I don't know about you, but in the strange world of coronavirus lockdown my friends are taking a break from playing Solitaire and old Beatles records and are instead sending jokes by e-mail. Every day my inbox has a fresh stack of material sent from all over the world. Some of it is quite brilliantly clever as well as being very funny. My particular thanks to Mim McCune, Nicole and Christian Pigeon, Rossie Seale and my daughter Tamara for contributing mightily to what follows. It's there for sharing, so here goes ...
This next video attracted the comment that it rose above a simple internet joke and became art. I agree. It was originally launched as DRUNK TRUMP TALKS MEDICINE. If there was an Oscar for best female star in a short film, I think Kylie Scott would win in a walk with this dazzling bit of lip-sync, plus a superb performance as a drunken woman in a night club. A second Oscar might go to her left index finger, which acts up a storm.
This video went viral, particularly in Germany. It's had some 85 million views including over 9 million on YouTube alone. It was even suggested that it might turn out to be the most important contribution yet to American politics from that very political folk singer Pete Seeger. It was launched under the title THE LIAR TWEETS TONIGHT and is the work of Roy Zimmerman and the ReZisters, with support from the Raging Grannies of Mendocino. It's worth listening to one of the original Weavers versions of Wimoweh, with Pete Seeger as lead singer, to appreciate just what a brilliant parody this is.
This next one isn't exactly coronavirus-related but it's very funny, especially if you're a Dad-who-cooks ...
Back to coronavirus. When Puccini wrote the opera Turandot all those years ago, he could scarcely have guessed what would happen to the aria Nessun dorma ('No one sleeps'). First the BBC hijacked it as the title theme for its coverage of the 1990 Football World Cup in Italy. As sung by Luciano Pavarotti for the BBC, it is credited with triggering a world revival of classical music. And now this. Our hero is Daniel Emmett, of America's Got Talent fame. He wrote the new lyrics and sings all the parts.
Finally, this one comes into the category of Only In America and my American friends would probably tell me it falls into that special sub-category Only In New York. It will undoubtedly be taken up by professors of retail studies around the world as a pretty good example of how not to attract customers ...
