Heard the one about the bagpiper whose $1000 set of pipes was in his car, which he just remembers is unlocked, only minutes after leaving the car park and entering the shopping mall?
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He races back – but he's already too late.
Someone has put another couple of sets in.
Or, why do pipe bands march while they play?
Because it makes them a harder target for a half-brick.
And what about the definition of a gentleman?
Someone who knows how to play the pipes but generally chooses not to.
Well, the outbreak of mass "ungentlemanliness" that is the annual Canberra Highland Gathering and ACT Pipe Band and Highland Dancing Championships takes to Kambah Oval on October 10, maintaining a tradition that began at the Acton racecourse in 1925, two years before Federal Parliament moved in just a little upstream across the Molonglo River.
The championships and gathering are run under the umbrella of the Burns Club and the Canberra College of Piping and Drumming and attract bands from well beyond the territory's borders.
This year, visiting bands include the City of Melbourne, St Mary's and Sydney Thistle as well as the local contingent from Canberra Celtic, Queanbeyan and, of course, two grades of the Canberra Burns Club Pipe Band.
Burns Club president and Pipe Major Athol Chalmers is looking forward to the competition.
"We are really excited about the opportunity to test ourselves against some of the best bands from Sydney and Melbourne," he said. "The standard will be high, so I urge Canberrans to get along and hear some of the best pipe bands in the country."
While there are high hopes of other bands still joining the ranks ahead of the cut-off for entries on September 25, you can be assured the gathering is far more than wall-to-wall piping and drumming. The popular event has included many other Scottish elements and themes for decades.
This year, the Tartan Warriors will again be prominent, lifting the "Stones of Manhood", a series of five round stones that weigh from 90 kilograms to 165 kilograms, as well as tossing the caber (a traditional timber pole that is almost six metres long and weighs 80 kilograms).
The Warriors continue a line that has included the appearance of five World Heavy Events Champions from Scotland, who were touring Australia and put on a special show for the 1975 gathering at the Canberra Showground (now "EPIC").
Highland dancing, long a fixture at Canberra Scottish events, will be on display again this year, with the Joy Reiher School of Scottish Dancing.
About 70 dancers, some from as far afield as Tasmania, Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne, are expected to compete in the Canberra City Highland Dancing Championship this year.
Dancing was the main Scottish element at the early gatherings along with the heavy events and, while those events continue into the 21st century, others, like the crowning of the "Queen of the Gathering", introduced in 1929, is no longer.
The first appearance of Scottish music at the Canberra gathering was a performance by the Goulburn Pipe Band in 1927, together with the Canberra City Brass Band.
After a break during the Depression, the gathering returned in 1936 with a piping competition, including marches, reels and strathspey dances.
The ACT pipe band championships have been blessed to have had some of the world's greatest players as judges in recent years, a connection forged by Chalmers, who has taken the Burns Club band to the world championships in Scotland in 2004 and 2014.
The top-liners came to run a special piping and drumming tuition workshop in conjunction with their appearance as judges at the championships but, while the workshop is not running this year, the ACT Solo Piping and Drumming Championships will be going ahead on the Sunday following the gathering, October 11, at the Australian War Memorial.
Entry for the gathering is free and there will be many stalls with all things Scottish – recordings, food, books and souvenirs.
To finish up there will be a ceilidh (pronounced kay-le), a lively night of Scottish entertainment at the Woden Tradies Club, where there might even be the odd joke.
Such as, what's the difference between the pipes and a trampoline? Or the pipes and an onion? Heard the one about the piper, the pub and the semtex?
The answers?
Maybe you'll just have to find a friendly face at this year's gathering and be brave enough to ask.
Andrew Fraser is a piper with the Burns Club band.
