Punovich

Head injuries lead to this sort of thing. We hop on a bus. I sit down next to Juancito while turning around to look behind me, and promptly bash the hell out of my head on the pole placed in just that position. “Son of a bitch,” I say, moving to sit with the Blue Pirate in the row behind. I may have already mentioned that she’s a citizen of the Czech Republic. Juancito looks at me questioningly.

“What?” I say. “I’d rather sit next to the Czech than the pole.”

“Well, you should have Czeched for the pole,” he says.

“I was Russian. I should have gone more Slovak.”

“Yeah. That sort of thing’s bad for Ukrainium.”

“It Herzegovina.”

“Are you in a lot of Alpainia?”

“Yeah, it’s pretty Warsaw. I think I’m going to have a large Bulge-area.”

“There’s no Krakow. But you do have a nasty Split.”

“We could get a bit of plaster to Moldova it.”

“No, the best thing is Tirana bit of cold water over it. Then just Bucharest when you get home.”

“It’s abSerb. I can’t believe I just Se-bashed-a-pole with my head.”

“You’ve made Minsk-meat of it.”

“Ouchwitz.”

“That’ll teach you to Lutsk where you’re going.”

“Yeah, I need to be a bit more Riga-rous.”

“You Odessamated yourself. You headbutted that pole like an Istanbul.”

“Better than a Moscow. Not to worry. I’ve had Lodz of head injuries.”

“That’s nothing to Cro-at.”

*

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My favourite pun of all time, though, was on the chalkboard out the front of Ray’s Tent City in Geelong (yes, something clever once happened there), in July, during a large clearance sale. It said:

“Now is the winter of our discount tent.”

Made my life.