Calembourg time

James and Charlotte there with the children and Florence (10) tells a joke, having gone out of the room in order to rehearse it.

‘There’s these three boys in the class called Zipp, Willie and Wee and they’re very badly behaved. When the teacher comes in Zipp is standing on the desk and the other two are playing about so the teacher says, “Zipp, down! Willie out! Wee in the corner!”’

There’s always a credulity threshold in a joke and in this one it’s the likelihood of there being a boy called ‘Wee’. Except, as R. says, these days he could be Chinese.

Alan  Bennett, entrada de diário de 25 de Março de 2005 (do volume Keeping On Keeping On).