Fart Jokes, ca. 1900 BC

Some mornings the RSS feed for the BBC news is about as comforting as waking up next to Karl Rove dressed as one of Clive Barker's cenobites. War, disease, failing economies and celebrity gossip headlines spill from my browser's tool bar adding a heavy dose of dread to the morning coffee. But it isn't all bad- I did read a translation of the world's oldest written joke. From that comedy capital of the Ancient World Sumeria, it perhaps loses something in translation:

Something which has never occurred since time immemorial; a young woman did not fart in her husband's lap

I don't know much about Sumerian culture, but I'm glad to see that fart jokes were all the rage nearly 4000 years ago. If only the country that stands where Sumeria once did (Iraq) was known more for its sense of humor today.

Also reported was the oldest written joke in English. Guess what? It's a dick joke! Some medieval Benny Hill wrote it over a 1000 years ago. Here it goes:

What hangs at a man's thigh and wants to poke the hole that it's often poked before?

A key.

Aww, snap!