We're All Going On A Summer Holiday

You’ll be cheered to hear that this will be my last blog for a few weeks as I’m going on holiday – a whole two weeks away from the rain, traffic problems, congestion charge, wheelie bins, politicians, bills, the start of the football season, and chavs employed by the stationery store Rymans who carry on conversations with their mates about whether to get married or not while they serve you, never once making eye contact, carrying out the whole transaction in profile, and handing you the receipt and change without a word of “thank you”.

Or was that just for me?

My parting words of wisdom as I head off for foreign climes would be that if you need paper clips then make your own out of coat hangers. Want staples? Then use nails instead. Box files? Try old handbags. A hole punch? A Black and Decker drill will do the job. Use your imagination. Anything, but anything, to avoid the demeaning experience of being served in Rymans, the High Street store that makes Darth Vader seem cuddly.

I’m going abroad this year rather than having the trendy “staycation” that everyone else seems to be having by holidaying here in Britain. It’s not that I have anything against having my vacation in Cornwall or Devon say, in fact I have always had brilliant holidays there, but this year I just feel I need a break from everything I listed at the top. I need to clear out all of the nonsense that gets in our way here at home so that I can come back refreshed and enthused again ready for speed cameras, standing in queues at the post office, rip off bank charges, taxes, pleading with traffic wardens, and those ridiculous prices – that’s the petrol price, and Katie Price.

There is so much bad news around just now I’ve decided that not only do I need a break, but I’m going to take a joke book with me to cheer myself up.

Jokes get you going, make you lose your inhibitions and control, and leave you happier for the experience. Little and often is the way to go. Reading a joke book in one sitting is a big mistake as you get immune to the humour after a while, so I’ll dip in for a few each day on holiday. I’ve already had a sneak peek and I like the style of the person who’s compiled it. He knows we laugh loudest at someone else’s misfortune rather than our own. For instance, if someone else slips down a manhole, that’s funny. If I slip down the hole, that’s tragedy.

The first one I spotted in the book was about a grumpy man who worries about whether to bin his wife as she’s going deaf. He stands across the room and says “Can you hear me?” There’s no answer. He moves closer and asks again “Can you hear me?” Again nothing. So he eventually moves right up beside her and shouts “Can you hear me now?” She replies: “For the third time, yes!”

A few years ago two scientific researchers called Dr Graham Ritchie and Dr Kim Binstead created a computer program that could make up jokes. Most of the humour invented by the computer was really unfunny, but one joke scored highly with people who were polled. You will undoubtedly have heard it before, and it’s now in Christmas crackers and joke books around the world, but it was actually made up by the computer. It’s this one. “What kind of murderer has fibre? A cereal killer.”

Unfortunately for me the program also predicted what physical attributes make people laugh the most and top of the list was a big nose. Perhaps I shouldn’t come back from my holiday after all.

If you’re going away, have a nice one. If you’re staying put and your bored rush in to Ryman’s and tell them you’re from the Government and are proud to tell them they’ve won an award for customer service. That one wasn’t in the joke book, but you must admit it’s funny.