Edinburgh Fringe One-liners

The top 10 festival funnies for 2010 were judged to be:

Tim Vine: "I've just been on a once-in-a-lifetime holiday. I'll tell you what, never again."

David Gibson: "I'm currently dating a couple of anorexics. Two birds, one stone."

Emo Philips: "I picked up a hitch hiker. You've got to when you hit them."

Jack Whitehall: "I bought one of those anti-bullying wristbands when they first came out. I say 'bought', I actually stole it off a short, fat ginger kid."

Gary Delaney: "As a kid I was made to walk the plank. We couldn't afford a dog."

John Bishop: "Being an England supporter is like being the over-optimistic parents of the fat kid on sports day."

Bo Burnham: "What do you call a kid with no arms and an eyepatch? Names."

Gary Delaney: "Dave drowned. So at the funeral we got him a wreath in the shape of a lifebelt. Well, it's what he would have wanted."

Robert White: "For Vanessa Feltz, life is like a box of chocolates: Empty."

Gareth Richards: "Wooden spoons are great. You can either use them to prepare food. Or, if you can't be bothered with that, just write a number on one and walk into a pub…"

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Judges also selected some of the worst jokes of 2010's Fringe, which included:

Sara Pascoe: "Why did the chicken commit suicide? To get to the other side."

Sean Hughes: "You know city-centre beat officers... Well are they police who rap?"

John Luke Roberts: "I made a Battenberg where the two colours ran alongside each other. I called it apartheid sponge."

Emo Phillips: "I like to play chess with bald men in the park although it's hard to find 32 of them."

Bec Hill: "Some of my best friends are vegan. They were going to come today but they didn't have the energy to climb up the stairs."

Dan Antopolski: "How many Spaniards does it take to change a lightbulb? Juan."

And that after Dan Antopolski was the 2009 winner with: "Hedgehogs - why can't they just share the hedge?"

More on this at http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-11053202

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And now some from 2009:

Paddy Lennox: "I was watching the London Marathon and saw one runner dressed as a chicken and another runner dressed as an egg. I thought: 'This could be interesting.'"

Jack Whitehall: "I'm sure wherever my dad is, he's looking down on us. He's not dead. Just very condescending."
 
Marcus Brigstocke: "To the people who've got iPhones: you just bought one, you didn't invent it!"

Rhod Gilbert: "A spa hotel? It's like a normal hotel, only in reception there's a picture of a pebble".

Dan Antopolski: "I've been reading the news about there being a civil war in Madagascar. Well, I've seen it six times and there isn't."

Simon Brodkin (as Lee Nelson) : "I started so many fights at my school - I had that attention-deficit disorder. So I didn't finish a lot of them."

Tom Wrigglesworth: "I'm on the cusp of getting married. Well, I'm engaged to be harassed."

Edward Aczel: "Machiavelli said, 'It is better to be feared than to be loved, if you cannot be both.' Something to bear in mind when you embark on internet dating."

Phil Nichol: "A lot of people say I'm egocentric – but enough about them."

Stephen Carlin: "There are so many 'failed train' announcements at stations these days. It's not rolling stock, it's laughing stock."

Celia Pacquola: "My mind is like a cement mixer. It's grey, thick and always moving."

Rhys Darby: "I don't believe in guns. Literally; I don't believe they exist."

Frank Woodley: "I phoned the swine flu hotline and all I got was crackling."
 
Glenn Wool: "I wonder what would happen if Franz Ferdinand were assassinated?"

Stephen Grant: "I got an odd-job man in. He was useless. Gave him a list of eight things to do and he only did numbers one, three, five and seven. Had to get an even-man in to finish it off."

Richard Herring: "Act your age, not your shoe size ... that means something different on the Continent."

David O'Doherty: "I like the Ten Commandments but I have a problem with the ninth. It should be: "Thou shalt not covet they neighbour's ox, except in Scrabble".

Jimeoin: "Two aerials on a roof fell in love and got married. The wedding wasn't great but the reception was fantastic."

Using several Twitter accounts

A thought about your Twitter "audience". When you tweet, it's a good idea to think who you are writing to. Do you use Twitter to share all your thoughts with whoever might listen? What about being more precise? Can you be? Should you be?

For example, if you are a JW, and you want to tweet a witness to non-JWs, you may write a tweet referring followers to a specific page on watchtower.org, such as "What is the Bible's view of Death?". However, fellow JWs may well already know this information. So, if most of your followers are brothers, they might want to hear something about how well you got on in the ministry instead.

There is a way to write tweets for both witnessesing AND for fellow JWs. Have two separate Twitter accounts.  This is allowed, it doesn't break any rules!

You could have one account for witnessing-type tweets and you would try and get followers from non-JWs.

You could have a second account which you use for exchanging news, encouragement, etc., with JWs and you wouldn't witness using this account.
 
How can you manage this form of tweeting? Well, a lot of Twitter helper software will easily support multiple accounts, with THIS SORT OF USE in mind. I personally use Tweetdeck to manage several Twitter accounts, including some for business use. There are numerous software tools that can do the same, and an internet search will soon give you a list to work with until you find one you like the most.
 
So, onward and upwards! Enjoy tweeting, and remember your "audience".