Edinburgh Fringe Top Jokes 2018

1. Working at the JobCentre has to be a tense job - knowing that if you get fired, you still have to come in the next day.
(Adam Rowe)

2. I had a job drilling holes for water - it was well boring. (Leo Kearse)

3. I took out a loan to pay for an exorcism. If I don't pay it back, I'm going to get repossessed. (Olaf Falafel)

4. In my last relationship, I hated being treated like a piece of meat. She was a vegan and refused to touch me. (Daniel Audritt)

5. What do colour blind people do when they are told to eat their greens? (Flo & Joan)

6. I've got a new job collecting all the jumpers left in the park at the weekends, but it's not easy. They keep moving the goalposts. (Darren Walsh)

7. Trump said he'd build a wall but he hasn't even picked up a brick. He's just another middle-aged man failing on a DIY project. (Justin Moorhouse)

=8. I lost a friend after we had an argument about the Tardis. I thought it was a little thing, but it seemed much bigger once we got into it. (Adele Cliff)

=8. Why are they calling it Brexit and not The Great British Break Off? (Alex Edelman)

10. I think love is like central heating. You turn it on before guests arrive and pretend it's like this all the time. (Laura Lexx)

First two ok. Well No 1 is good but the rest..... Well there are better joke writers on this forum.

Yes, not as good a# previous years. I liked the goal post jumpers one.

I'm glad I don't pay fortunes to go there. Some are embarrassing attempts at modern conversational humour. Cringe. 1 2 and 3 are the nearest to genuine jokes but 2 is as old as the hills how on earth anyone today can think they originated that is mind boggling.

And anyone doing Trump jokes should have their comedy license revoked. How easy do they want it?

It always surprises me how many fascinating issues there are, and then cheesy puns get all the cred.
2 is the kind of joke you'd make up alone and then find someone else had 6354 years before. Years ago I had a gag on local radio: 'I can't get water out of a hole. Well out of order.'
I once wrote, 'My only friend is my claclulator. It's all I can count on.' It was pointed out to me that Ken Dodd had been using the same line since the 70s (well not just that one. He had others too)... In the end I kept it in cos I'd devised it independently so technically it wasn't joke theft.

Quote: Billy Bunter @ 20th August 2018, 5:45 PM

1. Working at the JobCentre has to be a tense job - knowing that if you get fired, you still have to come in the next day.
(Adam Rowe)

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I don't understand where the tension comes in. Surely, it would be better to say it's the most ironic job in the world?

Quote: Billy Bunter @ 20th August 2018, 5:45 PM

2. I had a job drilling holes for water - it was well boring. (Leo Kearse)

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That's a decent joke, actually, but I bet countless other comedians have come up with it independently over the years.

Quote: Billy Bunter @ 20th August 2018, 5:45 PM

3. I took out a loan to pay for an exorcism. If I don't pay it back, I'm going to get repossessed. (Olaf Falafel)

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That's a very good joke, but it's not even remotely new or original.

Quote: Billy Bunter @ 20th August 2018, 5:45 PM

4. In my last relationship, I hated being treated like a piece of meat. She was a vegan and refused to touch me. (Daniel Audritt)

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That's a good joke. It's modern, funny and I haven't heard it before.

Quote: Billy Bunter @ 20th August 2018, 5:45 PM

5. What do colour blind people do when they are told to eat their greens? (Flo & Joan)

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It's amusing, but I bet several thousand children at primary school have all come up with it independently in the past.

Quote: Billy Bunter @ 20th August 2018, 5:45 PM

6. I've got a new job collecting all the jumpers left in the park at the weekends, but it's not easy. They keep moving the goalposts. (Darren Walsh)

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The joke doesn't work, because if people kept moving the left-behind jumpers (goalposts), it wouldn't make it any more difficult to pick them up just because they weren't in the places in which they'd originally been left.

Quote: Billy Bunter @ 20th August 2018, 5:45 PM

. 7. Trump said he'd build a wall but he hasn't even picked up a brick. He's just another middle-aged man failing on a DIY project. (Justin Moorhouse)

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That joke Is a total fail. Trump never promised to build the wall personally and work on the wall has been ongoing ever since his election.

Quote: Billy Bunter @ 20th August 2018, 5:45 PM

=8. I lost a friend after we had an argument about the Tardis. I thought it was a little thing, but it seemed much bigger once we got into it. (Adele Cliff)

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That's pretty good, but very similar jokes have been doing the rounds since the early 1960s.

Quote: Billy Bunter @ 20th August 2018, 5:45 PM

=8. Why are they calling it Brexit and not The Great British Break Off? (Alex Edelman)

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That's okay. It references current affairs and a hugely popular TV show and it's a decent play on words.

A lot of very poor puns on this list. And I love puns, Tim Vine, Gary Delaney et al are fantastic, but it's noticeable the dip in quality, whenever Tim Vine wins, the pun is always from left field. And the job centre one, countless examples have been posted from Twitter going back years. I think the best jokes are always within the context of a show.

Quote: Billy Bunter @ 20th August 2018, 5:45 PM

10. I think love is like central heating. You turn it on before guests arrive and pretend it's like this all the time. (Laura Lexx)

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This is a superb joke worthy of any one of the world's great comedians. The fact that it isn't number one in the list demonstrates the colossal gulf between my take on comedy and that of the judges.

3 and 10 are my favourites.

The job centre one has potential but the wording could be improved. What if the employee lives in another town because that would mean they go to a different job centre the next day? Or what if they get sacked on a Friday so they can't go in until Monday? Or what if they choose to not claim any entitlements while unemployed or use the job search facilities so don't need to go to the job centre?

I think my joke would have got 1st place. What do you call a Tennis player that talks to cakes? Martina Natterstoapavalova.

Quote: Billy Bunter @ 20th August 2018, 5:45 PM

2. I had a job drilling holes for water - it was well boring. (Leo Kearse)

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Quote: Rood Eye @ 22nd August 2018, 11:30 AM

That's a decent joke, actually, but I bet countless other comedians have come up with it independently over the years.

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Except, of course, "well" is not, strictly speaking, an adverb and, until very recently, would never have been used as such.

Quote: Billy Bunter @ 22nd August 2018, 7:54 PM

Except, of course, "well" is not, strictly speaking, an adverb and, until very recently, would never have been used as such.

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Hey, be fair Billy!

I said I bet countless other comedians have come up that joke independently over the years, not over the centuries.

The use of "well" to modify an adjective in that way was certainly common in Britain among Rastafarian types and their imitators in the latter part of the 20th century and became relatively widespread among wannabe-cool youngsters with the televisual advent of Ali G in 1998.

Given that its use can easily be traced back at least 20 years (and no doubt much further with a little effort), I would have been correct even if I'd said that other comedians have probably come up with the joke independently over the decades.

All in all, therefore, I think that my original proposition was well reasonable.

.. or indeed, if your timeline is correct, "over the centuries".

My point was not meant to be a criticism of your comment but of the ugly corruption of the English language.

I first heard the job centre gag about five years ago in a Working Men's Club.I think Tank Sherman, can't be totally sure.I'm sure it's a case of two people writing the same gag but I never saw it winning an award, so well done anyway.

As for the critique of gags,it's so subjective I don't see the point.One comedian's death is another's gold, depending on the delivery and the crowd.