Fish n clips

As if you needed more proof that the West Country were pun fiends, my friend Lee emailed me last night to share a pun he caught while on the National Express back from Cornwall. He reckons this hairdressers is somewhere between Newquay and Taunton:



That's some quick-fingered snaring there. Let that be a lesson to those of you who said "I couldn't get a photo for you, but I'll try". Listen to Yoda, yeah? Bet he'd bag me some good'uns.

Now that's good, but Lee's also attached this beauty, which I think does 'eclipse' his other effort, spotted in Croyden while car shopping:



I particularly enjoyed this given I was nicknamed Prawn for a long old time when I was younger. There were a few animal related nicknames banded about in my group of friends. I got Prawn purely because it rhymes with Sean. I think this adequately illustrates the extent of their imagination.

Croyde rage

Hiya! Sorry I've been away for a while, but the missus and I have spent the last few days down in Devon having a "bit of a relax". It was lovely, thanks for asking.

And what made it even nicer was that the people of Croyde love a good pun. We found five while we were down there.. More than one a day! Let's all applaud the West Country.

This one was in a little gallery come nic-nac shop where I purchased a cheap bodyboard which I managed to single-handedly destroy with my overly muscular physique in one session. It was a tiny sign on a hand made birdhouse which hung in the front window:



Ah, that's cute. You can tell we're only a stone's throw from where Tarka The Otter was written, can't you. It's a nice, gentle entry into Devon punning that. In the same shop though, you could purchase a nose on a keyring, which leaked an off white substance when squeezed:



Another nice little gag, but also a bit of a lie.. because it is a bit funny. I'm 28 and I had a bit of a laugh. Ellie was good enough to demonstrate the snot dynamics for you here, bless here heart.

Now, this next one was in a nother shop, and it's one of those ones that is sort of 'inverted', in that it takes a well-known phrase and illustrates it with the words actual meanings. Some would say it a bit weak. And they'd be right. But given the last one, I wan't going to be picky:



Ellie's hand making another glamorous appearance there. She's becoming the Linda Lusardi of thepunningman.com (the prize stroking Linda, not the naughty one), and I'm fine with that. I just hope she is.

This one was my favourite of the weekend:



Could fall down if you're in favour of the "scon" pronunciation of that particular word, but it should be appreciated nonetheless. One other slight taint on it is the face that you have to drive past Stone Henge on the way home, and this time it took as ruddy AGES. YOU CAN SEE IT FROM THE ROAD YOU TWITS. Christ, we're only driving at 5mph, I could've sat on the roof and filmed the bloody thing with pinpoint precision.

Ugh. Anyway, as the traffic was so obnoxious, we stopped at some local services just after the well arranged rocks and Ellie pointed out the sign above the door:



Six hours of traffic, but it was almost worth it just for that.

Failure to lunch

One of my Kingston-based namesake's collected me today's entry. Spotted in Leeds (where he will be moving to in the near future - not sure who we're getting in return, but I look forward to it), this looks like a nice little eatery:



Check out the other Sean's blog I Am Up Late, and then buy his lovely little zine, of which I have an anonymous entry in. If you can guess which it is, maybe you'll win a prize.*

* You will not win a prize

Toms and Jerrys

Good to see the little guys of the supermarket world embracing gags as part of their marketing campaigns. Who needs a bunch of overweight mumsy-types slapping their arses to sell tomatoes? Not Lidl!



49p per kg is quite a good deal, but (call me snooty if you like) I just don't think I'd get my five a day from Germany's finest discount supermarket. Especially at that price. I have this awful vision of sweatshops full of tomato plants being whipped and told to "GROW FASTER, DEVIL SEED!!" Gosh, it's like something out of Flash Gordon.

Trouble in the MSG centre

It's confession time again. This time, I've STOLEN a pun. It's a bit of a disgrace, but I'm sure young Stephen, whose Facebook page I found this on won't mind the unsolicited attention this will get him.

This was taken in Birmingham, while he followed the terrific Spraynard and Break the Habit on their UK tour.




Now, although this is obviously a good'un, I can't help but wonder why they've deliberately chosen to spell "Shoe" wrong. It's only one extra letter. It's hardly going to cost the signmaker an extra day's work now, is it?

I worry that it's a look into the future of a Txtspk Britain that frankly chills me to the core. Toys 'R' Us were way ahead of their time on this one. Soon we'll all be queuing for sausage rolls from Grgs and avoiding Y8S, because we don't fancy getting our heads kicked in by the sort of geezer who goes to a wine lodge on a Tuesday.

I weep for the future.

Sofa, so good

Those of you with Facebook profiles will obviously be extatic to hear that you can now become a fan of The Punning Man on it! Of course it doesn't cost you a penny! You know what that sounds like to me?

It sounds like a...



Ok, so forget the "furnishers" bit. Unless you are a furnisher, in which case you probably think that was much better than I intended it to be. Thanks to Wes and KT for that one!

To become a fan (which you evidently are.. Not only are you hear, but you've got this far down the page and you're still chuckling at Suite Deal), check out this link. Thanks! And I'll leave you with this:


Tshirt available from Threadless

Carpét Diem

I have a confession. I feel pretty terrible about it.

I feel like I've disregarded you of late, dear readers.. and for that I apologise. But for the past eight years I have been one half of the team resposible for the highlight of the social calendar, known as The UG to AG Marathon, and this has taken up a lot of my time recently. I would feel a lot worse, were it not consistantly the best night of my life, year on year.

But that's not what I feel bad about! No, the problem is that I have got a submission today, but I can't for the life of me find the person who sent me it to thank them! The problem with being unemployed and co-creating the greatest pub crawl of all time is you get lots of emails and Facebook stuff to contend with, and sometimes lose what is truly important.

Let's take a look:



Blessed irony! It seems it is I who is flawed.

If it was you who sent me this, I am sorry. May fortune favour you for this heinous crime against your welcomed thoughtfulness. I am in your debt.

Crêpe expectations

The ratio of Daves / Non Daves takes another dramatic turn today as a submission from yes, you've guessed it, Dave comes tumbling in. This one from Edinburgh. Satistically speaking, I think a Scottish Dave is my most likely source of submitter. I might ring them all up.



Dave's as big a fan of the bi-lingual pun as I (although obviously we've adopted crêpe, but the point still stands).

Me, myself and eye

As I berate you all about not providing me enough content for this, I should probably back it up with some goods. Well, thankfully this week I found two contributions myself. And best of all they were within ten yards of each other!

I'll ease you in gently with a poster spotted in the window of Krish, which is one of those strange shops that sells ephemera for teenage goth-a-likes and smells faintly of weed and wet clothes. You know the kind of thing.. Pink and black stripey arm socks and Nirvana baccy tins:



Being a speccy myself, I just can't get to grips with this kind of thing. My nan always says "Why don't you get contacts?", as though people with 20/20 vision get a better crack at life. But the thought of poking myself in both eyes every morning, as well as the horror stories you hear about lenses going 'round THE BACK OF PEOPLES EYES puts me off immensly. So people who choose to pop biohazard symbols in their peepers when they can see perfectly well frankly baffles me. Then again, these kind of people listen to Nickelback out of choice so there's no reasoning with them.

But wait! Here's today's real gem. I've heard of this one before, but never seen it with my own pathetically large, ovular eyes:



Yes! Brilliant stuff. Not only a terrific name, but the two bushes wearing Oliver and Stan's hats is the icing on am already superbly filling cake. I did a miniature jump for joy when I saw that. The only downside being that they were parked in a disabled space, but I'll let it slide for now. Just this once, mind.

Kneel Diamond

As it's the Lord's day, I think this one is appropriate:



Thanks again to Ryan!