Once upon a time, there lived a beautiful young fairy princess who dreamed of being a ballet dancer. Then one day, she read an ad in her email that announced the Royal Ballet's next auditions in a nearby town.

So on the right day, the fairy princess geared up one hundred white pigeons to her chariot, and off they flew to the theater.

After witnessing her outrageous entrance, the director immediately told her to go back home.

"But why?" wept the broken-hearted shell of the would-be-ballerina.

"Because," came the heartless reply, "I've got enough pigeon-towed dancers in the company already."

What time did the man go to the dentist?

Tooth hurty.

In the days of old, when Genghis Khan's men were running over Asia, they set their sights on further shores. Rather than 'Huns', these warriors were known as Khan's men, or simply, Khans. When they had conquered all the way to the water's edge, they built boats, gathered their loot, and bravely went to sea. By a sad twist of fate, they encountered an island of lepers, which resulted in most of the crew being infected. Hastily leaving that island, they set sail again, but by the time they reached Ireland, there wasn't much left of them. Disembarking on stubby limbs, they set forth, but were soon set upon by the natives for the riches they carried.

Rotted away, but still clever, they hid on the island and awaited rescue, and the locals never did get their hands on the treasure.

And that's how the story of the little people got started in Ireland - the leper Khan's and their pots of gold.

Cunning though diseased, the Khans were never fooled by those who tried to trick them out of their pots of gold by swapping them for an empty pot - thus the saying: "You cannot change a leper's pots".

It turns out that the "Old King Cole" of nursery rhyme fame is loosely based on a 14th century ruler.

The slightly mad monarch is best known for his decree that the entire kingdom's crop of cabbage be diced and drenched in mayonnaise.

He called it, of course, Cole's Law.

It's well known that some species of fish on the coral reef have adapted to be able to survive the poisonous sea anemone's sting, which gives them a safe place to hide from predators.

What isn't so well known is the story of the single fish that decided to be different. One day he swam away from his protective anemone, in search of some other hiding place.

A first, he swam into a small crevice in the rock, but he very quickly swam out of there, chased by an eel. Then he decided he could hide inside a shell, so he found a nice big one that he liked, but had to retreat from the crab that had got there before him.

Finally, exhausted, he swam into the coral beds, and hid among the brilliant colored fern-like fronds of the corals.

The next day, when he hadn't come back to the anemone, some of the other fish decided to go out and look for him. They hunted everywhere for him, but they couldn't find him. Eventually, just as they had given up, they heard him calling to them. They looked around, but they couldn't see him anywhere - he was perfectly hidden by the fronds of the coral.

Finally, he showed himself, and they tried to persuade him to come back home, but he refused - the coral was too good a hiding place to leave.

"After all," he said, "with fronds like these, who needs anemones?"

Why are there so many Smiths in the phone book?

They all have phones.

There was a snake called Nate. His purpose in life was to stay in the desert and guard the lever. This lever was no ordinary lever. It was the lever that if moved would destroy the world. Nate took his job very seriously. He let nothing get close to the lever.

One day off in the distance he saw a cloud of dust. He kept his eye on it because he was guarding the lever. The dust cloud continued to move closer to the lever. Nate saw that it was a huge boulder and it was heading straight for the lever!

Nate thought about what he could do to save the world. He decided if he could get in front of the boulder he could deflect it and it would miss the lever. Nate slithered quickly to intersect the boulder. The boulder ran over Nate, but it was, in fact, deflected, leaving history to conclude that is was better Nate than lever.

An enterprising journalist decided to get the scoop of the day by photographing the fearsome phantom that lived in the spooky old mansion house at the edge of town.

When he entered the house, armed with only his camera, the ghost descended upon him, moaning and wailing and clanking chains.

"I mean no harm; I just want your photograph," the journalist said bravely.

Pleased at this chance to make headlines, the ghost posed for a number of shots, and the happy journalist rushed back to his darkroom and began developing the photos.

Unfortunately, they turned out to be so underexposed that nothing could be seen in them.

He was distraught, and went to a local pub to drown his sorrows. Meeting his friends there, they asked what was wrong. Not wanting to tell the whole story, he simply explained with a single sentence: ......

"The spirit was willing, but the flash was weak."

Recently, the Minnesota Orchestra was doing Beethoven's Ninth under the baton of Milton Katims.....

Now at this point, you must understand two things: Firstly, there's a quite long segment in this symphony where the bass violins don't have a thing to do. Not a single note for page after page. Secondly, there is a night club right across the street from the Minnesota's Orchestra Hall, rather favored by local musicians.

It had been decided that during this performance, once the bass players had played their parts in the opening of the Ninth, they were to quietly lay down their instruments and leave the stage, rather than sit on their stools looking and feeling dumb for twenty minutes. Well, once they got backstage, someone suggested that they trot across the street and drink a few brews.

After they had downed the first couple rounds, one said, "Shouldn't we be getting back? It'd be awfully embarrassing if we were late."

Another, presumably the one who suggested this excursion in the first place, replied, "Oh, I anticipated we could use a little more time, so I tied a string around the last pages of the conductor's score. When he gets down to there, Milton's going to have to slow the tempo way down while he waves the baton with one hand and fumbles with the string with the other."

So they had another round, and finally returned to the Opera house, a little tipsy by now.

However, as they came back on stage, one look at their conductor's face told them they were in serious trouble. Katims was furious! And why not? After all...

It was the bottom of the Ninth, the basses were loaded, and the score was tied.

What's long, yellow and fruity?

An apple in disguise.

Why was the man arrested for waiting in the Big Top?

He was loitering within tent.

A man walked into the doctor's office and said, "Doc, I think that I am God."
"How did that start?" asked the doctor.
"Well, first I created the sun, then the earth..."

How do you organize a spacey party?

You planet.

Bonus Thursday Joke

A new monk arrives at the monastery. He is assigned to help the other monks in copying the old texts by hand. He notices, however, that they are copying copies, not the original books. So, the new monk goes to the head monk to ask him about this. He points out that if there were an error in the first copy, that error would be continued in all of the other copies.

The head monk says "We have been copying from the copies for centuries, but you make a good point, my son." So, he goes down into the cellar with one of the copies to check it against the original.

Hours later, nobody has seen him. So, one of the monks goes downstairs to look for him. He hears a sobbing coming from the back of the cellar, and finds the old monk leaning over one of the original books crying. He asks what's wrong.

The old monk sobs, "The word is celebrate."

What do you call spending the afternoon with a cranky rabbit?

A bad hare day.