Very punny!

Transcript: Very punnyWortspiel mit „pun“ und „funnypunny

The king has two birthdays. No, that’s not the title of Disney’s latest fairy storyMärchenfairy story for children. King Charles really does have two birthdays: his real birthday in November, and the official one in June.

His great-great-grandfather, King Edward VII, who was also born in November, wanted to celebrate in the summer, which seemed a better time to be out in the fresh air looking at soldiers on horses wearing colourful uniforms. (Just to be clear: it’s the soldiers who wear the uniforms, not the horses.)

It may be tradition, but summer is no guarantee of good weather. When Rishi Sunak told us last year that there would be an election, he followed tradition by announcing it outside 10 Downing Street. It was late May, and he stood in the rain without an umbrella.

Two seems to be a special number for Charles. He has two birthdays, two sons, two brothers, and even two predecessorVorgänger(in)predecessors as king with the same name. And Camilla is his second wife.

Should we all get two birthdays? It would be a wonderful boost for the economy, and it could be organized like important football matches, with two legs: one party at home with your family, the other away, with friends at the pub. Useful if the two groups refuse to speak to each other.

There’s a sort of model for this in the car industry, where vehicle registrationFahrzeugzulassungvehicle registration numbers change twice a year: in spring and autumn. For example, new cars registered from March to August 2025 include a 25. But a new car registered from September 2025 to February 2026 will get a 50 added to the number – in other words, 75. It sounds complicated, but it does make it easier for people to impress their friends with a really new car.

This system wouldn’t work for birthdays, otherwise 25-year-olds would become pensioners in the winter months. Although, as pensioners, they’d get a free bus pass for six months of the year. And shops would sell lots more cakes and cards.

In America, you can buy cards to thank your plumberInstallateur(in), Klempner(in)plumber, for example. Britain has even sillier birthday cards, many of them with really bad punWortspielpuns. The last such card I saw was when one of our neighbours had her 93rd birthday. It had a picture of a llamaLama; Wortspiel mit „Alarm“llama on it, and instead of saying that another birthday was “No cause for alarm”, it said: “No cause for … a llama”.

At least it made a change from the cards that say “hippo (ifml.)Nilpferd; Wortspiel mit „happy“Hippo birthday”, with a picture of a hippo. Or cards with pictures of fish, and a text saying “With best birthday fishesWortspiel mit „wishes“fishes”.

But if we all had a second birthday – one real, one official – how would we make sure we didn’t get them mix sth. upetw. durcheinanderbringenmixed up? Simple: when the birthday is real, the animal on the card will tell us it’s real. And for the official birthday, it’ll be a fish’llWortspiel mit „official“fish’ll!