No problem, where's the list?

Re jokes on Twitter, if I know something to be unoriginal I just write it out and tweet it if I don't know who first wrote it i.e. "What's brown and sits on a piano stool? Beethoven's last movement" <-one I heard when I was a child. I wouldn't enter it in the competition though as it's not my own. No idea who the originator was.

Another example would be repeating a joke but crediting it "Doctor, I think I've got a hearing problem? What are the symptoms? That yellow family on television" < that's a Barry Cryer gag.

Quote: Aldeem @ March 30 2011, 2:39 PM BST

Did you see my message to you last week Tony re win100?Someone had used the same punchline you use in a joke, namely "She's a keeper", but had a different front end. Guess it's like my 'how I roll' effort, just coincidence taking a stock phrase and trying to build a joke working back from it, rather than plagiarism.

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Yes thanks, as you say though most cases of "joke theft" are completely coincidental because of the way jokes are back engineered.

In the case of my "she's a keeper" joke, Tim Vine once told me that he'd tried a similar joke but rather than being about someone who worked in a zoo in his version they were a goalkeeper, he told me that he could never get his version to work consistently so he'd dropped it and he complimented me on my version (one of my proudest moments in comedy!).

For the one-liner comic Twitter is both a boon and a pain in the derriere, it's a boon because it has made me become a prolific writer and has helped me to learn how to write efficiently, but it's a pain because you do lose jokes to the twittersphere, people (mainly non-comics) "pinch" the jokes (and usually not in a malicious way) and before you know it they are being texted to hundreds or thousands of people (this has happened to me a few times) as well as being used as Facebook statuses and spread on Twitter itself.

I admire more prolific output.I struggle to come up with more than a couple a week. Sometimes I have none at all, like this week where I just dug up one I'd entered win100 with before, but honed it a little.

Quote: Tony Cowards @ March 30 2011, 10:02 AM BST

s.

On Twitter it doesn't really matter if you've come up with a similar joke to someone else but on the comedy circuit it's a different matter.

I've had to drop numerous gags because Milton Jones, Tim Vine, Jimmy Carr or Gary Delaney et al have got their first, it's just not worth getting a reputation, deserved or otherwise, as a "gag thief".

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Thats frustrating, having to scrap jokes but the alternative as you point out is worse

Tony Cowards does a hell of a Twitter trade, did an Edinburgh show on Twitter and such, he's definitely worth the follow - but be careful, he's bled poor Keith Chegwin's joke cupboard dry

Quote: Aldeem @ March 30 2011, 2:49 PM BST

No problem, where's the list?

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Hi Aldeem - The list is conveniently located on the very first post on this thread.

Tony Cowards' (is that apostrophe in the right place?) tweets are brilliant - if you watch them, they just get retweeted and retweeted. Top tip though - read them with the West Country accent!

Dean

Top tip for more follower - tweet "anyone know a good web design company" - see what happens!!! My twitter went mad over the last 2 hours.

A quick tip that I put on Twitter, if you want famous people to follow you, put in your biog that you work in TV or that you are a film producer.

Someone has posted a joke with the same punch as one I posted an hour earlier on #win100, could someone reccommend a good lawyer, please?

(This one: I met this guy who was waiting for an organ donor the other day. He was a man after my own heart.)

I see the win100 competition finishes next week. It will be no more. Honoured to have won it during its brief lifetime.

Quote: Aldeem @ March 30 2011, 2:49 PM BST

"Doctor, I think I've got a hearing problem? What are the symptoms? That yellow family on television" < that's a Barry Cryer gag.

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The lad Cryer is brilliant and that's a cracker!

As you can see, I don't nick jokes - just catchphrases.

I might slightly change my name on Twitter
That should be ok shouldn't it?

I won't lose my 4 new followers will I

I'm stuck at just under 100. I got to 99 but then I got unfollowed by someone

Tis an odd place tho all the same,Id love to know how many people are on there in total

Quote: Nat Wicks @ March 31 2011, 6:49 PM BST

I'm stuck at just under 100. I got to 99 but then I got unfollowed by someone

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Think I may have done that to a couple of peeps by mistake...I is new so am just grasping the basics,but Ive added everyone on the list, and nearly everyone has added me

I hover around the 160-170 mark all the time.

Use this to find out which utter b@stards have unfollowed you:

http://who.unfollowed.me/