The BIg Issue.

I do a joke about the big issue which ends;

"when they were just begging I'd feel a bit guilty walking past, now, they're just poorly stocked news-agents - I feel quite justified in taking my custom elsewhere."

I'm starting to wonder if this is acceptable. I've done this at the Cumberland Arms home-cooking night and it's got a big laugh - and that's a fairly hippy dippy place, with more than its fair share of poets, social workers, vegetarians and other left wing stereo types.

But maybe if it was on the radio there'd still be letters in from workers at shelter, or someone who sold enough big issues to buy a suit and got a job. I'm being too sensitive now, that last line looks like a piss-take even though i came up with it trying to think of a typical big issue success story.

The truth is, as I say in the joke, I do like the big issue - at least in theory. The philosophy behind it is that instead of begging, which by definition puts you at a lower status than people who give you the money, they become sellers of a valuable commodity which we actively want to buy. This point is in there - it's just that because it's a joke it has to end negatively.

Here's a joke.
"I had a bad stomach yesterday, I was straining away and finnaly, woosh, all over the place. And then I got off the bus."
(I didn't say it was good.)

Now try this.
"I was doing some DIY, a bit of plumbing. I'm not qualified but it was a simple job so I just had a bash, and now those women don't have to walk 8 miles for water."

Is that funny? No. Well, maybe in a post modern* sense. You can pull back to reveal a situation or behaviour is actually much worse, but it doesn't work when it turn out to be much better. So I'd like to end my joke like this;

"when they were just begging I'd feel a bit guilty giving them money and implicitly stating my social superiority, now, they're just well stocked news-agents - I feel quite justified in making a transaction between equals without the stigma of charity."

But it wouldn't be as funny.


NEXT GIG:

TUESDAY 21ST OF MARCH. 8.00.
THE SECOND NIGHT OF 'LONG LIVE COMEDY'
THE DOG AND PARROT (UPSTAIRS)
-OPPOSITE THE CENTRE FOR LIFE, 2 MINS FROM CENTRAL STATION.
ONLY £2.

*whatever the fuck is meant by a phrase which appears to mean 'after now'.