I’ve been loathe to talk too much lately about the Eurozone as it’s just too darned depressing.
What with Greece slipping and sliding away, Italy bunga’d out and now France being challenged, it’s just a crazy, crazy moment in history.
There’s even a discussion of the Eurozone disbanding, although officials deny this.
However, in my spirit of fun, I was prompted to find a bunch of European jokes after reading about Silvio Berlusconi:
He became notorious for off-colour jokes, including likening a German member of the European Parliament to a Nazi, accusing communists of boiling children and using them as fertilizer and calling President Barack Obama "suntanned".
While the 75-year-old openly flirted with female heads of state, he showed little talent for diplomacy and left German Chancellor Angela Merkel waiting at a NATO summit in 2009 while he finished a phone-call in front of her.
In a telephone intercept leaked to Italian press earlier this year he described Italy as "a shitty country" and said he could not wait to leave.
His quip to supporters that he should change his party's name to "Go Pussy!" to boost its popularity also fell flat and brought widespread condemnation.
Therefore, keeping up the levity, here are a few more Euro jokes for a frazzled French Friday …
How the European Union works
How the EU works: In Germany, they make the rules, in Britain, they obey the rules, in France, they bend the rules, in Spain, they break the rules, and in Italy they have no rules at all.
Working in Brussels
On a visit to the Headquarters of the European Commission, a visitor noticed that there was a big yellow line painted down the middle of the corridor. "What's that for?" he asked his host. His host replied: "Oh, that's to keep the staff coming in late from colliding with the ones who are leaving early."
European Union
An Englishman, Frenchman, German, Belgian, Italian and Spaniard walk into a pub... and the landlord says: “Is this some kind of joke?”
European Disunity
An Irishman, Greek, Portuguese, Italian and Spaniard walk into a pub... the German pays.
Don’t take the peace
The EU has decided that the British colloquialism “to spend a penny” is no longer correct and must be replaced by the new expression: “to Euronate”.
The European Parliament has decided to change the design of the euro when noticing that the first one was a bit boring and sad. The new design is a stronger and more aggressive one which will make people eager to consume ...
A prize was to be awarded for the first person to discover a horse with black and white stripes like a zebra.
A German, a Frenchman, an Englishman and a Spaniard participated hoping to win the prize of €1 million.
The German decided to spend weeks in the National library researching into horses with black and white stripes. The Englishman went straight to a shop in Piccadilly which specialises in hunting gear, bought all the equipment necessary and set off for Africa in his quest for this strange creature. The Frenchman bought himself a horse and painted it black and white . The Spaniard went to the best restaurant he knew in Madrid, ordered an expensive meal for himself with a fine bottle of wine; after the meal he ordered an expensive Havana cigar and a Napoleon brandy, sat in a luxurious arm-chair in the hotel and began to consider what he would do with the 1,000,000 euros once he had found this remarkable horse with black and whte stripes.
The European Commission has just announced an agreement whereby English will be the official language of the EU rather than German which was the other possibility.
As part of the negotiations, Her Majesty's Government conceded that English spelling had some room for improvement and has accepted a five year phase-in plan that would be known as "Euro-English".
In the first year, "s" will replace the soft "c". Sertainly, this will make the sivil servants jump with joy. The hard "c" will be dropped in favour of the "k". This should klear up konfusion and keyboards kan have 1 less letter.
There will be growing publik enthusiasm in the sekond year, when the troublesome "ph" will be replaced with "f". This will make words like "fotograf" 20% shorter.
In the 3rd year, publik akseptanse of the new spelling kan be ekspekted to reach the stage where more komplikated changes are possible. Governments will enkorage the removal of double letters, which have always ben a deterent to akurate speling. Also, al wil agre that the horible mes of the silent "e"s in the language is disgraseful, and they should go away.
By the fourth year, peopl wil be reseptiv to steps such as replasing "th" with "z" and "w" with "v". During ze fifz year, ze unesesary "o" kan be dropd from vords kontaining "ou" and similar changes vud of kors be aplid to ozer kombinations of leters.
After zis fifz yer, ve vil hav a reli sensibl riten styl. Zer vil be no mor trubl or difikultis and evrivun vil find it ezi to understand ech ozer. Ze drem vil finali kum tru! And zen world!
And one of the oldest jokes …
In Heaven: the cooks are French, the policemen are English, the mechanics are German, the lovers are Italian and the bankers are Swiss.
In Hell: the cooks are English, the policemen are German, the mechanics are French, the lovers are Swiss and the bankers are Italian.
Thanks to the BBC for the unaccredited jokes above.
This is Part Two of a European Joke series. Part One can be found here.
Chris M Skinner
Chris Skinner is best known as an independent commentator on the financial markets through his blog, TheFinanser.com, as author of the bestselling book Digital Bank, and Chair of the European networking forum the Financial Services Club. He has been voted one of the most influential people in banking by The Financial Brand (as well as one of the best blogs), a FinTech Titan (Next Bank), one of the Fintech Leaders you need to follow (City AM, Deluxe and Jax Finance), as well as one of the Top 40 most influential people in financial technology by the Wall Street Journal's Financial News. To learn more click here...
