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Cable cars are fun. Everyone gets on board and becomes a rhesus monkey. No one talks on a cable car, they just hang and stare : And the guy in the front, with no steering wheel, going, 'What the fuck. What the fuck's this one do?' [miming pulling levers] Pulling levers, levers : Is it four levers that just do fuck all? That it? He's always ringing that bell, going, 'Help! Help!' [imitates bell ringing] Endless bell ringing! What is he, the Hunchback of Notre Dame? The bell : him and the guy from the stock market are the same person, I think. At the end of the stock market, they ring a bell. It's the same bell. Oh, yes. [Pause. Mimes writing on palm] 'Never link those two together again.'

Eddie Izzard#4

HumorSatire

About this quote

What does it mean?
He satirizes cable cars as chaotic, noisy, and absurd, likening the driver to a clueless figure and the stock market bell to a repetitive nuisance.
In plain terms
Cable cars are chaotic and the driver and market bell are absurd.
What can you take from it?
Find humor in everyday absurdities.

Where it applies

  • on public transport
  • watching market news

Putting it to work

  • use comedic exaggeration
  • draw parallels for effect

Questions to consider

  • How does satire change your view of mundane things?

Another view

Humor may not translate without context.

More from Eddie Izzard

  1. When I was a kid in school, the career advisor came to see us and said, 'Look, I advise you to get a career, what can I say?' And he took me aside and he said,…

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  2. Squirrels always eat nuts with two hands, always two hands, 'Raar-ra-ra-yum-yum-yum'. And occasionally they stop and they go [gasps, starts, then pauses and lo…

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  3. So, San Francisco!

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