According to Wikipedia, “L’esprit de l’escalier or l’esprit d’escalier (“staircase wit”) is a French term used in English for the predicament of thinking of the perfect reply too late.” The French philosopher Denis Diderot originated the term after being unable to think of the perfect retort until he had descended the staircase to leave his host’s home.
We’ve all had witty rejoinders never said, either because inspiration struck too late or because we simply lacked the nerve to say it to someone’s face.
Here’s my best one. My wife’s best mate is quite a bit younger than us and has lots of tattoos. She also happens to be a big Tolkien fan. She was pointing out an inking that involved a lot of runic symbols.
“It’s the lyrics to my favourite song,” she explained, “in Elvish.”
“Shushpicious Mindsh?”
…I sadly didn’t say, but wish I had.
What’s yours?
Black Celebration says
This was something a friend of mine said in the mid 90s so I can’t take credit for it, much as I’d like to.
He had a street level flat in North London and there was a very small recess area facing the street where you could sit outside on a sunny day. We were there, drinking lager and smoking fags and talking bollocks. Presently, two young giggly women walked past – giving us what I can only describe as “the glad eye ” (those were the days, eh readers?”). However, these weren’t blushing coquettish looks from behind a fan – more in the vein of incomprehensible profanity and raucous laughter. They made several passes in this way until one of them said to my friend ” Are you two gay?”.
He replied cheerfully and instantly – “We are now!”
Moose the Mooche says
Why did they think you were gay?
I am not understand.
Black Celebration says
Because we didn’t respond to their “advances”. There are times when you look back with regret and wonder what could have been if you had tried harder romantically. This is not one of those times.
Moose the Mooche says
I tend to think that it’s only blokes that do this.
“None of the women threw themselves at me. Clearly all lesbians -hundreds of them in the same place, what are the odds? The fact that I’m 30 stone with a face like a used litter tray can’t possibly be the reason”
Twang says
EBTG wrote a song about it…
ivan says
I worked in a software company; my job was to prepare documentation for customer usage so i was nowhere near as close to the coalface of mucking about with C++ programming, MIBs, Cisco MPLS protocols and the like.
Anyhoo, I landed into the office one day and three of the lads from the Development team and their VP were ahead of me. One jabbed at the button for the lift and as I reached them, they stepped in, one turned, saw me, and pressed the hold button, such that I could join them.
“No, it’s ok…I’m always suspicious of geeks sharing lifts…”
This *did* happen so i’m telling it.
Sniffity says
Yes, but did they get it?
geacher says
I’ve told this before on here… 2003, exhibition of Monet at Edinburgh Art Gallery, and I’m with my VERY attractive but artyfarty then-GF, and I’m paying. Heading to the entrance I see that the price is £10 each, so playing the mean git I said to R:
“What? £20 to see some dead guys doodlings?”
“Oh, I almost forgot” she said “I cut this out of last week’s Scotland On Sunday”
She handed me the cutting which proclaimed that “admit one adult free on such and such a date at such and such a time”
We qualified for the freebie, and 15 years later I’m still SO inordinately proud of this… quicker than a flash:
“Ah, your Monet for nothing because the chick goes free”
She dumped me the following day, in Nairn Train Station.
mikethep says
You’re better off without her.
Mike_H says
If she dumped you in Nairn, then definitely so.
pawsforthought says
Nairn, of course, is the fastest seaside resort in Scotland.
Twang says
When I was a foolish teenager one of the dads up the street committed suicide. It turned out to be his 4th attempt. My parents were shocked and, as I knew his son, sat me down and, pale faced, told me. “You’d think he’d be better at it after all that practice” I quipped, by way of lightening the mood. Parents, not amused.
Carl says
In 2003 my wife and I went on a tour of the Deep South of the USA.
We were in Mississippi and had earlier been driving down Highway 61 (the Blues Highway) but had moved off it because it was such a boring road. It’s a dead straight interstate highway with cotton fields on either side. Cotton is not an attractive plant.
We cut off it and went over to a road that followed the course of the river. We hadn’t eaten for a while and were looking for somewhere to get a bite to eat. As we approached the town of Greenville I passed a yellow school bus that was just slowing, but hadn’t quite come to a stop. Still I asked my wife if she thought I should have stopped, but she wasn’t sure.
A minute later we spotted a diner which was situated at a junction. I turned into its car park and parked facing the side road, looking over a low hedge. As we got out of the car I heard a siren. I looked over my shoulder and saw a police car coming down the road, lights flashing as well. It turned off the main road into the side road and stopped right in front of where I was parked. “Oh, shit. I should never have driven past that bus” I mumbled but my worries evaporated quickly as two police got out of the car and legged it across the road and an alley.
We went into the diner and got a table. Our waitress told us that there is a used car dealership next to the diner, which had a golf cart for sale, which had been parked at the front of the dealership.
Some guy had stolen it, driven across the diner car park, through their hedge, across the road and down the alley we saw the police run into.
Five or ten minutes later the local Sherriff comes in and tells people that they had caught the guy because he had crashed the golf cart, adding “He sure as shit needs to get a new job, because he ain’t any good as a criminal.”
bigstevie says
George Jones, by any chance? Anyway, doesn’t Lucinda tell you not to go to Greenville?
Mike_H says
It always used to amuse me to see reports of really stupid criminals in the newspapers, in the days when I used to read them.
No offence to any of the AW’s North-Eastern readership, but there weren’t half a lot of reports of really dumb crimes (usually alcohol-fuelled) from places like Ashington, Hartlepool or Darlington.
Burglars caught wedged half-way through a too-small pub toilet window, or stuck on the fragile roof of a fishing-tackle shop and having to be rescued by the fire brigade.
Having said that there were a couple of guys I used to know in the ’70s who decided, under the influence of an amphetamine binge, to rob a jewellers shop in Watford town centre in mid-afternoon using a chair leg as a weapon, leg it down the high street and escape on an all-stops train. Two stops down the line they were arrested, naturally and spent the next few years in chokey.
Moose the Mooche says
… where they could presumably have all rhe drugs they’d ever wanted. Result!
davebigpicture says
I worked on a conference where one of the speakers had spent a lot of time tracking down as much of the loot from the Brinks Mat robbery. A lot of the work was painstaking forensic accounting but they also got a tip off regarding a very young couple who had bought an expensive house in a nice Essex village. Apart from not seeming to work, the villagers were suspicious due to the names of the two Dobermans: Brinks and Mat.
nigelthebald says
I few years ago I bumped into my French mate by the river. He was on his way home from Morrisons and complained that they hadn’t had any bread for him to buy. We chatted for a few minutes before parting company. Only then did I realise that I should have told him: “Que tu manges de la brioche!”
Next time I saw him I told him I’d had an esprit de l’escalier only to learn that, Diderot notwithstanding, the phrase isn’t in current usage in French – he, a well-educated man, had never heard it*.
*(My esprit reference. He got my Marie Antoinette impression.)
Black Celebration says
Double whammy there – missing the first opportunity to be a very witty man and then attempt number two; looking for posthumous glory – but explaining it in a way the other person didn’t quite understand. Bravo!
I sat in on my brother’s class when he was teaching French teenagers, in actual France. I don’t recall the context but he wanted to say “like a little bird” to describe the size of something, I think.
Quite reasonably I thought, he said “piaf” and they burst out laughing. Apparently “piaf” is a really childish way to describe a little bird and it sounds odd when a grown up says it. I suppose calling a dog a “woof woof” would be equivalent.
Billybob Dylan says
When I was a schoolboy I went on one of those exchange visits to France, and spent two weeks in Paris… with a Portuguese family (but that’s another story). I went to school with my exchange buddy and during an English class the teacher held up pictures of every day objects and asked the class what the English name was. I, of course, was not allowed to answer. One of the pictures she held up was of a dressing table but no-one in the class knew the English name for it. Eventually the teacher said to me “would you like to tell the class what this is called” and I said “it’s a dressing table, miss.”
“Non!” she replied sternly. “You are wrong! It’s a drawer with mirror.”
Bloody foreigners. Bring on Brexit, I say.
Askwith says
Back in the early 90s when I used to play in a band doing corporate functions, we had one date where we were on the bill with the mind reader Graham Jolly (Graham was semi famous later on, appearing once on Wogan).
We were just setting up our backline, PA and microphones when the entertainments organiser from the hotel approached me and said “The mind reader would like to know if he can use one of your microphones”.
“If he’s a mind reader, he’ll know” I replied.
Black Celebration says
I think I remember that Wogan appearance – he got more than he bargained for with a sweet-looking but actually very sharp and hilariously sceptical elderly lady.
ivan says
I love that; there’s a similar line in Phoenix Nights
“Brian, the psychic wants to know what time he’s on tonight”
“well if he’s any pissin’ good he’ll know already, won’t he?”
Clive says
I was behind a woman in a Bristol news agent who asked if her copy of Clairvoyant Magazine was in.
hubert rawlinson says
Similarly I was in a newsagent when a woman who had found that her CND magazine was not in shouted out loudly “Where’s my Sanity?’.
Alas I didn’t have a snappy rejoinder to her shout.
Moose the Mooche says
Then a feminist ran in and shouted “Where’s my Spare Rib?”
The newsagent said, “TGI Friday’s is that way, luv”
SouthernExile says
Isn’t there a (probably apocryphal) tale of Kelvin McKenzie sacking the psychic on the S** by sending them a letter beginning “as you will already know”
attackdog says
In a similar circumstance my band were playing the Xmas do at the Cancer Research Institute in Mill Hill.
Our drummer, a strict vegan, anti this, anti that, discovered some disagreeable research methods. He asked if he could, just for once, introduce the band. The other four of us saw nothing untoward with this request and it was so granted.
“Good eve’nin Layz n Genitals. We are The Coughing Beagles”.
Oh shit.
fentonsteve says
I’m sure I’ve told this story before.
The band I played bass in was twice booked to play a pharmaceutical firm’s social club Christmas party.
The first year was great, I even made a ladyfriend (although she would get *very* upset every Friday night, having fed the chimps during the week). We were booked to come back the next year.
On our return visit, we turned up to be told 40% of the workforce had been given redundancy letters earlier that day. The staff arrived at the crack of 5pm and proceeded to get ratarsed on cheap social club subsidised booze. We hit the stage at 8pm sharp. At 8:01, the boss and his wife hit the dancefloor. At 8:02, a brick-sh*thouse staff member joined them, shouted “You F***ing C**t!” and took a swing at the boss. Cue carnage. Have you ever seen that bit in The Blues Brothers with the chicken wire across the stage? It was just like that. We played our set in double-time, cleared our gear off the back of the stage into our soundman’s waiting van, and were in the pub by 9 o’clock.
attackdog says
Yes – I know the feeling. To add injury to insult (literally) my guitar processor packed up and we had to revert to a ‘raw’, and very loud ‘rock’ show.
We were escorted from the underground car park by a few sympathetic but otherwise satisfied staff – with the other greater majority of staff effing and blinding our departure. It was our first and only gig there.
Moose the Mooche says
Isn’t that how the Electro Hippies got started?
aardvarknever says
The one I can remember I actually did say.
Late one cold winter’s evening, before our house was as well insulated as it is now, I had to nip out of bed to turn a light off or something.
On getting back into bed I accidentally nudged the aardvarkess with a cold limb. She recoiled. I made some remark about being unwelcome. At which point, perhaps slightly befuddled by near sleep, the ardvarkesss said:
“Well, you are a bit cool.”
To which I responded:
“I’ve been waiting all my life to for somebody to say that to me.”
I think I got the timing right – the hysterical laughter continued for some time.
joe robert says
Wife holds up son’s Darth Vader costume:
“Do you think this will spoil the rest of the wash?”
“Well, it is a little on the dark side.”
Moose the Mooche says
*applause*
Gatz says
Tom, an old friend of mine, Telegraph reader, on the gammon side of the EU debate, has been the beneficiary of two I remember.
We were both at another friend’s wedding in Dublin and were chatting to the groom’s mother at the reception. It turned out she knew the area of Tottenham were Tom spent his first years and was describing the street where his school was. ‘That’s right!’, he said, ‘Down by the lunatic asylum. Of course you’re probably not allowed to say lunatic asylum these days. It’s probably health facility for the differently mind-skilled or something like that.’ ‘I know Tom, it’s madness gone politically correct.’
When Tom’s first daughter Daisy was born a group of us were wetting the baby’s head in a local pub. Tom was insistent that when she reached dating age she was never to be allowed to associate with chavs. I stated that she must never be allowed to partner up with anybody else. ‘Why’s that then?’ ‘So you can call them Chav and Daise.’
pawsforthought says
That’s a great line and I may we’ll use it at the weekend. I will reference my source, of course.
mikethep says
A couple come to mind…
My sister and I were watching some news magazine programme featuring Fanny Craddock. (This was a while back.) The presenter said, ‘I bet we all wish we could make doughnuts like Fanny’s.’ To which my sister replied, quick as a flash, ‘And cream horns like Johnny’s.’
Then (this’ll take a while, so bear with me), the late Mrs thep and I were in St Petersburg visiting our son, who was spending a student year there. One night he announced he was off clubbing. He turned up for breakfast seriously the worse for wear, and said, ‘I woke up with a fantastic view of the Gulf of Finland.’ Mrs thep and I both went hurrr. Some time later she and I were watching the Eurovision Song Contest, and on came a chanteuse from one of the Baltic states whose sprayed-on strides left absolutely nothing to the imagination. ‘Great view of the Gulf of Finland,’ said Mrs thep.
Moose the Mooche says
Which Eurovision was that?
*fires up YouTube*
mikethep says
Well, he was in St P 1999-2000 – I remember this because we wondered if the Millennium Bug would lead to him being nuked…so 2000, or possibly 2001. Good luck!
Moose the Mooche says
2001 I remember, as it was the year it was won by an Estonian duo – a bloke who looked like Rik Myall and a bloke who looked like Labi Siffre.
That’s clearly not the act you mean.
fishface says
An old girlfriend of mine introduced me to one of her longtime friends.
The girl in question remarked..”Ooh, you look just like my brother”
Being a world class comedian/twat, I stuck my tongue out and lolled my head to the side.
A loud gasp from girlfriend alerted me that I had committed a no no….
“Erm, how did you know he had hung himself ?”….said the friend
Soon dumped.
Black Celebration says
@fishface bloody hell.
retropath2 says
I’d love that scenario, for the look of horror, then to say:
It’s OK, he didn’t.
The rapid relief ensues, ready for the final dig:
It was an overdose.
Excuse my sense of “humour”…….
joe robert says
Scope for a “That thing you wish you’d never said” thread?
Carl says
This isn’t a witty rejoinder, but afterwards it’s something that occurred to me that I wish I’d said.
Yesterday I was called by one of those scammers pretending to be from Microsoft trying to get me to enter an URL to download software that will fix my “infected” computer.
I decided to play along as a particularly dumb user.
After five minutes or more of me failing to get the URL right (because I wasn’t touching my computer at all) he really lost it and began shouting down the line at me. At which I pretended to be hurt and complained about him being horrible and nasty to me, shouting like that.
At which he calmed down and asked me to spell out the URL I’d entered.
This is where I realised, afterwards, I went wrong, because I should have made him give me a grovelling apology first.
Instead I went ahead and spelled “w-w-w-d-o-t-” at which point he realised I has spoofing him and he yelled “You motherf@&%*£” down the line. I replied “F@&% you, s***head! Did I waste your time?” as he slammed the phone down.
But it would have felt even better if I’d got him to grovel a bit first.
Black Celebration says
Probably the only time I have been told off on this site was some years ago when I recounted the story of my wife talking to one of these guys and getting into a personal conversation with him that lasted a good 20 minutes or so. At one point she asked about his mother and whether she knows about what he does. Does he sometimes feel shame? Honestly, it was really skilfully done and she says the guy at the other end did seem to take it on board at some level.
I genuinely do not remember who it was, but someone really laid into me, saying that the last thing an exploited Indian call centre worker needs is some smug middle class person (I think the language was a little stronger) telling them what to do with their lives. Something along those lines anyway.
I am sure I must have replied in fairly strong terms (for me). If someone is trying to steal your money in a criminal way, say, a mugger – should we be careful not to offend them? Everyone who does a criminal thing like stealing money off people knows it is wrong – it’s a choice they make. Thankfully the vast majority of people in the world would rather earn income in an honest way. You don’t have to make a living like this – it’s true of anyone.
Carl says
I agree with you entirely and will be happy to debate the finer points of my conduct, should anyone think my conduct was unjustifiable.
hubert rawlinson says
I had a call the other week saying my computer was ‘infected’ greeted him with Kalimera when he said he didn’t understand I offered to communicate by waving flags or with an Aldiss lamp. The stupid thing is I mimed flashing an Aldiss lamp as I spioke. I got one to ring back once as I told him my computer was steam driven and it needed more coal on.
There is a difference between a call centre worker in India ( and having just returned from India I have seen the ways people use just survive) and a wasting a scammer’s time.
joe robert says
I’ve remembered another. I used to work for a community organisation that often put on neighbourhood ‘fun days’. These would typically involve local interest groups – the Rotary society, the WI etc – exhibiting with trestle table stalls. You know the sort of thing.
One of the organisers had a habit of using these events to promote her own extracurricular interest, spiritualism. It was funny how the local spiritualist church’s stall always seemed to get pride of place in the room plan, which happened to be her responsibility. Despite her passion for communing with the dead, I must admit I did have a tiny bit of a crush on my colleague.
Anyway, she was ordering branded t-shirts for an event and asked me my size. I think I was the only one who realised the double meaning of:
“Ooh, I could slip into a Medium.”
Gatz says
For a while in my bookselling days I had a manager who liked to start the day with one of us taking the whole team to a section we managed and telling them about the latest bestsellers.
One day it was the turn of the woman who stocked the Mind Body Spirit section. She was showing off the selection of books by a medium (Betty Shine or some such spoonbender), whose books all had her own face prominently on the cover. Someone mentioned this and was told, ‘Well, she just looks the part. She looks like a medium.’ Every man there, and there were about 5 of us including me, replied in exact unison, ‘But she’s really a large.’