Some more quick gags from Joyce Stirling’s columns, sampled from The Best of Joyce Stirling, published 1963…

On glasses: I think it was about two years later that, boarding a tram marked Coorparoo one day, I ended up at Balmoral.

‘It is obvious,’ said my optometrist, ‘that you need glasses for long distance as well as glasses for close work.’ It infuriated me to think my sight was being blamed for an obvious mistake on the part of the Tramways Department.

At an art show: Then there is the picture which the same artist has called ‘Danseuse’, meaning ballet girl. This consists of a fairly large canvas containing a number of twirly lines in shades of fawn and blue. Nothing else. I puzzled over this for some considerable time, but for the life of me could find no ballet girl… I hope I am not being hypercritical when I say that if there were a ballet girl there when Mr Picasso began this picture, there was none there when he finished. Perhaps something broke when she was dancing, and she had to leave in a hurry. It is necessary to know all the facts before passing judgment.

On pets: My two dogs are ‘well-behaved’. They neither smoke nor drink, and they never come home late at night.

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