So Noses at the Ready!

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After a run of serious posts I’ve decided to lighten things up a bit.

Unfortunately, or maybe fortunately for you, my ‘joke folder‘ is currently empty.

So I shall resort to some humour from the past, which has me in stitches, but I suppose many will find silly rather than funny.

The gentleman in question was Billy Bennett.

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Billy Bennett 1887-1942

Bennett was born in 1887 and first became a stand-up comic during the First World War entertaining the troops in the canteens. On leaving the Army he did in fact go on to the Music Hall stage as a soldier act, still wearing khaki in front of the footlights.

This costume was to become more and more ridiculous in its appearance.

He was chiefly famous for his monologues in which he threw common sense overboard so that although extremely silly, they were certainly not predictable or boring.

He would start off with the lines…..

“Friends, Romans, countrymen,

Lend me your ears,

Because I have a story to tell.

Lend me your ears;

If you’ve not got them with you,

You’re noses will do just as well.”

So noses at the ready!

To the bar of a Thousand Flat Ales,

From the ship came a conjuring man;

A Celenese from over the seas,

By the name of Hugh Pi Kan.

In the bar each night, the Chinks he’d delight,

And out of a Chinese caddy,

He’d bring three rabbits (two bucks and a doe),

And he’d ask them to ‘find the lady’.

He’d bring oranges out of his nostrils

And present them as souvenirs;

He’d bring flowers and plants from out of his pants,

And raspberries from out of his ears.

Poor Wong-Wong fell for his magic;

For Hugh Pi Kan’s love she was yearning,

And Uncle Wun-Lung said to Auntie Who-Flung,

“Wong-Wong’s going to take the wrong turning.”

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When the bar was closed and Limehouse dozed,

Uncle watched and Aunt kept nix,

They saw the yong man called Hugh Pi Kan,

Showing Wong-Wong his box of tricks.

With a yell that woke all Limehouse,

Wun-Lung drew his snicker snee;

He stabbed Wong-Wong in her em-bong-pong,

And sliced Pi Kan’s vertebrae.

Then he tied both their pigtails together,

And the pair in the river he threw.

As they floated away tied together,

He sang “I’ll string along with you”.

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All is silent in Limehouse causeway,

There is nothing but pea soup fog,

It’s so thick you can’t see the lamp-posts,

That’s tough luck for a limping dog.

And that is the story of Wong-Wong,

For a floating corpse is she,

With her conjuring man from Suckitan,

Who sailed o’er the Suckitan Sea.

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