I've Ben So Slack

"Where's that Ben chap who sends you stuff all the time?" they cried from rooftops and alleyways as he strode through the grey streets of London. "He hasn't given you anything in AGES!"

Well, that's not strictly true. Rather, I have not put up his latest submissions through a hybrid of laziness and bad organisation. But at least I have finally got around to it, eh? Because that Ben, he wouldn't let us down!

Instead, on a recent trip to Weymouth to record some tracks by Asbestos for Got Mics Will Travel, he asked the guys if the town held any locally-sourced puns for me (note the deication to the cause. Have you noted that. HAVE YOU!?), and they didnt disappoint:







Three! See how easy this is? God bless the south coast. It has come up trumps on more than one occasion for this old blog, let me tell you. But it doesn't end there, oh no. Ben's a trooper, and so is this little fella apparently:



Who's a good boy?
Well, Ben is, because here's ANOTHER one:



Do try to keep up 007, there's a good chap.

Teddingtonnes of Potential

A little walk around glorious Teddington provided me a stock-up of puns recently. Having been freelancing in Caterham this week, which bore precisely 0.00 puns for me to salivate over, as well as being an utterly dreadful place to spend a lunch hour, I am having a very nice time looking back through these.



Nice to mix things up a bit too! It's not all shopfronts on here you know. You need to look hard in every walk of life to keep me happy, right? Like the humble Doorganizer, for example. Not justr a Dragon's Den-worthy piece of upright engineering, but a name to die for to boot! Lovely work.



I found this novel by Noel Nowosielski (smashing name, by the way Noel) in one of Tedder's bounty of charity shops, where I also confirmed my suspicions that every charity shop in Britain has at leeast one copy of International Velvet by Catatonia. It's the new Jollification, I tell you.



And lastly, a personal favourite, given my profession. Top Trumps for graphic designers? Holy Helvetica Batman! Sign me up.

Economy of scales

A very nice tall man called Simon emailed me ages ago to show me a van he spotted who could supply you with everything your little fishies could ever want:



I used to have goldfish when I was a little boy. One was called Goldie and one was called Brownie. This may give you a window into the extent of my imagination as a child. One day I came home to find that my brother had commited what shall be henceforth known as FISHSLAUGHTER on the poor little beggars by over-feeding them. I don't think I've ever truly forgiven him for it.

RIP boys. I still miss you.

Interview with Guy Swillingham

Shop Horror is a fantastic homage to the beauty of the pun-based shopfront, and Guy Swillingham is our guide on this journey through Britain's best. Here's an extract from the press release:

Guy is an expert on all aspects of High Street Britain’s funny shop names. From truly awful, cringe-inducing howlers to genuinely inventive and original shop fronts, he has researched, found and photographed them all. He has also interviewed the shopkeepers in a bid to find the reasoning or madness behind these amusing store fronts.

This quirky quest has taken him on over 4,000 miles through 340 cities, towns and villages across England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales. He returned with a photo collection of over 600 shop fronts. Only the very best of these were admitted to the hall of name and shame that is Shop Horror.



Guy was kind enough to answer a few questions about the book and why it exists. Hopefully this will be the first of a few interviews with important persons in the world of wordplay.

Guy, thanks so much for taking the time to answer some questions. First off, can you tell us a bit about yourself.

I am a TV producer by trade. I was born in Manchester but now live in London.

Have you always been interested in puns?

Yes. I love language and my interest in puns is part of my love of language. Puns get a bad press because they can be very corny and make you cringe. But underlying some puns are some incredibly sophisticated linguistic manipulations.

How did the idea for the book come about?

I’ve always had an interest in jokes that some people think are funny but which others think are terrible. So I started off making fun of bad hair salon names like Hair Razors, Curl Up and Dye and Short Cuts. I thought they were terrible and I wanted to hold them up as an example of bad jokes and terrible shop names. But in looking for them, I started to find really inventive ones such as British Hairways, Lunatic Fringe and Hair-O-Dyenamix. I then found other types of shop with brilliant names. So although I started by making fun of them, I ended up loving these truly amusing shop names. It’s a loving celebration of eccentric British humour.

What is your favourite shop included in the book?

There's so many good ones it's hard to pick a favourite. But if I had to choose, I'd go for the second hand record shop called The Vinyl Resting Place.

Were the owners you approached very forthcoming about the whole thing?

Most were very welcoming and were only too happy to have their shop snapped and to talk about their business. A few less enlightened ones became paranoid that someone wanted to take a photo of their shop.

What do you think constitutes the perfect pun?

The perfect pun is one that relies on a homonym or on the double meaning of one word or expression. Homonyms are two or more words that have the same spelling and pronunciation but different meanings (eg “pole” meaning long stick and “pole” meaning north or south pole). I consider these puns perfect because the double meaning is achieved with no change in spelling or pronunciation.

eg “If I said you had a beautiful body would you hold it against me?”

This line by Groucho Marx (as borrowed for the title of a 1970s single by the Bellamy Brothers) relies on the double meaning of the expression “to hold something against someone”. The humour lies not only in the clever use of a double meaning but also in the contrast between the innocent purported use of the expression “hold it against me” (ie would you hold a grudge) and the cheeky meaning snuck in between the lines (ie to physically hold your body against me).

There is a scale of puns which has the perfect homonym pun at the top. Next down the scale (ie one step less perfect) is the homophone pun (ie words that sound the same but are spelt differently). The further we get away from the perfect pun, the less sophisticated the word play. However, more sophisticated word play is not always that funny. Our response is often an academic appreciation of the punster's word power or the coincidence of double meaning. The less sophisticated the pun the funnier it becomes, up to a point at which the pun fails for being too silly. Look at the scale of puns exemplified below by reference to the Dickens novel Great Expectations

Homonym pun

Great Expectations (maternity wear shop)

Homophone pun

Grate Expectations (fire place shop)

Near Rhyme Pun

Gate Expectations (gate shop)

Far Rhyme Pun

Plate Expectations (crockery shop)

Thanks again to Guy for contributing to my little corner of the internet. You can read a bit more about Shop Horror at the official website shophorror.co.uk, and it's available from all good bookshops.

Oh my Guinness!

Beannachtaí na Féile Pádraig oraibh!

Yes, a very Happy St Patrick's Day to you all. Being half the paddy that I am, I love this day, and I get to legitimately express my enjoyment for it, thanks to Jeremiah and Sally (sadly neither of whom are still with us).

In honour of Ireland's favourite son, I dug out an old Jamesons tshirt which was kindly donated to me by my former watering hole:



Hope you all have a few Guinness tonight along with me! Have an old Irish blessing to help you on your way:

"As you slide down the bannister of life, may no splinters point in the wrong direction."

I Could Merde a Pancake

On a short jaunt around our nation's capital last week, I came upon a little van nestled just off the seven dials in Covent Garden. It sold delicious French-style savoury pancakes, but it's name gave off a different impression altogether:



I'll be honest, I didn't try one. Pun or no pun, that's just offputting for a connoisseur such as myself. That monkey's probably a health hazard anyway.

Crate Expectations

Thanks again to Sophe for spotting this little tagline while in a meeting at work. Just goes to show that having a 9-5 doesn't get in the way of punnery:



Simplicity is indeed the key to brilliance.

You Boutique!

Well, here's some big news for me! I've only gone and got some Punning Man merchandise made up! Now you can show your love of wordplay without even opening your mouth!

Let's see what you can feast your wallets on then:


In the kind of world we live in these days, it's important to let everyone know that guns just aren't cool. Use your brains, not your braun! With the PUNS NOT GUNS tshirt, the world will know your stance on the matter. Make it count.


The first time I heard this little beauty I wanted to put it on a bag. And now, here it is. An instant classic, I'm sure you'll agree.


Even Henry Rollins agrees that you should get your five a day. That's why this special fivebar variation of some old punk band will let everyone know that you eat your greens at your TV party!

All of these are available from the brand new Punning Man Boutique, which you can find at thepunningman.bigcartel.com

Time off in Looe

This past weekend I journeyed down to the Westcountry with my family to celebrate my uncles 50th birthday (Many happy returns again Austin!). We we're blessed with days choc-full of glorious British sunshine, and thankfully, the cracking little seaside town of Looe had some wordplay to offer, as well as fantastic views and the freshest fish you could wish for.



This sign hung in the doorway of a boutique selling wooden ornaments, called Knottershop. Strange thing to call it, as it clearly was a shop. It obviously wasn't open, but I could clearly see a till when I peeked in. Do note the little "ish" next to the clock too. Something more laid back you will never find. Lovely stuff.



This one was a little gift shop. The sort you find at every seaside. But they've set themselves aside from the rest by celebrating their position and using the town's name with pride and humour, and good on them for nailing it.



Finally, this was spotted on the breakfast menu at our B&B (Incidentally, if you ever find yourself in Looe, you could do much worse than stay at The Old Bridge House. Good rooms, great breakfasts and Colin and Liz were warm, friendly and charming). I didn't find the florist in question, but the name they've chosen should be celebrated.

It's awful grey back here.
Le sigh.

The Bourne Puntrilogy

The south coast has come up trumps again! A good friend of mine, unfortunately named Flange celebrated his birthday in Bournemouth a couple of weeks ago, which I was sadly unable to attend, as I was sunning myself on a tropical island.

Luckily for me, and you, Sophie was a good enough pal to attend, and has snared the following trio of retirement town pics for us to digest:



I don't know whether the birthday troupe ventured inside the Oceanarium, but if they're good enough to try and tempt you in with a slice of wordplay, then it must be good in my eyes! I went to Siam Ocean World while this lot were wandering around Bournemouth, so maybe I was sending subconcious signals to them through time. Maybe?



A good pun this one, but I am a bit confused by the substitution of an apostrophe for an 'e'. It just makes it a bit more complicated (and slightly like they've employed a signwriter with tourettes, not helped by the capital 'D', either), but we all get it, right? Good.



Now, I almost left out the final one. There's a distinct attempt at a shot st celebrity from three no-hopers here, but as one of them is the birthday boy (no, I won't tell you which), I'm going to let it slide JUST THIS ONCE. Be warned.. If you try and sneak yourself into a photo it will be disregarded, or you might be chopped right out, ÇA VA!?

Glad we got that all straightened out. On with the merriment!