Traditional festive fun to make the family crack(er) up

The jokes in crackers were bad then and are bad now - I suspect they are still the same jokes

IT HAS been my experience in recent years that Christmas crackers are not what they used to be. In my youth we used to get really good things in crackers - not just hats, but also good toys such as metal puzzles, indoor fireworks, and so on.

The only good thing I have got out of a cracker recently was a key ring with one of those black bulbs attached which, when you press it, lights up and unlocks your car from a distance, and sets off other people's car alarms. What was nice about this was that, being a cracker present, it only lit up - it didn't unlock anything - so it gives my keys a plutocratic look without committing me to anything.

(Indeed, even 12 months later the red light is still working, so I have occasionally been able to use it as an emergency torch to find very small things such as the ignition on the car...)

But one thing that has never changed since my youth is the quality of the jokes in crackers. They were bad then, and they are bad now. In fact, I suspect they are still the same jokes, the same schoolboy puns such as "What did the carpet say to the desk? "I can see your drawers!"

It has occurred to me that in this last issue before Christmas Day I might be doing a public service by providing some new cracker jokes, so over the weekend I programmed the mighty Independent computer to do some updated Christmas cracker jokes.

I fed into it the basic history of British jokes, a few hundred old matchboxes and a simple run-down of the last year's news, and asked it to come up with some new jokes which you, the readers, could easily cut out and insert into the end of your Christmas crackers for the delectation of all the family. Here is what it provided. I think you will agree that the quality maintains all the awfulness of yesteryear.

Q. Why should Peter Mandelson always be accompanied?

A. Because he should never be left alone (a loan).

Q. What is the difference between denationalisation and Tariq Ali?

A. One is privatisation and the other is Private Eye's Asian.

Q. What do you call Richard Branson spending Christmas Day over Chinese air space?

A. Virgin on the ridiculous!

Q. Why is the station at Southend-on-Sea like the House of Lords ?

A. Because it is the end of the line for the piers (peers).

Q. Why is the abdication of the Queen like a heart attack?

A. Because they are both a shock to the constitution.

Q. What is the motto of the Royal Family?

A. Never say Di.

Q. Why is Queen Elizabeth II like someone sitting reading in the lavatory?

A. Because they are both determined to stay on the throne as long as possible.

As the computer seemed to be building up something of a fixation with the Royal Family here, I had to instruct it to keep off Buckingham Palace, and move off in a different direction

Q. Why, at the Rio ecological summit, did President Clinton refuse to cut down on nocturnal emissions?

A. (Censored.)

Q. Why is Luciano Pavarotti like the Millennium Dome?

A. They both occupy an immense area (aria).

Q. What does General Pinochet want for Christmas?

A. That it should be Chile for the time of year.

Q. What do the Foreign Secretary's private detective and the Chancellor's private detective do on the beach during their summer holidays?

A. They stand around in the baking sunshine and watch Robin Cook and Gordon Brown!

Q. What do Beijing and voyeurism have in common?

A. They both used to be called Peking (peeking).

Q. How do you get rid of the boss of Harrods?

A. You tell him: "You're Fayed!"

Let me know how the jokes went down with the family. I'll pass it on to the computer