The Zone in which Brighton Lions Club, the club to which I belong, finds itself consists of six Lions Clubs spread along the coast of Sussex between the Rivers Adur and Cuckmere, plus one Lioness Club. We are fortunate in having a particularly good inter-club relationship. This is, in part, due to what has now become an established tradition of an annual Zone Olympics. These Olympics involve each club organising a social event based on a vaguely sporting competition. This year, for example, the Clubs have played or will play against each other in events comprising toad in the hole (explanation here), shuffleboard, ten-pin bowling, kurling (the indoor version of curling), darts, pool, shove ha'penny, a quiz and skittles.
Under the leadership of a Zone Chairman, the presidents and secretaries of each club, plus any other Lions sufficiently interested to attend, meet several times during the year. A few years ago the Zone Chairman was a particularly well-liked and respected man, a man whome many were delighted to call a friend. Despite having been diagnosed as suffering from cancer, John always seemed more concerned with the well-being of other people than with his own health problems. He had asked me to act as his Zone Secretary and although I was at that time trying to reduce the number of jobs I undertook with the Lions, there was no way I could dream of refusing John.
John always ended zone meetings with a joke, usually a feeble joke. John was renowned for his feeble jokes. After his death just about at the end of his year as Zone Chairman, the new ZC introduced the John Wilkinson Memorial Joke as the last item on the agenda of every zone meeting. Subsequent ZCs have continued that practice. The joke selected for last week's meeting struck us all as very funny, which is why I am reproducing it here. It is a little risqué so I will apologise in advance if I offend anyone.
A man walked into a pub, sat at the bar and placed a bag on the bar. The barman asked what was in the bag. Without speaking, the man reached into the bag and took out a miniature man, almost exactly a foot tall, whom he placed on the bar. He reached into the bag again and took out a miniature piano which he also placed on the bar. Reaching into the bag a third time, he pulled out a miniature piano stool. The miniature man sat on the stool and started to play the piano.
‘Good heavens,' exclaimed the barman. ‘Where did you get those?'
The man still said nothing but reached yet again into the bag. This time he pulled out a magic lamp. Handing this to the barman he said, ‘Rub it'. The barman did so and a genie appeared.
‘You may have one wish,' the genie said to the barman. ‘Everybody is entitled to one wish.'
‘I wish for a million bucks,' said the barman.
At that, the door opened and ducks started filing into the pub. Soon the place was filled with them - on the bar, the chairs, the tables - and still they kept coming.
‘I think your genie must be a bit deaf,' said the barman. ‘I wished for a million bucks, not a million ducks.'
The man spoke for the first time. ‘Tell me about it,' he said. ‘Do you think I really asked for a 12-inch pianist?'
So yesterday I cut the grass for the first time this year and - more importantly - pulled the first rhubarb. This plant has been covered by a metal wastepaper basket all winter and is miles ahead of the others. One plum tree is a mass of blossom but the other has very little this year.
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