From rubbish on a plane to wrapping paper in prison — Each person who heard the funny remark at the barbecue heard it in their own way and, if prompted, would have given their own account of it. Imagine someone passing the remark on to someone who passes it on to someone else — a single moment could go through a…

Only this time in black and white — He had forgotten to do his homework. The assignment he had been given was to come up with an example of wordplay which could be included in the school magazine. When the teacher asked him for his homework, he had to think of an example there and then, so he…

Danger comes when things travel too far — In its way, a pun is as much a thing as any other object. It does stuff. It moves around in the world. Sometimes what it does has unintended consequences. For instance, there’s a movie from the 2000s where there’s a pun — just an averagely amusing play on words…

From a classroom in northern France to a prison cell in New York — Even if this wasn’t a highly globalised world, a vast number of things would still be constantly moving around the world. But because this is a highly globalised world, an unimaginably vaster number of things are constantly moving from one place to another. Much of this is deliberate and planned…

Food miles in “A View from the Bridge” — What she can’t understand, she says, is there’s an ocean full of fish — yet Marco’s family are starving. To go fishing, her husband says, you need boats, nets, money. Why not fish from the beach, she says, like they do at Coney Island? Sardines, Marco replies. Her husband says…

A snapshot of the shipping industry in “A View from the Bridge” — When he got home, he smelt of coffee. His niece wasn’t surprised he did – she had smelt coffee all day today. His wife said, “It smelled all over the neighborhood”. It was one load Eddie didn’t mind shifting. When he was down in the ship’s hold, he said, the…

The newest conversation in “Macbeth” — Night-time. The sound of knocking. Macbeth asks, “Whence is that knocking?” Lady Macbeth says it comes from the south entrance. They must retire to their chamber at once. “Hark more knocking.” Only a few minutes before, these two had murdered the king — a guest in their own home. Now…

The leisure industry arrives in “The Cherry Orchard” — The dried cherries — the old servant remembers — were “soft and sweet… They knew how to do it then”. Cartloads of cherries were sent off to Moscow and Kharkov and fetched a good price. The cartloads ceased and the estate fell into debt. The orchard only produced one crop…

Bird migration in “Three Sisters” — If you take the Trans-Siberian train, the longest railway journey in the world — nearly 6000 miles — you start at Moscow and end up at Vladivostok, next to the Sea of Japan. The trip lasts eight days. After the first 900 miles, you reach the city of Perm, near…