Five Michael McIntyre jokes that prove he’s the funniest man in Britain

There are few comedians in the world who can find genius in the completely ordinary – the scissors stuck in packaging, the weather forecast nobody needed, the old person who answers the phone like a speaking clock. Michael McIntyre has built one of the biggest comedy careers on the planet by noticing the tiny absurdities of everyday life and holding them up for the rest of us to see. These five jokes are a perfect example of why. By the end of the last one, you’ll be thinking about the royals differently forever.

Google Earth is amazing. They’ve photographed every road in the world and put them on the computer. You just type it in and you go there. You sit in front of the computer and you think, ‘I can go anywhere in the world. Where shall I go?’ And we all come to the same conclusion: ‘My house.’

I bought a new pair of scissors. But they were in this extremely tight, plastic cover thing. And I realised, the only way to get my new scissors out of the packaging was to get scissors and cut the scissors out with scissors. The thing I needed was staring at me.

They tell you about the wind as well on the weather. Who cares about the wind? ‘Going to be a stiff north easterly breeze.’ I’m not sailing to work. I don’t give a s***.

Old people insist on picking up the phone and saying their home number, why are you doing that? What a complete waste of time. ‘55797979!’ ‘ I know that, I’ve just dialled it! It’s the last thing I did on earth was dial those numbers.’ Do you open the front door and say your address? It’s the same principle.

I love doing bed time stories, but it must be tough for the royals. ‘And then the prince and the princess banqueted with all the kings of all the kingdoms, and they kissed on the lawn of the magnificent palace… the end. Anyway, enough about my day, what book are we going to read?’