To mark the day when millions of Britons are doing something funny for money, we pitted entrepreneurs from UK Business Forums and accountants from AccountingWEB.co.uk against each other in a joke challenge. Our judge Linda Jones, journalist and creator of Comic Relief fundraising book TwitterTitters [1], picked her 10 favourites and decided which camp has the best sense of humour. Let battle commence!

1. A 54-year-old accountant leaves a letter for his wife one evening which read: "Dear Wife, I am 54 years old, and by the time you get this letter I will be at the Grand Hotel with my beautiful and sexy eighteen year old secretary." When he arrived at the hotel, there was a letter waiting for him that read as follows: "Dear Husband, I too am 54 years old, and by the time you receive this letter I will be at the Savoy Hotel with my eighteen year old toy boy. Because you are an accountant, you will surely appreciate that l8 goes into 54 many more times than 54 goes into 18."

Posted by maxine

2. The Inland Revenue decides to investigate Grandpa, and summon him to the Tax office. The Tax Inspector was not surprised when Grandpa showed up with his solicitor.

The Tax Inspector said, 'Well, sir, you have an extravagant lifestyle and no full time employment, which you explain by saying that you win money gambling. I'm not sure that I find that believable.'

I'm a great gambler, and I can prove it,' says Grandpa. 'How about a demonstration?' The Tax Inspector thinks for a moment and said, 'Okay. Go ahead.'

Grandpa says, 'I'll bet you a thousand pounds that I can bite my own eye.'

The Tax Inspector thinks a moment and says, 'It's a bet.'
Grandpa removes his glass eye and bites it. The Tax Inspector's jaw drops.

Grandpa says, 'Now, I'll bet you two thousand pounds that I can bite my other eye.'

Now the Tax Inspector can tell Grandpa isn't blind, so he takes the bet. Grandpa removes his dentures and bites his good eye.

The stunned Tax Inspector now realizes he has wagered and lost three grand, with Grandpa's solicitor as a witness. He starts to get nervous.

'Want to go double or nothing?' Grandpa asks 'I'll bet you six thousand pounds that I can stand on one side of your desk, and pee into that wastebasket on the other side, and never get a drop anywhere in between.'

The Tax Inspector, twice burned, is cautious now, but he looks carefully and decides there's no way this old guy could possibly manage that stunt, so he agrees again.

Grandpa stands beside the desk and unzips his pants, but although he strains mightily, he can't make the stream reach the wastebasket on the other side, so he pretty much urinates all over the Tax Inspector's desk.

The Tax Inspector leaps with joy, realizing that he has just turned a major loss into a huge win.

But Grandpa's own solicitor moans and puts his head in his hands.

'Are you okay?' the Tax Inspector asks.

'Not really,' says the solicitor. 'This morning, when Grandpa told me he'd been summoned for an investigation, he bet me twenty five thousand pounds that he could come in here and pee all over your desk and that you'd be happy about it!'

Posted by Mark

3. Dan Martin and Darren Falkingham go on a camping trip. After hiking for several miles, they set up their tent in a field and fall asleep. In the middle of the night, Darren is suddenly awoken by Dan, who is shaking him. "Darren?" Dan inquires in an agitated tone, "Look up at the sky and and tell me what you see." Tired and irritated, Darren replies: "I see millions and millions of stars." Dan, obviously an aspiring Sherlock Holmes, continues: "Right - and what do you deduce from that?" Darren rubs his eyes and sits up: "Well, if there are millions of stars, I suppose there are millions of planets and maybe other forms of life out there." "No, you idiot," complains Dan. "It means someone has stolen our tent."

Posted by Cornish Steve

4. Why did the auditor cross the road? Because he looked in the file and that's what they did last year

Why did he cross back? So he could charge the client for travel expenses

Posted by maxine

5. There are three types of accountant, those who can count and those who can't

Posted by dp0848

6. What's an accountant's idea of trashing his hotel room? Refusing to fill out the guest comment card.

Posted by maxine

7. An accountant goes into a pet shop to buy a parrot. The shop owner shows him three identical parrots on a perch and says, "The parrot on the left costs £500." "Why does that parrot cost so much?" asks the accountant. "Well," replies the owner, "it knows how to do complex audits.” "How much does the middle parrot cost?" asks the accountant. "That one costs £1,000 because it can do everything the first one can do plus it knows how to prepare financial forecasts." The startled accountant asks about the third parrot, to be told it costs £4,000. Needless to say, this begs the question, "What can it do?" To which the owner replies "To be honest, I've never seen him do a darn thing, but the other two call him Senior Partner."

Posted by maxine

8. A lawyer and an accountant are attending the funeral of an old friend, Archie, who was a renowned money-lender.

Standing at the graveside a short while after the coffin is lowered into the ground, the accountant quietly says to the lawyer: "You know, Archie lent us both £500, and we never did pay him back. Is your conscience speaking to you like my conscience is speaking to me?"

The lawyer replies, "You're right. But what can Archie do with all that money now?" The lawyer reaches into his pocket, pulls out a couple of £20 pound notes, and throws them onto Archie's coffin.

"You hypocrite. You ungrateful xxxxxxx" replies the accountant. "How can you do that - short-changing your best friend at such a solemn moment?" To prove his point, the accountant pulls out his cheque book, writes Archie a cheque for the full £500, and throws it on the coffin.

Posted by Cornish Steve

9. An auditor finds himself standing at the pearly gates shortly after going to bed and is shocked to realise he must have died in his sleep.

He approaches St. Peter and complains "I'm far to young to die. There must be some mistake".

St. Peter checks his lists "Now lets see, no We're right. Here you are on the list - David Griffiths, 73, Senior partner".

David then replies "Aha, I told you so - I'm only 45. You have gotten in wrong".

St Peter replies "No, mistake. We have added up all your timesheets".

Posted by Zeno

10. An old lady walks into a bank and explains that she wants to borrow £100 for one week. When asked what collateral she can put up, she offers to leave the bank her vintage Rolls Royce. The bank manager checks it out, suspecting a con, but can't see anything wrong so agrees after explaining that due to the rather strange nature of the loan, he's going to have to charge her interest of £10. He drives the car down into the bank's car park, locks it up and leaves it there - still puzzled at this rather odd transaction.

One week later, the lady returns and pays the £110 due. Before the bank manager hands back the keys, he tells the old lady that he did some research on her over the week and found out that she is a multi-millionaire former accountant. He asks why she needed to borrow £100. "I didn't" explains the lady. "But where in Central London can you park a car for just £10 for a week?"

Posted by Hawkeye

And the result...

Entrepreneurs: 6
Accountants: 4

It's official; entrepreneurs are funnier than accountants!

Linda Jones is the creator of TwitterTitters, a new collection of comedy writing created through social networking website Twitter. The project has the backing of Phoenix Nights co-creator Dave Spikey and comedy legend Stephen Fry. All proceeds from the book, which costs £4.99 to download or £9 in print will be donated to Comic Relief. To buy your copy, click here [2]. You can also follow TwitterTitters on Twitter.