Last night I sat and half listened to Jack call his pal in order to read out hundreds of knock knock jokes to him

Some of them were terrible. Actually most of them were. The only one I can immediately remember goes:
"Knock knock"
"Who's there?"
"Formosa"
"Formosa who?"
"Formosa the holiday I was skiing in Switzerland."
This is a terrible joke. I don't even know what a Formosa is.*

After he read out all the knock knock jokes, he started on those ones where they go "What do you call a man who lives in the ground?" and the answer is Warren or something. I can't remember any of the ones Jack read out. That's not because some of them weren't funny, it's just because I am very very very bad at remembering any jokes of any description. It's easier to remember these ones, where they follow a very distinct pattern, but still I find it just about impossible. There is something very appealing about following a formula though. Lately I have been playing this game a lot where I imagine myself in a press conference, standing up and asking a lot of very aggressively phrased questions. And the questions always follow the exact same formula.This one:
"I'm sorry, but are you some kind of (x)?"
Like if you were at a press conference given by a python, you would stand up and say "I'm sorry, but are you some kind of non-venomous boa?"
It's funny! It is! I don't know why!
"I'm sorry, but are you some kind of land mammal?"
"I'm sorry, but are you some kind of tree surgeon?"
"I'm sorry, but are you some kind of part-time zookeeper?"
"I'm sorry, but are you some kind of old wizard?"
It makes me laugh and laugh and laugh. The other day, me and Mae were in the kitchen at Mahdis's, and I found these sort of dried soya bean snack things. They are Mae's best and they are
delicious. We were doing lots of exclaiming about how nice they are, and Mae said, "I don’t want to give these to Dan. He’ll just go 'are you a bird?'"

And then I said: “I’m sorry, but are you some kind of bird?”

And then she said: “Let me just stop you right there and ask you if you are a bird”

And then I said: “Let me just stop you right there and ask the question that’s been on the tip of everybody’s tongue: are you some kind of bird?”

And then I got the bus to Stoke Newington and laughed about it the whole way. On that same bus trip, I heard this nice middle aged lady call her slightly useless looking teenage son a chief. He said he was getting off the bus earlier than she thought was a good idea, and she said "Why would you do that, you chief?" She gave him a really hard time about it, and all her friends laughed at him, and he climbed off the bus in a huge sulk. His mum sat back all complacently and said "He'll be waiting for me at the right stop when I get off." I bet he was, too.
Obviously, if he was holding a press conference, it would only have been a matter of minutes before someone stood up and asked him straight to his face if he was some kind of chief.

* Now I do. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiwan**

** The joke is now even more extra terrible. Answering "Taiwan" when someone asks you who is there doesn't make any sense.