This blog is primarily about a joke of mine that worked! However, to complete the picture I have added some background material from the sixteenth century.

I have been telling jokes since I was a small child, indeed clowning was one of the few things I did well. Over the years, most of my jokes have been made in private with family, friends or colleagues. These days, as an inveterate social chatterer, I am also happy to make jokes in public with complete strangers. My joke this time was made in a crowded underground train.

In making jokes, more especially repartee, there is always a risk. Spontaneity gives little time to think, and whether a decision to make the joke is right and causes laughter, depends on experience plus a ‘gut’ feeling. Not surprisingly, things can also go very wrong with ‘jokes’ received in silence or, even worse with hurt; responses that make me feel embarrassed and ashamed. The problem is that it is not till after the joke has been made that I discover whether my judgement was sound. In this joke, the repartee was more successful than I could have hoped.

I was hurrying home after a trip to central London. On the train, Richmond was a good 30 minutes away and with aching legs I very much needed to sit down. After entering the train, I could see that my carriage was packed. I made my way slowly up the passageway searching, hoping against hope, for a seat. Finally, at the end of a run of around 20 occupied seats, a woman called out to tell me that a man standing near the door through which I had just entered was offering me his place. 

With great relief, I worked my way back and as I sat down, I thanked him enormously for his kindness. Then I asked how he knew I needed a seat to which he replied “Simple, I just guessed”. He then asked why I had not taken up his offer earlier. I responded by asking how I could have known of his offer, to which he replied that as I went by he had said “Excuse me”. I told him that I had indeed heard those words but walked on: “I thought that you had farted”.

The response to my comment was overwhelming – my kind man, together with all those seated around, broke as one into hoots of laughter; there was even some applause. My repartee was clearly loud enough to be widely heard; even the glum duo opposite could not suppress a guffaw!

The scene in the underground had me smiling for days and, steeped in its memory, I found myself thinking of a celebrated comment about a similar topic made by a grandee of the sixteenth century.

The grandee in question was Queen Elizabeth I, with whom I have two things in common. First, we share a love of Richmond. I have lived in Richmond for over thirty years and moving here was one of the best things we did and leaving is now unthinkable. As for Elizabeth I, throughout her reign she spent months on end in her palace in Richmond, which she referred to as her “Warm winter box”. She even chose to die in a room in the Palace from where she could overlook the Thames. 

Second, it was she who made the particular comment. The seventeenth century diarist John Aubrey wrote in his Brief Lives: “ The Earle of Oxford, making of his low obeisance to Queen Elizabeth, happened to let a Fart, at which he was so abashed and ashamed that he went to travel for 7 years. On his return the Queen welcomed him home, and said, My Lord, I had forgot the Fart.”

Here, in her seven words was the cleverest of repartees. In telling the perpetrator she had forgotten the event, while indicating that she actually recalled it precisely, she delivered the harshest of put downs. Elizabeth I loved words, here she was at her mischievous best. 

As I see it, farting is one of the funniest of bodily functions. Certainly it is loved by children and also, it would appear, by a large section of those adults in an underground carriage. Perhaps it is thanks to Elizabeth I that we are nowadays permitted to speak about it.  Oh, the enduring power of Royalty!

The illustration is a painting of Elizabeth I when she would have been around 20 years old.

For helping me write this blog I would like to thank Sarah, Alan, Anne-Marie, Rohan and Vivien.