The World's Funniest Joke

[littleblackduck]

Man dies while laughing in sleep
From correspondents in Bangkok, Thailand
August 21, 2003
AN ice-cream truck driver in Thailand died while laughing in his sleep, a newspaper reported today.

Damnoen Saen-um, 52, laughed for about two minutes on Wednesday and then stopped breathing, The Nation said, quoting officials.

The newspaper said Damnoen's wife tried to wake him up but he kept laughing. An autopsy suggested that he might have had a heart attack, the newspaper quoted a doctor as saying.

"I have never seen a case like this. But it is possible that a person could have heart seizure while laughing or crying too hard in their sleep," said Dr. Somchai Chakrabhand, deputy director-general of the Mental Health Department, according to The Nation.

The incident occurred in Phrae province, 490km north of Bangkok.

 

[littleblackduck]

"Whither Canada?"

The Monty Python episode, "Whither Canada?" is one of my favourites (the other being the "Blancmanges Playing Tennis" sketch.

The title is magnificent: "Whither Canada?", the question that nobody answered. And the name of the writer of the World's Funniest Joke, Ernest Scribbler, remains one of the funniest names this side of Ch. Dickens. (I am also fond of S.J. Perlman, who had a genius for titles and invented names, a favourite being No Sparrow Falls--I forget what state this town was placed in, but it is brilliant).

What was so funny? Alas, we will never know. But at least the world was saved from destruction by the fact that he never woke up and wrote it down.