[UPDATE: I’ve been told that the following collection of gags originally appeared in a letter to The Independent. This explains why I haven’t seen it before 😉 .]

Steve K is back at God Save The Queen. He has some serious reflections on serious things he saw at the Edinburgh Festival. Meanwhile, here at PooterGeek, I link to a collection of Fringe one-liners posted at The Motley Fool. Here are my faves:

Colin & Fergus at the Pleasance:

“Dodo died, Dodi died, Di died, Dando died… Surely Dido’s looking a bit worried.”

Ahmed Ahmed at C34:

“I went to the airport to check in and they asked what I did because I looked like a terrorist. I said I was a comedian. They said, “Say something funny then.” I told them I had just graduated from flying school”

Jimmy Carr at the International Conference Centre:

“A lady with a clipboard stopped me in the street the other day. She said, ‘Can you spare a few minutes for cancer research?’ I said, ‘All right, but we won’t get much done.'”

Karl Spain at the Gilded Balloon:

“I joined a dating agency and went out on a load of dates that didn’t work out. And I went back to the woman who ran the agency and said: ‘Have you not got somebody on your books who doesn’t care about how I look or what job I have and has a nice big pair of boobs?’ And she checked on her computer and said: ‘Actually, we have one, but unfortunately, it’s you.'”

Patrick Monahan at the Gilded Balloon:

“My dad is Irish and my mum is Iranian, which meant that we spent most of our family holidays in Customs.”

Jimmy Carr at the International Conference Centre:

“My dad’s dying wish was to have his family around him. I can’t help thinking he would have been better off with more oxygen.”

Rhod Gilbert at the Tron:

“When I was in prison I played football for the stalkers. We weren’t bad players but when one of us would go for the ball, we’d all go. There was no one looking for space.”

Steven Alan Green at C34:

“A dog goes into a hardware store and says: ‘I’d like a job please’. The hardware store owner says: ‘We don’t hire dogs, why don’t you go join the circus?’ The dog replies: ‘Well, what would the circus want with a plumber’.”

Ahmed Ahmed at C34:

“An American girl hit on me in a club and asked me to make her an Egyptian princess. So I threw a sheet over her head and told her to be quiet.”

Colin Ramone at The Stand:

“Ask people about God nowadays and they usually reply, ‘I’m not religious, but deep down, I’m a very spiritual person.’ What this phrase really means is: ‘I’m afraid of dying, but I can’t be arsed going to church.'”