An Evening with Johnners (16 page)

N
ow, the other thing they do is send me stories and, as you know, I’m a sucker for stories. They send me stupid riddles: ‘Ask Fred what animal he would like to be if he was standing naked in a snow storm.’

‘I don’t know, Johnners. What animal would I like to be?’

‘The answer is: a little ’otter!’

They send terrible jokes: ‘What’s a Frenchman called if he’s shot out of a cannon?’

‘I don’t know, Johnners.’

‘Napoleon Blownapart!’

‘Who was the ice-cream man in the Bible?’

‘No idea.’

‘Walls of Jericho!’

Someone rang in and said, ‘What about Lyons of Judah?’

T
hey told me a marvellous story last year, which I enjoyed: There was a lady driving up the M1 – in the middle lane, seventy miles an hour – but knitting at the same time as she was driving. Very difficult. And sure enough, ‘
weeh, wah, weeh, wah
’, a police car drew alongside her in the outside lane.

A policeman unwound his window and said, ‘Pull over!’

‘No,’ she said. ‘A pair of socks!’

T
hen they told me about the whale, who was swimming along in the Atlantic when he saw his friend the squid, and said, ‘Hello, squid. How are you?’

‘Ooh, I’m not feeling at all well,’ said the squid. ‘I’m very ill, not well at all.’

So the whale said, ‘Well, get on my back and we’ll go and see my friend the octopus.’

They swam along, the squid on the whale’s back, and they came to the octopus’ house and the octopus said, ‘Hello, whale, how are you?’

‘I’m fine,’ said the whale. ‘I’ve brought that
sick squid
I owe you!’

T
hey told me about the tramp who went to knock on a very imposing house door. A lady came to the door and said, ‘What do you want, my man?’

He said, ‘I’m very hungry, ma’am. I’d like something to eat.’

‘Certainly,’ she said. ‘Do you like cold rice pudding?’

‘Yes, ma’am, I do.’

‘Well, come back tomorrow,’ she said. ‘It’s still hot!’

A
man went into a pub with a newt on his shoulder and the landlord said, ‘That’s a nice newt. Who does it belong to?’

The chap said, ‘It belongs to me.’

So the landlord said, ‘What do you call it?’

‘I call it Tiny.’

‘Why?’

‘Because it’s
my newt
!

A
nother one!

A man went into a pub and he had a white mouse. He said to the landlord, ‘This is an incredible white mouse.’

The landlord said, ‘Why?’

‘He can play the piano.’

‘Don’t be stupid,’ said the landlord.

‘He can,’ he said. ‘You try him out.’

So he put the mouse down at the pub piano and it tore off a bit of Rachmaninov and some Bach and was absolutely brilliant.

‘That’s fine,’ said the landlord. ‘I’ll give you fifty quid for him. He can entertain the customers.’

So the man went away and came back the next day with another white mouse. The landlord said, ‘Well, what can this one do?’

He said, ‘This mouse sings.’

‘I don’t believe that,’ said the landlord. ‘No mouse can sing.’

‘Well, you try it.’

There was the other white mouse playing piano, so they put this little mouse alongside the first one and they went through all the Lloyd Webber songs together and sang them beautifully.

The landlord said, ‘That’s incredible. I’ll give you fifty quid for him too.’

Next morning the man arrived again and the landlord said, ‘What have you got for me today?’

The chap said, ‘Nothing. My conscience is pricking me. You know that mouse I brought you yesterday that I said could sing?’

‘Yes, certainly,’ said the landlord. ‘He’s very good.’

‘No, he isn’t,’ said the man, ‘the first mouse is a ventriloquist!’

S
o these letters keep me in touch with the young, which I think is great.

Now you can learn an awful lot from cricket. I’ve learnt a tremendous amount and I’ll give you some examples. The first example concerns a loveable character and it’s to do with drink. It’s always dangerous drinking and, in my job, you shouldn’t have too much. Although I am very much in favour of drink, because I think it is sociable, but you mustn’t have too much.

Of course, this applies to cricket and dear old ‘Hopper’ Levett – W.H.V. Levett. I’m sure most of you know this story, but I love telling it.

‘Hopper’ Levett, a great wicket-keeper, kept wicket once for England against India, but mainly he used to keep for Kent when Les Ames or Godfrey Evans were playing for England. A very good wicket-keeper indeed, he stood up marvellously on the leg side. A great chap. He liked a glass of beer and I think he still does, and he smokes a foul-smelling pipe, but he’s a lovely person.

One night, in 1947, he did have rather a heavy night and the next morning he had a most ghastly hangover. He went into the Kent dressing room and they helped him on with his socks and his boots, his pads, his box and his shirt. Kent were fielding, so they pushed him out on to the field, and a young Kent bowler called Harding – who sadly died, I think, shortly after – quite a fast bowler, was bowling.

So they put Levett down eighteen yards behind the stumps. He got down – he couldn’t get any lower, his head was throbbing – and the first ball went
pheewww
past his right ear. He hadn’t moved. Four byes. The next one went
pheewww
past his left ear. Four byes. That’s eight byes in two balls and he hadn’t moved.

The third ball, though, was outside the leg stump and the batsman reached forward and got an outside edge. The ball went very low on the leg side and old ‘Hopper’ took off and held a most brilliant catch, inches from the ground.

He threw the ball up in the air, went across to the slips and said, ‘Do you know, gentlemen, I think that’s the first time I’ve ever caught a batsman off the first ball of the day!’

N
ow I have checked that story with ‘Hopper’ and he says there’s a
basis
of truth in it!

Anyhow, I think an awful lot of rot is talked about drink. A chap went to a temperance meeting the other day and a man was talking about the dangers of drink. He got two glasses and put water in one, whisky in another. Then he got some worms, put them in the glass of water, and they swam around and had a lovely time.

He got some other worms and put them in the whisky, and they shrivelled up and died at the bottom of the glass. He held this glass of whisky up to the chap in the front row and said, ‘What, sir, is the conclusion you draw from that?’

The chap thought for a moment, and then said, ‘If you’ve got worms, drink whisky!’