Sir Clement Freud has died at the age of 84. As a fan of Just A Minute, I shall miss his wit and humour enormously.
The Telegraph has posted some of his quips, and I like these in particular:
"I used to ask women to come upstairs and have sex, but now it has to be one or the other."
"I think our police are excellent, probably because I have not done anything that has occasioned being beaten up by these good men."
"The Inland Revenue decide to audit Cyril, summon him to their office for an appointment with their most thorough auditor, who is not surprised when Cyril arrives with his solicitor. The auditor says: 'Sir, you cannot deny that you have an extravagant lifestyle, no full-time employment, and pay no taxes on the grounds of your contention that you win money gambling. I have to tell you that Her Majesty's Customs and Excise finds that explanation difficult to believe.'
'I am a great gambler and can prove it,' says Cyril. 'Would you like a demonstration?'
The auditor considers this for a moment and agrees. Cyril says: 'I bet you a thousand pounds I can bite my own eye.' The auditor thinks for a while, finally says: 'It's a bet.'
Cyril removes his glass eye and bites it. The auditor looks sick.
'I'll bet you two thousand pounds that I can bite my other eye,' says Cyril. The auditor can tell Cyril isn't blind, so he accepts the bet. Cyril removes his false teeth and bites the good eye.
The stunned auditor now realises he has bet and lost £3,000, with Cyril's solicitor as a witness; he gets very nervous. 'Double or nothing?' Cyril says. 'I'll bet you six thousand pounds that I can stand on the righthand side of your desk and p**s into the bin on the far side without getting one drop anywhere between.'
The auditor, twice burned, is cautious now but examines the proposal carefully. Cyril is not a tall man, the desk is eight foot wide; he decides there is simply no way Cyril could do that, so he agrees again.
Cyril stands at the side of the desk, unzips his trousers, strains for all he is worth but cannot make the stream reach the bin on the far side, and finishes up having urinated pretty well all over the auditor's desk. The auditor leaps with joy, realising that he has just turned a major loss into a sizeable win, then notices that Cyril's solicitor is moaning, with his head in his hands. 'Are you okay?' asks the auditor.
'Not really,' says the solicitor. 'This morning, when Cyril told me he had been summoned to this audit, he bet me £20,000 that he could come in here, p**s all over your desk and you would be happy about it . . . and I took the bet.'"
RIP Clement, and thanks for the laughs.
Topic: Sir Clement Freud (Read 907 times)