IT MUST BE HUMOUR

Les considers the best form of letters to The editor.

The other day I was in conversation with a very dear friend of mine, a man as it so happens. I often find that if I engage a charming lady in conversation it isn't long before the husband turns up, and you know what the late and wonderful Princess Di use to say," well three's a crowd."

I believe I digress, back to my dear friend and yes I know I shouldn't bring politics in to this, but he supports the Liberal Party. Well if he didn't in the past he certainly does now, and yet he always struck me as a somewhat conservative sort of person so I don't quite know why the sudden switch of allegiance.

Anyway we were discussing "Letters to the Editor" and what form should our letters take. Should they be serious in content or should our letters be much more light-hearted? Both my friend and I lost no time in reaching a total degree of unanimity, even if at that time we didn't even know what the word meant.

I shall always regret leaving school at 13 years of age with a somewhat shallow education. As a result I now spend most of my time writing letters to the Editor, letters which contain words most of which I have never even heard of. I am frequently taken to task by people who accuse me of being ambivalent, and insidiously unable to correlate my intractability, but as I try desperately to defend myself I have to remind people that at primary school I struggled to learn English let alone French.

Again I digress but in the end my friend and I decided that comedy must reign supreme and this reminded us of a recent newspaper report which indicated that watching comedy on TV was beneficial to your health in so far that it improves the hearts performance by stimulating the blood flow, compared to watching "sad" films which has the opposite effect. Well I have warned you in the past about watching Eastenders and Emmerdale, but I fear to little avail.

If it transpires that laughter is good for you just think of the implications this could have as far as our NHS is concerned. Call in at your local surgery complaining of whatever and rest assured that our revered GP will be equal to all eventualities having got a pill which will satisfy the most disconcerting of patients, but at an enormous cost to the NHS.

How much more cost effective it would be if on your next surgery visit you found your endearing GP sitting there wearing his Tommy Cooper hat and saying, "Oh I'm glad you called, I just gotta tell you this one, it will kill you." Needless to say he would of course be speaking metaphysically, a word I got out of an old German Dictionary for Beginners, page 72.

If we continue to pursue this theory that laughter makes the world go round let's not forget that just as beauty is in the eye of the beholder so it is that not all humour has universal appeal, but let's finish by relating the following which might meet with your approval.

Man: A glass of wine?

Woman: No thank you - I tried it once and didn't like it.

Man: A cigarette then?

Woman: No thank you - I tried one once and didn't like it - my Son is just the same.

Man: I take it he's an only child?

Les Lawrence