If you have a joke or a daft tale that might even possibly be both funny and true – please submit it to ranterseditor@gmail.com
Please do NOT send the one about the interview at the Wailing Wall.
[Contributors: Eddie Rawlinson, John Edwards, Revel Barker, Peter Morris.]
The Crown and Kettle, Ancoats where many of the famous - Annie Leslie, George Gale, Peter Dacre among them - have stood, had three entrances, all visible from the bar.
I witnessed this and many not there claim the same... I’ve also heard it told as a joke.
Charlie the landlord was like a protective goose to the staff of the Daily Express as it was a wino's route to Yates' Wine Lodge.
One day Charlie saw an old drunk about to enter the door on Oldham Street,
and was there in advance to turn him round and send him on his way. Charlie watched the drunk’s progress as he passed the windows.
The guy made his way to Ancoats street and Charlie again was ready to meet him as he tried for the second time to get into the pub. Same procedure.
He then arrived at the third door where he found Charlie waiting and before he was barred for the third time greeted the landlord with the words: ‘How many fucking pubs have you got in Ancoats?’
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Pat Doncaster, wonderful old showbusiness editor of the sixties Mirror was a pal of Tommy Cooper. I went for a drink with them once at the Piccadilly Hotel. Tommy got half pissed, called for his new Jag to be brought from the car park to the front door and intended to drive us all to Thames TV HQ in Euston.
He turned left down Piccadilly, then sharp left into Swallow Street which connects with Regent Street.
It’s one way. We were going the wrong way.
We got about 15 yards into Swallow Street and stopped with traffic coming against us.
Moments into this scene there arrived a cop. He obviously knew who Cooper was and tapped the window.
‘Mr Cooper, can you tell me where you think you are going?’
Cooper looked at him a bit dazed but didn’t take three seconds to reply: ‘I don’t know officer, but we’re obviously too late because they’re all coming back.’
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A female witness, giving evidence at Leeds Crown Court in a case of sexual assault, was asked to repeat what the accused man had said to her. She told the QC that she could not bring herself to mouth the words, so was invited to write them down and handed a piece of paper and a pen.
She wrote: ‘I am going to give you a right good shagging, later tonight.’
The paper was then passed to the judge, then to counsel for the prosecution and the defence, and eventually to the jury who passed it along their two rows of seats. A woman juror, in the back corner of the jury box, had nodded off in the heat of the courtroom and was therefore oblivious to what was currently happening in the trial. She was suddenly woken by a nudge from the man sitting beside her as he handed her the note which she read, refolded, and placed in her handbag.
The judge told her: ‘Madam, you have just been handed a piece of paper. Would you please give it to the clerk so that he can pass it to me?’
‘Ooh, no,’ she said. ‘I couldn’t possibly let you see it. It was personal.’
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A photographer for CNN was assigned to cover southern California’s wildfires. He wanted pictures of the heroic work the fire-fighters were doing as they battled the blazes. When the photographer arrived on the scene, he realized that the smoke was so thick it would seriously impede, or even make impossible, his getting good photographs from the ground level.
He got permission from his boss to rent a plane and take photos from the air and used his cell phone to call the local county airport to charter a flight.
He was told a single engine plane would be waiting for him at the airport.
Arriving at the airfield, he spotted a plane warming up outside a hanger. He jumped in with his bag, slammed the door shut, and shouted, ‘Let’s go!’
The pilot taxied out, swung the plane into the wind and roared down the runway.
Once in the air, the photographer instructed the pilot: ‘Fly down the valley and make two or three low passes over the fires on the hillsides.’
‘Why?’ asked the pilot.
‘Because I’m a photographer for CNN,’ he said. ‘And I need to get some close-up shots.’
The pilot was strangely silent for a moment. Finally he spoke: ‘So, what you’re telling me is... you’re NOT my new flight instructor?’
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