The suggestion in another thread that Johnny Depp and Amber Heard might end up appearing in a film together reminded me of the time in the mid-1980s when Madonna and Sean Penn were on the front (and several other) pages of all the world’s newspapers every other day because of their spectacular fallings out while making the film Shanghai Surprise. It was produced by Handmade Films and at one point George Harrison was reported to be on set trying to get the warring toddlers to make it all up and finish the film.
When he returned to England, George appeared on Jonothan Ross’ talk show and, under pressure to say what had been going on, gave the throwaway response, “The trouble with those two is that they think they’re famous.”
It struck me then, as it does now, as a brilliant put-down that could have been delivered convincingly by very few people – possibly only George and two others alive at the time. But I’m sure there are better examples out there that folk might like to share.
Oops. That should have been Jonathan Ross.
I have shared this one before but Boy George on Elton John. “All that money – and he just looks like a dinner lady”.
Dorothy Parker on being told of the death of Pres Calvin Coolidge : ‘How can they tell?’
On an early 90s BBC Question Time show
Tory panelist – “John Major is a self-made man!”
Gerald Kaufmann MP – “Well he didn’t do a very good job, did he?
“She speaks 5 languages and can’t act in any of them.” – Sir John Gielgud on Ingrid Bergman.
Lady Astor told Winston Churchill that if she was married to him she would have poisoned his coffee. He replied “Nancy, if you were my wife I’d drink it.”
President Lyndon B. Johnson on President Gerald Ford. “Gerry Ford is so dumb he can’t fart and chew gum at the same time.”
“Bill Clinton is a man who thinks international affairs means dating a girl from out of town.” – Author Tom Clancy
Also said of Gerald Ford (possibly by Clive James?) that ‘he looks like the first guy in the movie to see the monster’.
George came up with another cracking comment during the making of that film. Madonna and Sean Penn were whinging and moaning about the press intrusion and George was trying to calm them down, when one of them said something along the lines of “you have no idea what it’s like for us”. George just answered “I was in a band once…”
Claudia Schaffer to Kate Moss – ‘really enjoyed your autobiography, who wrote it for you?’’
Kate Moss – ‘glad you enjoyed it, who read it to you?’
Sit Thomas Beecham to lady cellist: “Madam, you have an instrument between your legs capable of giving great pleasure, and all you can do is sit there and scratch it.”
One aged theatrical (Robert Atkins), when leading a readthrough of A Midsummer Night’s Dream on the grass at Regents Park Open Air Theatre, looked up after a particularly lengthy pause to see a young actress cross legged over her script, her head in her lap mortified with embarrassment.
‘It’s no good looking up your entrance, dear—you’ve missed it.’
The Guardian reported it as having been written in Peter Ustinov’s school report, but according to Ustinov himself it was a general at Sandhurst and directed at an unknown exam candidate:
“He sets himself extremely low standards… which unfortunately he fails to live up to.”
“Nothing’s that funny, Mick”
George Melly after Jagger tried to dismiss the abundance of wrinkles and crows’ feet on his face as “laughter lines”
I was thinking of that line as I scrolled down this thread 😀
My favourite insult is mild and basically good-natured but I always loved it due to who it was said to than anything else.
The painter James Whistler was considered a great wit and was very friendly with Oscar Wilde, another great wit of his era.
One day at a party Whistler said something particularly witty and Wilde said out loud what everyone else in the room was thinking, “I wish I’d said that.” and Whistler responded, “You will Oscar you will!”
Imagine verbally getting the better of Oscar Wilde, it’d be like beating Tiger Woods at golf.
Superb
Onsite a few years ago:
“Toby, you fat bastard.”
Toby: “The reason I’m so fat is because every time I f*** your wife she gives me a biscuit.”
I think that was originally delivered to Glenn McGrath by Zimbabwean batsman Eddo Brandes.
Or alternatively Mike Gatting to Rodney Marsh.
That was my understanding as well
The one I heard about Rodney Marsh was when he greeted Ian Botham to the crease with, “How are your wife and my kids?” and Botham responded, “The wife’s fine, the kids are retarded.”
A different Rodney Marsh.
Making his debut for England, Sir Alf Ramsey told him “if the game’s not going well, I’ll pull you off at half time”
“Thanks Alf – at Manchester City, we only get half an orange”
No, definitely Brandes to McGrath.
I think it was McGrath vs Javed Miandad
I think it was WG Grace and Edward VII
I think it was Colonel Mustard with the lead piping
England’s James Ormond to Mark Waugh, who, on Ormond coming out to bat in an Ashes test, said something like “You don’t belong here”…
“Maybe, but at least I’m the best cricketer in my family…”
Wasn’t it something like you’re the worst cricketer ever? Sure
Someone here will know the exact phrase better than either of us
It’s ultimately the worst/best thing that makes the return sledge so witty
Lady Dinner Guest: “Do you mind not breaking wind in front of me”
Churchill: “Sorry madam, I didn’t realise it was your turn”
This made me chuckle in response to a very dull Michael Owen tweet:
“ If I was on a desert island with you
and a tin of corned beef, I’d eat you
and talk to the corned beef”.
Australian fast bowler Glenn McGrath to West Indies batsman Ramnaresh Sarwan – “What does Brian Lara’s c*** taste like?
Ramnaresh Sarwan’s reply – ” I don’t know, ask your wife”.
Why would his wife be eating Brian Lara’s cake?
I think it was Truman Capote who once reviewed Kerouac’s ‘On the Road’ thus- ‘That’s not writing, that’s typing.’
By chance, I was perusing the May 1962 issue of ‘Jazz Monthly’ yesterday and came across this line in a witheringly brief review of Davy Graham & Alexis Korner’s immortal ‘3/4 AD’ EP on Topic, featuring ‘Angi’:
‘Personal friends of the participants will want this.’
Almost certainly apocryphal, but at a party the sp actress Jean Harlow fell into conversation with aristocrat Margot Asquith and addressed her as ‘Margott’.
‘No dear, the ‘t’ is silent, as in Harlow.’
@Gatz
Think that one is generally attributed to Noel Coward
She called him ‘NoelT’?
No mention of Coward in this article, which has citations going back to 1934, though the conclusion seems to have been that someone invented the gag and it was too good a story to question once it got into general circulation.
Yes, think these things get attributed and reattributed over time.
Seen the famous Churchill “poison coffee” and “be sober
in the morning” ones” with both Nancy Astor
and Bessie Braddock as the butt of the jokes
The Coward version of the “silent” put down had JH incorrectly
calling him “No-well” instead of “Noll”
@Jaygee I’ve never seen it attributed to the Master.
https://legendsrevealed.com/entertainment/2016/04/12/did-a-countess-once-famously-insult-jean-harlow/?amp
Apols missed this. See reply to G above
A nice one attributed to Noel Coward-
He was appearing in Las Vegas when, inbetween shows, he was approached by an American in the lobby (who clearly didn’t recognise him)
“Hey buddy, where’s da restroom?”
The Master took a deep breath.
“Walk straight along this corridor and you’ll come to a door marked ‘gentlemen’. Ignore it and walk straight in.”
That’s brilliant.
Not a put down, but my favourite Coward quote was when he was with his niece and they saw two dogs having it off.
“Uncle Noel, what are they doing?”
“Well my dear, the dog on the bottom is blind. And the other one is pushing him to Dunstable”.
Another one, which is more of a put down, came after the Daily Mail criticised his casting for In Which We Serve as they didn’t think he was “manly enough”. We see the Daily Mail edition that supported Hitler in the gutter during the opening titles of the film.
Sorry @Hawkfall but it’s St Dunstan’s which of course became the title for a Caravan album.
Ah, was it? Actually St Dunstan’s is better isn’t it? Actually Dunstable works pretty well too, so I’ll claim that one as Trad. arr. Hawkfall.
He’s out of his depth on a damp pavement. (said by Terry Pratchett).
I can think of several people who deserve this.
Stephen Mangan’s rejoinder to Jimmy Carr’s introduction of him on 8 Out of 10 Cats –
Carr – “The last time I saw hair that curly it was poking out of my girlfriend’s knickers”.
Mangan – “I can only apologise”.
I couldn’t find this one on online – but I seem to remember Susie Dent being mocked by Jimmy Carr about how boring her dreams must be. She agreed and said that last night she dreamed of working with a funny and competent comedian.
Reminds me of a story I heard (maybe on here?) – mate went to a comedy night and Bernard Manning was on. The mate nipped out to the loo and Manning dished out the abuse along the lines of “where do you think you’re going”. The response was “I’m nipping out for a slash, apparently there’s a comedian on next”.
Harry Redknapp foolishly decided to do a Q&A on Twitter under the mistaken impression that he’s as popular with the masses as TV seems to think he is. As a West Ham fan, I despise him for multiple reasons too boring to detail here and find his Cheeky Cockney idiot persona very irritating. Anyway back to the Q&A. He was absolutely roasted by fans of the numerous clubs that he’s left in financial ruin. My favourite question was “Harry, if you had to choose between keeping your club up in a relegation battle or getting a new Rolls Royce for yourself, what colour would it be?”
A variation on the classic: you are a news photographer sitting on a river bank and you suddenly George W Bush (substitute as appropriate but he was the candidate in the first version I heard) being swept downstream by a violent tide. You can either save him, or take the greatest photograph of your career. The dilemma is this, do you opt for the dynamism of colour film, or the classic drama of black and white?
Colour would be my first choice, can then be printed as black and white too.
Though a good news photographer would have at least two cameras one b/w one colour.
Ah. The punchline to one of my favourite jokes. “Piers Morgan twice”.
Mention of Piers Morgan reminds me of Stephen Fry ‘s remark:
Q: What’s the definition of countryside?
A: Killing Piers Morgan
Or there was that recent one where Ricky Gervais having been asked about Piers Morgan having interviewed members of the Taliban, responded that ” I’ve lost all respect for them”.
That gag presumably is on a similar theme to HMHB’s lines from Upon Westminster Bridge:
Oh help me Mrs Medlicott
I don’t know what to do
I’ve only got three bullets
And there’s four of Motley Crue
It will come as no surprise to you that that lyric was in my mind as I posted. If I ever meet someone by the name of Medlicott, I will probably self-combust.
I once played cricket against a guy called Keith Medlycott (who had been touring with England A the previous winter when he was afflicted by a curious bowling condition known as “the yips” which was so severe that he was catapulted back into club cricket against the likes of yours truly).
Fortunately, that was many years before HMHB released Achtung Bono or I might have struggled to participate in the game.
There was a snooker player called Patsy Fagan in the 80s, who suddenly couldn’t commit to striking the ball when he used the rest. Really curious phenomenon.
There was a baseball player named Mark Wohlers who had the yips so bad he was placed on the disabled list with the stated reason, “Inability to pitch.”
He had previously been such a good reliable player he was entrusted with recording the final three outs of the 1995 World Series in a 1-0 game.
It’s so common in baseball they have a name for it. Steve Blass Disease, “a psychological block which manifests itself when baseball players overthink the act of throwing a baseball and consequently become unable to throw with any sort of control”
I like the one in “Casablanca”:
Peter Lorre – “you despise me don’t you”
Bogie – “if I ever thought about you I probably would”
In Dead Lions, number 2 in the excellent Slow Horses series, Mick Herron writes this brilliant exchange.
“I’ve forgotten your name”
“Longridge”
“I don’t want to know. I was making a point”
Bob Monkhouse’s famous self-putdown would take some beating.
“They all laughed when I said I was going to be a comedian.
They’re not laughing now.”
“I’ve suffered for my art, now it’s your turn”
As Rik ( in his Peoples’ Poet persona) said as the audience shrieked
‘They laughed at Lenny Bruce!’
My favourite cricket sledge is from long forgotten (apart from this) 2 test/2 wicket wonder Jimmy Ormond. When he came out to bat on his test debut against Australia Mark Waugh (Steve Waugh’s twin) met him with ‘Hey mate, what are you doing here? There’s no way you’re good enough to play for England.’
Jimmy: ‘Maybe not, but at least I’m the best player in my family.’
Not sure if this is true or not but I’ve heard a story about Steve and Mark Waugh’s younger brother Dean who had a very brief first class career. Clearly not being anywhere near as good as his illustrious brothers, apparently he was once asked by an opponent whether he had been adopted.
Known as Afghanistan I believe.
The forgotten Waugh.
I can’t recall any specifics of my favourite baseball putdown, as to who said it about who, but here’s what was said (roughly)
A manager was asked about two twenty year old rookies his team had just brought up to the big leagues. He said about one, “Ten years from now he’ll be a club icon, an all-star, and on his way to the hall of fame.” They then asked him about the other recruit. He replied…
“Ten years from now he’ll be thirty.”
Can’t remember who they were but someone was talking to a well-known Hollywood person:
“You’ve made a lot of movies in recent years. Ever thought of slowing down and making a good one?”
Paul Kaye’s Dennis Pennis?
Anon:
“I’m not saying your perfume is too strong. Just that the canary was alive before you came here.”
Once Morecambe and Wise were asked in an interview “If you hadn’t been comedians what would you have been ?”
Eric immediately responded, “Mike and Bernie Winters !”
Boy George again. Gender-bending pop rival Marilyn released a single called “ Cry and be Free”. George renamed it “Try and be Me”.
Similarly, didn’t Noel Gallagher once say of his younger brother’s solo career?
“Look, I’m doing my thing, and our kid’s doing… my thing.”
He also said “He’s as angry as a man with a fork in a world of soup”
Soon as I saw Zanti’s post, that’s exactly the thought that came into my head.
Sadly, like much of Oasis’ music, the quote originated with someone else