Cheap slates

[AtW]

A pack of grey slates for a fiver. Green ones cost a lot more.

[thunderlizard]

Old Soviet Joke

A man hears a knock at the door in the middle of the night. Heart racing, he goes downstairs, and his neighbour's at the door. "Quick! you need to leave now!"
"Why?" says the man.
"Oh don't worry, it's nothing bad" says the neighbour. "It's just that your house is on fire."

[AtW]

A man hears a knock at the door in the middle of the night. Heart racing, he goes downstairs, and his neighbour's at the door. "Quick! you need to leave now!"
"Why?" says the man.
"Oh don't worry, it's nothing bad" says the neighbour. "It's just that your house is on fire."

That's a good joke but the way it was translated is more than likely make it misunderstood.

The right background to this joke is that in Stalin's time NKVD (later KGB) were knocking on citizens' doors at night and taking them away to get shot or to GULAG.

Hence phrase "Quick! you need to leave now!" really is meant to say - "Quick, you come with us now!"

And response should be, not "Why?" but "What for?"

It sure is less funny sounding in English, or in other country when people don't get arrested to be shot at night

[thunderlizard]

Don't worry, people coming for you in the night is one of the only things about Stalinist Russia that is generally known in this country. That and the tractor manufacturing targets.

[AtW]

That and the tractor manufacturing targets.

I blame conned tractors...