You must be crackers

I read today that Brits had been voting in a survey to find Britain’s worst cracker joke. “Well no one asked me to vote,” I thought, slightly huffily, until I discovered that the survey was conducted by Nuts magazine.

According to 200 of their ‘readers’ (if I may use that description here), the top 10 worst jokes are:

1) What is Santa’s favourite pizza? One that’s deep pan, crisp and even
2) On which side do chickens have most feathers? On the outside
3) What kind of paper likes music? (W)rapping paper
4) What’s white and goes up? A confused snowflake
5) What do you call a woman who stands between two goal posts? Annette
6) Did you hear about the man who bought a paper shop? It blew away.
7) What’s furry and minty? A polo bear
8) How do snowmen get around? They ride an icicle
9) Who hides in the bakery at Christmas? A mince spy!
10) What do you call a penguin in the Sahara desert? Lost

To most people, I imagine that getting these jokes is not too much of a challenge, but just in case you are struggling to find the mirth in the top joke, Andrew Linn, who is a Professor of Linguistics at the University of Sheffield, is available for comment:

“The essence of a fine joke is clever and original use of language, often exploiting some sort of ambiguity. This joke has been voted the worst Christmas cracker joke because it is almost too clever. It uses ambiguity in how the words are put together (deep (p)an’) as well as contextual ambiguity (pizzas and a Christmas carol). In short, once you get it, it’s a real groaner!”

Once you get it? How long does he think it takes to work it out? Professor Linn is clearly no joker, but I think he might be crackers…