We Are Not Amused - Let's Have A Laugh

The comment “We are not amused” is widely believed to have been said by Queen Victoria in response to an inappropriate joke or remark made by an equerry. I can’t help but wonder what the equerry actually said in front of the queen. If he was trying to make her laugh, perhaps he was shocked to discover it wasn’t acceptable. According to Queen Victoria’s granddaughter, Alice, her grandmother told her that she hadn’t said “We are not amused” at all. Alice and other young members of the royal family of the time loved Queen Victoria’s sense of fun, finding her jolly with a great sense of humour. She laughed a lot and was amused by many things, apparently. In her later years, she gave the impression of an austere woman with strict moral values. I expect that she held the moral high ground, but I think her facial expression after the death of Prince Albert showed her grief and huge sense of loss rather than austerity.

Laughing is good for us. Seeking amusement, we look for the comedy, the cheerful light-hearted recreations that will make us feel uplifted and happy. It is personal choice, we all have our favourites whether we are going out to be entertained or choosing what to have on TV. Sometimes, the really hilarious moments are self-made. This is definitely the case with my crazy family. Put me in the company of my wonderful niece and within seconds we will have sparked each other into squeals of laughter, usually about nothing, and I will be crying and rushing to the loo with comments about double strength Tena pads making me laugh even more. If her mother, my sister is with us, the hilarity is increased and the three of us are best left to it. We can’t help it. We still laugh at things that happened years ago. At my nephew’s wedding ceremony I broke the silence of a solemn moment with a very loud, giant snort. I will never live it down. I was trying not to cry and holding my breath then the snort just happened. The mirth has lasted far longer than his marriage did, sadly for him. My father had a ‘thing’ about curtains being closed correctly. Two curtains would have to meet exactly in the middle, the drapes had to be equal and the overlap had to be uniform all the way down. It didn’t matter who closed the curtains, he would have to give his finishing touch. Perfectionist. At his funeral service, my sister and I couldn’t look at each other as the curtains closed in front of his coffin. We were both thinking the same thing and finding amusement in the saddest of circumstances. It proved our resilience.

That is us. Amused and amusing at the same time, like lots of families. Queen Victoria and Prince Albert had a large family. I hope they laughed heartily at daft things and had silly moments like we do. I hope they broke the silence with a massive snort, or worse, and I hope, like us, they were amused more often than they were not.

I found this poem,

I’m not sure it it’s fact or rumour,
Queen Victoria lost her humour,
Deciding one day she refused
All attempts to be amused.

Some say it was indigestion,
Others claim that’s speculation.
I believe what’s widely known,
That she hurt her funny bone.

Phil Ward, 2012

Thanks for reading, Pam x

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Deja Vu - Old School

We watched the film, ‘To Sir, With Love’ the other night. I recorded it from one of the classic movie channels a few weeks ago. I’d seen it a long time ago and couldn’t remember it properly, but snippets kept coming back to me.

“Do you know what,” I said to my husband who happily goes along with my indulgence in old films – or he suffers in silence – “this is like a modern version of ‘Spare the Rod’. Do you remember?”

I think there was a nod of agreement, but I stayed focussed on Sidney Poitier as his character, teacher Mark Thackeray displayed a smouldering, deep in thought expression. In a role reversal from his part some years earlier in The Blackboard Jungle, he was finding a way to ‘get through’ to his class. Déjà vu Max Bygraves in ‘Spare the Rod’.

Both films are set in London’s East End, depicting deprived areas with hard to reach, hard to teach adolescents. Their teachers are naïve young men, aiming to change the world, and change their careers using teaching as a stepping stone. No spoiler alerts here, I promise. ‘Spare the Rod’ is real and gritty compared to the more light-hearted ‘To Sir, With Love’. Roll out ‘Please, Sir!’ as the same mix successfully became a comedy.

 

  

There was nothing funny about having to visit high school when summoned by a teacher needing a chat about one of our teenagers. Sadly, this was a regular occurrence and I felt more dread than déjà vu. I was certain that I would die of embarrassment. I worked in a primary school at the time and I loved it, but felt like I was losing control of my own children. I’m happy to say that both are now lovely, well-behaved, responsible adults with children of their own and I am as proud of them as it’s possible to be. I hope I’m here with words of wisdom for them when my grandchildren reach their teens.

When I started high school at Palatine Secondary School, it was at what became known as ‘the old building’ on Bennett Avenue. A new school was being built on St Anne’s Road which eventually we would move to. I wasn’t happy, I was very miffed, if that’s a real word. I was clever, yet I’d failed my 11+ and couldn’t go to Collegiate Girls’ Grammar. I’m still ashamed. I grew to love Palatine and always felt more at home in the original school rather than the new one. The old school is now part of the Blackpool & Fylde College University Campus. It was certainly déjà vu to return fifty years after becoming a first former. I enrolled in an evening class. I was in one of my classrooms. Very little had changed, it might be the same sash window, the same brass-knobbed door and half-tiled wall, but tables replaced desks, blackboard had gone and the wood flooring, if it was still there, was hidden beneath carpet tiles. The long corridor on the ground floor was now divided by safety glass fire doors, and I couldn’t see through them from one end to the other but I did wander around on my break looking for the familiar. I could almost hear ‘Dear Lord and Father of Mankind’ coming from where the main hall used to be. I sensed a feeling of belonging.

     I borrowed this poem,

 

Thanks for reading. Stay safe and take care in these worrying times. Pam x

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Comedy - You should have been there.

Have you ever had one of those moments when you quite literally had to hold your sides, you were laughing so hard?  One of those hysterical moments.  You know what I mean. The spontaneous outbreaks of funny, when someone else just didn't get the joke and that makes it even funnier. Ever tried explaining what you are laughing at, while your body is still racked with uncontrollable laughter?  Infectious too.  Raucous laughter spreads through a group like wildfire, even though many still may not know what they are laughing at.

Laughter is good for you.  Comedy is essential to life. It has always been so and always will. However, what we are supposed to laugh at has often been prescribed by governments in an attempt to curtail descent, prejudice and social injustice. Society changes and humour does too.  During my degree course, a mixed age group of students were shown a clip from, "Till death do us Part", a very popular sitcom in Britain from 1965 to 1975. I had only sat through the first few minutes as a young teenager and found the racist humour repulsive but even I was not prepared for the response of the younger students in the group. They were horrified.

Little Ronnie Corbett died this week, his partner in comedy Ronnie Barker having shuffled off  to Buffalo in 2005. The two met in a pub one day and just clicked.  Some of their 'Two Ronnies' sketches were the funniest moments I ever had watching TV.  I still can't go into a hardware shop without asking for 'four candles'.  Everyone knows and remembers that particular gag. I wonder what  magic made them work so well together. Perhaps they just had Funny Bones.

In 1995, there was great excitement here in Blackpool.  A movie was being filmed and many local people were recruited as extras to record scenes around the town. In the film, which wasn't a huge box office draw, the main character, Tommy Fawkes wants to be a successful comedian but his Las Vegas debut is a failure. He goes back to Blackpool, where his father, also a comedian started and where he spent the summers of his childhood. He starts to search for a partner, to form a double act. Scenes were filmed at The Pleasure Beach and St Anne's Pier. Jerry Lewis was here and my father's favourite actress, Lesley Caron. Dad was in his late seventies at the time but went as an extra.  The crew fell in love with Dad, asked him to do several more scenes and invited him to view the rushes. Dad had Funny Bones.

I have met many professional comedians.  Off stage, many of them try too hard.  They just can't help trying to be funny all the time. My Dad was just a natural.  I hope that I can do his wonderful sense of humour justice by telling you a true story.  First you need a little background: my Mum lost the hearing in her left ear when she was in her thirties. I am the youngest of four. I was having a party to celebrate my engagement.  All the family were gathered with their wives and husbands around a large table, drinking and sharing stories. Mum never got a joke, in fact there had already been a few funny tales that evening and she just smiled politely.

I asked Dad, "How is it that Mum is so naïve and yet she has had four children?"  At this point, everyone leaned in a little closer: at least everyone did except Mum. Dad looked around the room very dramatically, raised one eyebrow, leaned forward and stated plainly. "Well she is deaf in one ear." Well we all knew that, so I asked, "Well, what has that got to do with it?" "Ah," he said, "well, we used to get into bed at night and I would say to her, 'Are we going to sleep or what?' Your mother always said  -What?"

Mum hadn't heard what was being said, because she is deaf in one ear, so she leaned her head into the group and simply said, "What?" The overspill lasted for the rest of the evening and has to go down as one of my happiest moments of all time: all the family splitting our sides until it hurt. For 52 years, my Mum was my Dad's accidental 'straight man.'  He was still charming nurses with his humour at 83 the day before he died.  Mum has some very funny moments even now at 95, always unexpected and spontaneous. And she doesn't even know she's funny.

The best comedy is the stuff you don't see coming.

Funny Bones

What makes a comedian funny?

What makes us giggle and gaff?

A tickling stick and sticky up hair

or a magic trick that is certain to fail

by a man in fez who says,“Just like that”?

I am sure they all have funny bones

that make everybody laugh.

It might be an ostrich attached to your legs;

a phoney French voice and accent,

a clown in a beret and over-long coat,

who's a slapstick disaster at every stroke,

The phrase “Oooo Betty” brought tears to our eyes.

I am sure that these people have funny bones

that make us heave and choke.  

He’s fallen down into the bar again.

We’ve seen it a hundred times.

His comedy timing’s so perfect,

It could be considered a crime

but Batman and Robin are on the case.

I am sure that they both have funny bones,

to help them deliver the lines.  

When inflicting hysterical outbursts

of spontaneous comedy,

perhaps we should have them hospitalised,
so we can dissect them to see.

Or we could have them analysed – psychiatrically.

I am sure that x-ray will certainly

prove conclusively,

that funny people have funny bones -

and that makes comedy.

 

Thanks for reading.  Have a funny week.  Adele.

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