to ask for your help solving this impossible riddle/joke

[killingtime9198]

My best friend's family have a family 'joke', which she originally told me about when we were about 12/13. When she originally told me she didn't get the joke either, but then later did manage to work it out. When she first met her now husband he didn't get it, but he later also worked it out. I have never managed to get it, and every now and again I will remember the saga of this joke (this has been going on for about 20 years now), try desperately for a few days to work it out and then forget all about it for months.

Anyway, I wonder if the powers of mumsnet can either locate someone who has heard this 'joke' before, or who can work it out!

The joke is:

'There once was a man called Boswell. For short they called him Bos, and he walked up the post office steps.'

The joke is definitely NOT that there is no joke, and they're all having a laugh at me for trying to work it out - I am 100% confident of this.

Are you sure it’s not just to exclude? And there’s no point.

Yes, its a bit meh for a big family riddle that’s been strung out for decades.

Well katty...,

I tried to post a screenshot! Didn't it work? It shows up on my screen lol. It's a post office on Boswall drive, Edinburgh!

Any Indians in the family? BOS is the acronym for Branch Post Office in India.

Still not funny if it is

It is there MamaBear don’t know why PP can’t see it?

Oh it’s another screenshot that isn’t visible to everyone? I’ll go and whinge in site stuff again later if i remember

Pleased it's not my usual technical incompetency 😂😂

Strange Virago. I often notice this happening or a poster posting the same thing twice thinking it hasn’t shown up the first time and I can see it. Must be a clitch with the site.

I’m flabbergasted you didn’t end the friendship long ago, OP. Cities have burned 🔥 for far less than this.

There's only one solution... call up the mum and tell her you have to go down to the registry office immediately as the wedding last week has been deemed incorrectly performed and it all has to be done again.

I hope you haven’t done this to deliberately leave us hanging if you do find out the answer OP?

Are you English, Irish, Scots, Welsh or other, OP?

I’m wondering if there’s a culturally bound element to this.

I don't think it can be connected to the Edinburgh post office - this joke has been going on decades - long before anyone would have been googling things/able to find that info easily.

The side of the family the joke come from is Australian, though have lived in the UK for circa 40 years.

There is definitely something to 'get' - my friend is absolutely insistent on this - I have known her over 20 years and I know when she is lying. Similarly, her husband did not 'get' it originally and we used to moan to each-other about it whenever we remembered it existed! He subsequently got it, but they refuse to tell me on the basis that you have to work it out for yourself.

I know my background reassurances on there actually being a joke/the joke being on me won't count for much, but I am honestly 100% sure that is not the joke. There are members of her family who still don't get it, and nobody will tell them either!

Ive just got Charles Dickens in my head now, but he was Boz.

This reminds me a lot of the Owain Hughes joke from Gavin and Stacey.

Sorry. Not India. Just BOs Branch offices.

Surely not though. It's hardly funny.

Honestly, OP, it sounds like one of those family' jokes which have no point at all, other than than that they may have had some slight 'you had to be there' value in about 1964. There's no joke to this joke, and nothing to 'work out'.

For comparison, my six year old has a 'joke', which goes 'There was once a boy who came out of his house and looked at the moon. And that is the story of Rumpelstiltskin.'

That's it. He has been telling this piece of hilarity to his grandparents since he was about four, and it's become a kind of family tradition. In fairness, it's arguably funnier than your friend's Boswell 'joke'.

Plus I don't see how on earth you can be so certain they're not just engaging in a very drawn-out tease.

Is it like Mornington Crescent?

that is really annoying, just commenting because i'm invested now and i need to know but like anything that's dragged out it's often not worth it.

I have absolutely no idea, other than the joke is that you think he’s called Boswell, as in man called Boswell, Bos for short, but he is called Bos, well they called him Bos for short, as you wrote above, and the joke is that Bos isn’t a shorter version of Bos ? *scrapes barrel

I think your last sentence is actually exactly what it is.

I'd go for a deadpan response along the lines of well i must be exceptionally stupid then to have not yet worked it out, ah well, at least you get to feel clever eh? And turn away / change the subject.

Bos = cattle

Myth = cattle can climb steps but cannot go back down

How about that?

Even if it is some sort of (shit) real "joke" - it's still unkind and exclusive to still be harping on about it.

Jokes are supposed to be funny.

Is it like Mornington Crescent?

Only with MC, at least there's the minimal fun of pretending it has rules and challenging people about infringements and admiring good play etc.

I reckon the OP should play Hilarious Boswell Joke Family at their own game, show up at the house at some inconvenient time and say 'I ASKED ABOUT YOUR JOKE AT MY WORK CHRISTMAS DO/BUCKINGHAM PALACE GARDEN PARTY/CHATTING AT G20 -- HOW COULD YOU HAVE DONE THIS TO ME? THANKS TO YOU AND YOUR BLOODY JOKE I'VE LOST MY JOB/ROYAL PATRONAGE/GOT GB CHUCKED OUT OF G20! '

Then say you want an apology and flounce off. And any time someone brings it up for the next 20 years, say 'You know PERFECTLY well. I can't believe you did that to to me' and change the subject.