‘Steal my thunder!’
John Dennis, a seventeenth century playwright and critic invented a new method of simulating the sound of thunder on stage and used it in his own unsuccessful play Appius and Virginia. The play closed after a short run but soon after he attended a performance of Macbeth by a rival company and discovered they had poached his thunder effect. He cursed them, exclaiming, ‘They will not let my play run but they steal my thunder!’
‘Hair of the dog’
In the sixteenth century it was believed that the best remedy for a dog bite was to bind a few hairs from the offending dog to the wound. By the nineteenth century it had extended to alcohol. A drop of what you had drank the night before would cure a hangover.
The sky-diving instructor wanted his fledgling parachutists to learn to dive at night so he chose one with a full moon. They all wore regulation attire including helmets with strobe lights to help them to see after they landed. Having touched down in a field they headed towards a nearby track and flagged down a car. The woman driver was alarmed.
‘Excuse me, Madam,’ said Jack, ‘Can you tell me where we are?’
Taking in the whole scene, the woman declared, ‘Earth!’ and then sped off as fast as she could.
Arriving home a man finds his pregnant wife in labour, so he quickly phones the hospital.
‘My wife is having contractions and they’re only two minute apart. Tell me what I should do!’
‘Is this her first child?’
‘No, you fool,’ he answered. ‘This is her husband!’
A man approaches an attractive lady in a supermarket.
‘I can’t find my wife,’ he explains. ‘May I talk with you for a few minutes?’
‘Certainly. But why?’
‘Every time I talk to a beautiful woman, my wife appears out of nowhere!’
‘What’s for lunch, darling?’ he asks her as she labours in the garden.
‘Whatever you prepare!’ she answered brusquely. ‘Imagine I were dead. What would you do then?’
An hour later she calls to him inside the house, to ask how he’s getting on with the meal preparation.
‘Oh, fine,’ he replied. ‘I had a lovely salad.’
‘What about me?’
‘Oh, I thought you were dead!’
The patient was talking to his psychiatrist. ‘I’m having so many problems, I don’t know where to begin!’
‘I suggest you start at the beginning’.
‘Oh all right then. In the beginning, I created Earth.’