[UPDATE with attributions and conclusion under ‘the fold’ as they say]

Apparently, (apparently), some people are going around saying comedy is subjective – an “art” if you will. Nonsense. Just because the rigours of science haven’t been applied to something, doesn’t mean it can be so wantonly abandoned to the chaos of the immeasurable.

So for the following poll I do NOT want to see any come back guff – “interpretation” this, “define your terms” that. ALL THE WORDS IN THE FOLLOWING POLL QUESTION ARE SELF EVIDENTLY CLEAR, UNAMBIGUOUS AND UNDERSTOOD BY ALL.

OK. Happy? YES YOU ARE HAPPY. ANSWER

Which of the following are funny?

  • I was raised as an only child, which really annoyed my sister. 16%
  • I saw a documentary on how ships are kept together. Riveting! 15%
  • Last night me and my girlfriend watched three DVDs back to back. Luckily I was the one facing the telly. 13%
  • Pornography is often frowned upon, but that's only because I'm concentrating 11%
  • You know who really gives kids a bad name? Posh and Becks. 10%
  • My mum's so pessimistic, that if there was an Olympics for pessimism … she wouldn't fancy her chances. 9%
  • I'm good friends with 25 letters of the alphabet … I don't know Y. 8%
  • I waited an hour for my starter so I complained, 'It's not rocket salad' 6%
  • I took part in the sun tanning Olympics - I just got Bronze 6%
  • You know you're working class when your TV is bigger than your book case 4%
  • There are no proper supermarkets on Manhattan but that doesn't matter cos most of the inhabitants eat out all the time 2%
  • None of them! 2%

Total Voters: 84

Poll closes: 28 Aug 2012 @ 12:48

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UPDATE

TV Channel ‘Dave’s 10 funniest 1-liners of the Edinburgh Fringe 2012

Our scientific and stringently methodical poll shows that the real winner should have been Will Marsh. The remaining jokes in final polling order were from:

Stewart Francis (riveting), Tim Vine (back-to-back DVDs), George Ryegold (frowning porn), Stewart Francis (Posh and Becks), Nish Kumar (olympic pessimism), Chris Turner (don’t know Y), Lou Sanders (rocket salad), Tim Vine (tanning olympics), Rob Beckett (big telly).

The mystery 11th comment in our poll, as I think some commenters caught on, was our SCIENCE CONTROL – an aside observational comment from a recent e-mail I’d read. WE TOTALLY DID SCIENCE.

Based on EXACTLY the same number of people finding none of the 11 funny as finding the control funny,  our conclusion is that everything is funny, and if you don’t find any specific thing funny, take a long hard look at thee sen. Everything. Even that.