The joke that started it all! As the first joke Ellie tells to Joel, this one sets the expectation for the entire rest of the season and she chose wisely. The wordplay is clever and is one of those jokes where the logic of it is what makes it a winner. The postal system and most uses for envelopes might be entirely gone in this world but that’s no reason for them to stop being used to tell hilarious jokes. The player and Joel might start the joke a little confused about what’s going on but by the end everyone’s having a great time and they’re just excited to hear the next one Ellie has cooking. Having heard from them, Ellie goes on to get her own opinions off her chest. Through stand-up and sketches, she gives us her hot take on topics such as masculinity, the environment, parties, the news, the Internet and billionaires. Talking to special guest experts including fitness instructor 'Mr Motivator', travel journalist Simon Calder, The Traitors' Amanda Lovett and her own mum, Ellie discusses whether exercise and holidays should be banned, explains why she thinks reality TV is culturally significant and asks whether having kids has ruined her life. Children are not the only route to having a meaningful life as a woman. I had a meaningful life before I had a child, and had I not become a mother, my life would still have value, worth and love. p11-12 In 2002, my work was accepted into the Salon International Show at Greenhouse Gallery in San Antonio where it received the Artistic Merit Award. The judge CW Mundy said, “Your painting has the spirit of painting in plein air.” I have painted plein air, sketched outdoors, usedmy photographsto remind me of a scene, painted from memory, and from setups.

Strictly judge and ex-pro Anton du Beke and his wife Hannah share adorable six-year-old twins George and Henrietta.

What a universal joke for everyone to enjoy. Even after the world has been over run with infected and violence, the sun will still rise in the morning and this joke reminds us all of that. Sure it may seem kind of insignificant in the moment but maybe this nice and pure play on words boosted team morale to get them through the next wave of enemies. It may be the simplest in the top 5 but it sure makes me feel the warmest.

These final two jokes are both absolute knee-slappers but for completely different reasons. With this one, it’s a classic and simple bit of word play but it’s done to perfection. The use of “my-shelf” in place of myself rolls off the tongue and even the person telling the joke gets to have a bit of fun saying the line since it’s such a smooth change. It’s simplistic yet effective at what it’s trying to do, make an incredibly stressful and hostile environment a little bit better. I enjoyed this book (on audiobook, narrated by Ellie herself) but it didn’t blow me away. Parts were relatable and parts were funny but on the whole I found it a bit wannabe worthy. Strictly pro Gorka Marquez and former Strictly contestant Gemma Atkinson share two children, Mia, four, and baby Thiago. During my annual play through of the game I always make sure to hear each joke Ellie has to offer because I think they’re just such a great addition to the game and make both of the protagonists feel like living and breathing people. It was never preachy, never ‘everyone should be a mum’ or ‘I’m so brave because I am one’. It was always an understanding voice, offering silly anecdotes or helpful advice. But still there was earnestness. I’ll end with my favourite quote, which while written in a chapter about PPD, I think is very useful for anyone struggling to hear:Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for my advanced copy of this book in exchange for a review. But the book isn't 'worthy', it's a personal account where Ellie wants to encourage people to be ok with whatever choices are right for them, including whether not to have a child at all - and with some of the stories Ellie tells it might encourage them down that route! Or at least ensure that people always take the free hotel shower caps for future use - who would have thought to use them for that purpose... I should probably caveat this review by saying that I just didn’t find this book that funny. Sorry. There’s no doubt that there’s a wide audience for Taylor’s style of comedy, I’m just probably not it. So why read the book? Well, because I am mother to a 5 month old and am currently at the stage of craving anything that makes me feel ‘seen’. I'm a big fan of Ellie Taylor - I think she's hilarious, and as a fellow Essex girl I can relate to her a lot of her anecdotes. This book was so honest, and so funny! I think this book would appeal to mothers and non mothers alike. Broody or non-broody! Male or female! This book is for everyone.

Ben Cohen and former Strictly dancer Kristina Rihanoff met in series 11 and now share a six-year-old daughter, Milena. Of all the word play on this list, this one feels almost too direct and the punchline doesn’t get the payoff from Joel or the audience that some of the others higher up do. But maybe that’s the appeal of it, the fact that it is so lame that it’s actually amazing. However that feeling is something we’ll be seeing a lot more of as we progress and this joke doesn’t do it as well as some of the knee-slappers near the top of this list.For anyone who is pregnant, or trying to weigh up whether or not they ever want to be pregnant, this is a really helpful insight into what you might experience and - importantly - that all of the negative experiences and emotions that you may go through are NORMAL and OK! For those like me who have recently experienced preganancy and newborn life, it is a great book to reflect on what you have experienced so far - and to realise that those times where you think, or thought, you were doing a bad job, you were just / are just a human being and doing the absolute best that you can. Disclaimer: This list won’t include any of the jokes that Riley or Ellie tell in the Left Behind DLC. And her voice was so clear throughout the book, never getting lost to ‘I am writing a book I must sound formal and knowledgeable’. It was authentic. This is our second bra related joke on the list and I think it’s far stronger than the first. The word play hits on both the sea theme of the mermaid while also making sense in the context of math, a double threat! The pun lands really well and like #9, makes you think for a second before you realize what the punchline is. If it weren’t for the mention of food making Joel and Ellie more hungry, maybe this and #9 could have been swapped but as it stands, math is a lot more fun than being starving.

Strictly: It Takes Two host Janette Manrara and her dancer husband Aljaz Skorjanec are parents to baby girl Lyra. This is such a classic that you almost know the punchline before the setup is complete. But both Ellie and Sam don’t understand it because pizza wasn’t ever a part of their lives, while Joel and Henry probably just got even more hungry from hearing it. Maybe told in front of a different audience or with more context it would have gotten a bigger laugh but unfortunately that wasn’t the case.What Taylor does in her coming of age memoir is show you the reality of this in a funny way. She doesn’t sugarcoat the harder times or the times that make her look just a little unhinged. It all adds to the wonderful colour of this story. Her thoughts on motherhood are especially honest and she lays bare how hard it is but also how rewarding she has found it.