The Funniest Thing To Come Out Of Germany Since A Panza Tank
IT’S not that Germans have no sense of humour. It’s that Germans have a different sense of humour to the British, the Americans and to any other people that rely on subtleties, wit, self-deprecation, irony and word play.
Old Mr Anorak maintains that the Germans killed so many Jews because they thought they were laughing at them. They weren’t – they were laughing at themselves. Had the Germans only joined in everyone would have been happy.
It’s not all bad. Germans can also laugh long and loud at the Austrians. And for that alone they should be admired. If the Germans can make a sitcom about the Swiss and their sense of civic pride we may yet laugh with them.
This is all by way of an introduction to German pop star Ramma Damma, aka Ulli Hopper. Thirty-five years ago he married a pineapple.
Damma’s bride (£8 off the shelf) and Damma sloped to Gretna Green in a Jaguar covered in green AstroTurf.
We Brits can, of course, do obvious wackiness. Anyone who has seen Little Britain, the Goodies without the finesse, will know how lazy, god-awful and devoid of laughs British humour can be.
And Damma might have been a character on Little Britain, were he not real.
As the Metro reports, today, Hopper is known as the Green Rebel in Munich. He runs the country’s only “plant sanctuary”.
The 65-year-old is almost completely self-sufficient, even making his own stinging nettle spaghetti or brewing plum cider in a 230-litre bin.
And knitting his own jokes.
“I will defend every plant,” he says. “They are the wonders of our world – we just to need to listen to them.”
Shh! Hear that. That’s the sound of a pin dropping and a begonia crying for help…
Posted: 11th, October 2008 | In: Strange But True Comments (2) | TrackBack | Permalink
