do him a favour. "Look, I know it sounds strange but here's a trick to cheer yourself up. Take your late hamster home, put him in the blender, then take the resulting puree and spread it on your garden."

"Do what?" says the horrified customer.

"Puree the hamster, spread it on your garden. Honestly. Next morning you won't believe your eyes: the whole garden will be a carpet of flowers as far as the eye can see, so beautiful that you'll feel much better."

The man is doubtful, but he goes home and does what the shopkeeper said. Lo and behold, next morning his garden is blooming with daffodils as far as the eye can see, and all day he has a spring in his step!

Come Monday, he's back to the shop to pick up his new pet and he says to the proprietor "You know, I had my doubts about what you said, but it worked, it was amazing! Daffodils as far as the eye could see!"

"Daffodils?" comes the reply. "Daffodils? You usually get tulips from hamster jam!"

[matt] I'm glad it wasn't the one involving sellotape.

Or the one involving the S&M club.

Well done, matt. I have to say it's essentially the same joke as the one I know, but it's only about a quarter of the length, so it's a good job they asked you rather than me!

I know we've declared a bit of a moratorium on this kind of thing but COME ON TIM!!

thank you! does anyone know if there is a real punchline to that chain letter joke about the old lady and the pet food?

rab]Lisa is on a very sticky wicket as she has to make an immediate impression with the public and the housemates. She has certainly rattled their cages and under Cameroon's skin, and she will almost certainly be up for eviction next week, hopefully up against Cammeroon. If that were the case he should go, to build the tension further between the remaining players. But nothing really can rescue this series.

A linguistics professor was lecturing to his class one day.
"In English" he said, "a double negative forms a positive. In some languages, such as Russian, a double negative is still a negative. However, there is no language wherein a double positive can form a negative."

A voice from the back of the room piped up, "Yeah, right."

What's big and steaming and comes out of cows backwards?

The Isle of Wight ferry

(cows/Cowes, you see)

How to you get two whales in a mini?

Down the M4.

What do you call a bear with no ears.

A b.

[Inkspot] If I can divert the subject from bad jokes for a minute, what makes a series of Big Brother good or bad? What is a "good" contestant (from the point of view of the people who watch it, rather than the producers)? On what grounds do people vote for someone to be evicted? In other words, how does the whole thing work?

One scoop of ice cream, two scoops of dead baby.

Good contestants are those who cause conflict in the house, or stimulate responses in the other housemates. The problem with this series is that everyone gets on with each other too well, and there isn't any conflict, whereas last year, the final four contestants could hardly stand the sight of each other by the end. (Except Kate and Jonny.) And they still had to put on a show of liking each other as they wanted to win the prize, which made it all the more interesting. But it's impossible to guarantee conflict in the house. No-one would have guessed Alex would start sounding off about cleanliness the way he did, or that Jade would start backstabbing everyone. Conversely, they put Scott, Jon, Justine and Cameron together as they're all team leaders, and leaders normally make themselves unpopular - but none of them even tried to lead, except Jon, who's now gone. In fact, since he and Fed left, I've hardly watched the show at all.

The last two years (didn't watch series 1 from the outset, thinking it all a waste of time... my opinion hasn't necessarily changed, although my avidness has) there was a ruckus from pretty much the outset. For example last year Alex got upset at someone nicking a sausage that he quite fancied; the year before Penny was so barking she immediately managed to get peoples' backs up. Also, last year they had several gimmicks to spice things up: the rich-poor divide coupled with extremely arbitrary ways of deciding who would be on which side (e.g. scoring baskets). However these proved unnecessary as the contestants themselves provided enough agro to go round. I feel that this year's contestants with last year's set-up, or vice versa, might have been more fun to watch. The thing is, I think the format has now passed its peak: quite simply, people have wised up to how to play the game. You can reach the final stage by just not being nominated by your housemates which just means keeping your head down and not antagonising anyone. Of course, the housemates could wise up and start nominating the boring people rather than the antagonistic ones. But this would only work if everyone did it, so probably wouldn't be considered an optimal strategy from a game-theoretic point-of-view. Err, that's rather a lot isn't it. I note that the covers have come off at Wimbledon so maybe we'll see some tennis today after all.

I agree that it is the tension and flare ups that make BB worth watching and the indicator of peoples interest in the Friday 'exit' poll. A low count is not good for the producers as they get a large slice of the cost of the call, there is now the prospect of a low turn out for the rest of the series and a lack lustre last week. The cause for me is the voting system, they need to change the rules so that anyone that is nominated is up for eviction, and let the public really decide who goes.
Any formal warning to one housemate should be passed on with all housemates being penalised (bring back the cold outside shower!), they could take a leaf or two from BBAfrica with a single basic bedroom for all 12.

Just heard "Henman needs to thrust himself in the face of Grosjean and say .... 'Beat Me!'

Obviously his advice wasn't heeded. Henman's out [quelle surprise!].

I thought he would be. The match followed almost exactly the same pattern - in terms of points scored and rain breaks - as that which ended similarly against Ivanisevic in 2001.

I just got some new specs and it now feels funny with them on and even funnier with them off. I'm sure I'll get used to it and stop walking into things soon.