On Saturday When times are tough, play it for laughs

HAVING a bit of a laugh is something we could all do with in these dark times. Sorry to state the obvious, but I defy anyone to disagree.

Of course, there will be killjoys who’ll write to the editor saying: “Your columnist has the most irresponsible attitude!

“Surely it behoves us all to be sombre and miserable in these worrying times! Having a laugh, as he puts it, is not going to pay rocketing household bills or stop the war in Ukraine…”

There are always killjoys. People who cannot see that trying to be jolly helps.

But what more do we have when it comes down it? The reality of life hits us minute by minute, whether we like it or not.

The way in which we deal with it is what makes life worth living, or not, as the case may be. I’d much rather attempt some kind of merriment in a bid to cheer my friends and myself up than scream: “Woe is me!”

Of course, two years of Brexit squabbling, followed by two years of the worst pandemic in living memory, followed by a war in Europe that’s causing runaway inflation, is enough to depress an inanimate gatepost, let alone a sensitive ape. But, because of that, it falls to us as individuals to make the best of things, if we possibly can.

That is my philosophy. I know it’s not going to earn me a Nobel prize for sociological advancement, but it’s true. It’s why phrases like ‘gallows humour’ were invented. Humans need that odd thing we call laughter – and we have the ability to find it even when the chips are down.

I was thinking this during a phonecall with my friend and colleague, Richard Austin.

For years we worked together as a team – me as roving feature writer, him as roving news photographer – and as such we shared a great many merry interludes, narrow escapes, fiendish scrapes and jolly japes.

Indeed, looking back I think our working lives would have made a great TV series… Take two blokes who’ve been around the block a bit and who both share a dry sense of humour, and let them loose on an entire region for 20 years. If it’s strange, weird or interesting, one will write about it and the other will photograph it. And always when they’re out and about, they’ll be having a laugh.

That was us. And, looking back, I cannot believe anyone was foolish enough to pay us good salaries to do so much gadding about, having such a great time.

We were talking about this entertaining lifestyle and regretting that it is a world that is now very much in the past.

Newspapers don’t really employ such people any more – and Covid put an end to gadding about anyway.

For some reason, Richard recalled the time we were doing a feature on a famous chef and so able to partake of a free lunch at his restaurant.

Mr Austin is not what you’d call a fanatic foodie, so while I was ordering oysters he opted for deepfried fish goujons – probably comforted by the deep-fried part of the billing – but very much discomfited by the fact the dish would cost 30 quid if we weren’t getting lunch for free.

When it arrived, he exploded: “Blimey! I’ve just ordered the most expensive fish fingers on the bloomin’ planet! Where’s the ketchup?”

It was the sort of thing he used to mutter that would have me in tears.

On another occasion we were at Rick Stein’s in Padstow, where I ordered a huge platter of fruit-demare adorned, as it would be in a posh place, with a great flourish of seaweed and sea-vegetables. Richard blurted: “For God’s sake mate, they’ve brought you a portion of seabed!”

Actually, Richard could have been a stand-up comedian – not that the off-the-cuff remarks above had the kind of punchline required; instead they could be filed as: “Just having a laugh.”

Or “enjoying the craic”, as the Irish would put it.

I am talking about the easy-going camaraderie that happens when you are out and about with friends.

The incidental, nothingy stuff that occurs when not much is happening but you’re just out there living life and doing what has to be done.

Last night in the pub my mates and I were talking about tough times we’d known in the past.

I told them about the time I was really poor and living in a sea cave in Greece, while renting out my cottage in Somerset.

I was having difficulty in finding a tenant until a tiny little man turned up and offered to redecorate the cottage if he could have the rent at half price.

When I returned to England six months later he had indeed repainted the whole interior – but only four feet up each wall. He was, after all, a very small man.

When I complained, he told me I was being “heightist”...

My mates in the pub laughed long and loud at this. The great thing about enjoying the craic, or a bit of a laugh, is that it’s inflation-proof – it shouldn’t cost a bean.

When his £30 fish goujons arrived he said he’d ordered the priciest fish fingers in the world