The art of the perfect comeback

Winston Churchill was famously good with his comebacks. When a woman once accused him of being ‘disgustingly drunk', he supposedly said: ‘And you, Madam, are ugly. And what's more, disgustingly ugly. But tomorrow, I shall be sober.' The problem is, most of us can only think of a really good put-down two weeks  later. What to do? Here are some of  my favourite retorts - both the ones I was able to use and the ones that got away - to encourage your own comebacks:

For the insensitive man

One night at the opera, a man told me I looked a bit like ‘that woman on the television who reads the news, only she's quite beefy'. The next day, I mentioned it on air. I got a letter from the man saying that he was sorry I was upset about the word beefy - he'd meant plump! I should have used a Harry Hill put-down: ‘You may heckle me now, sir,' he once said to an audience member, ‘but I am safe in the knowledge that I have a nice hot chicken in the oven when I get home.' Surrealism works - it confuses the idiot who thinks it's all right to be unpleasant, and makes you smile.

For the bitchy friend

Some friends are feral pigeons in dove suits: they use you to make themselves feel better. They're the ones who make cutting comments with a smile and tell you they're only joking. ‘You're so lucky you don't have to worry about looking good now you've got children,'  somebody said to a friend who'd made a big effort to dress up but had a strange bit of child detritus on one shoulder. You could say, ‘That's not very kind.' Or you could gently ease the friend out of your life. Or both. The comedian Al Murray told me one of his favourite lines is: ‘They say everyone has a book inside them... I assume yours is The Bumper Book Of Muppets.' Useful in all sorts of situations.

For the critic

You've spent hours getting ready. Your mother/partner/parrot says: ‘You're not going out like that are you?' If it's your mother, say ‘Of course not' and leave, quickly. What does she know? If it's your partner, try: ‘Oh thank you darling. Yes, I really need more clothes. Shall we go shopping tomorrow?'  and see him run. If it's the parrot, tell him multi-coloured is old hat, and drape a cloth over him. Although PJ O'Rourke may have been right: ‘Never wear anything that panics the cat.'

For the space invader

Your colleague gets right up close and personal when speaking to you? Tell him you are getting too much C and not enough O2, so could he back off. Another colleague always rests his hand on your shoulder? Well, it's nice that he's fond of the personal touch, but next time, tell him you bruise really easily. A friend of mine used to say: ‘Don't touch what you can't afford.' But sometimes they can, of course. In which case the response is: ‘Excellent. I'll start looking at houses tomorrow.'

For the bully

I had lunch with somebody who had bullied me in the past and he claimed he hadn't realised - he said he had been trying to motivate me to do better. In hindsight, I wish I'd been more assertive at the time and told him that if he had nothing constructive to say, would he please say nothing. Said with a smile, what's the worst that could have happened? If nothing else, it would make me feel better now.

For the dinosaur

When I was at Border Television, there was a cameraman on the verge of retirement, who was prone to saying: ‘Don't worry your pretty little head...'  So I didn't. I would merely remind myself that there is a name for that useless bit of skin at the end of a penis... A man. Or rather, the sort of man who makes comments like that.

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