Tweeter accuses Tim over conjunctivitis gag

A recruitment consultant for Chingford has claimed Tim Vine stole his gag: ‘Conjunctivitis.com, that's a site for sore eyes.’

The comic took the ‘joke of the year’ title at this week’s Loaded Lafta awards for the one-liner; but now Tommy Pye, 31 has alleged he came up with the gag first – and gone to the national press with the story.

In December 2010, Pye tweeted: ‘www.conjunctivitis.com - now there's a site for sore eyes.’

He told The Sun: I often make up jokes and I was quite pleased with this one. I can't prove Tim Vine stole it, but I 100 per cent came up with it ages ago.’

It is not the first time Pye has accused Vine. In November he publicly sent him a message over Twitter: ‘Hey Tim, I noticed you used one of my tweets on soccer am on Saturday. Some acknowledgement would have been nice mate.’

But the chances that Vine, who has written thousands of one-liners over the years, stole a gag from a 31-year-old Chingford man who has just 159 Twitter followers is highly unlikely. He has posted just 13 tweets, most of which were messages to his friends.

Allegations of joke theft concerning puns usually prove unfounded. It is normally down to coincidence since there are a limited number of variations on common phrases.

Indeed, comic Sanderson Jones had a version of the conjunctivitis gag in his Edinburgh show last year, and in March last year stand-up Paul Kerensa tweeted: ‘My opticians' webpage is a site for sore eyes.’

Published: 11 Feb 2012