Too Highbrow!

"Too Highbrow!" my self-appointed blog critic now tells me of this blog, belying the fact that he does read it, even though he says he doesn't. "If we want facts and things, we can read the press. You've GOT to be more interesting than that. Be funnier please".

Funnier? How do you do "funnier"? I would love to be a Funny Person but it never seems to work. My friend C is properly funny and people say things like "ohhhh gooodie" and rub their hands in expectation of jolliness when they hear he is coming to dinner. But for me, well, the only time, for example, that R finds me truly funny is when I have absolutely not intended to be so.

I stand accidentally on the end of a garden rake and smack myself in the face. That, he tells me, is definitely funny. Mentioning that it made my nose actually bleed and left a rake handle shaped mark on my forehead apparently scores me even more Funny points. Being caught short at our allotment and having to go amongst the blackcurrants in full view of any passing strollers was "only moderately funny" but when I fell backwards onto an indignant patch of nettles which fought back with all their stinging enthusiasm, I had, R assured me, through his snorts and my wails, dramatically increased the level of funniness.

It's not just my husband. Once, years back, I stood at the end of a Routemaster bus in High Holborn with my boss and took a great jump to the pavement, to clear a puddle. I had been wearing a long woollen dress with lots of buttons up the front (it was a while ago, fashionistas) My boss had, unbeknown to me, inadvertently put his sodding great foot on the bottom of it, so as I leapt off, my dress and my boss stayed together on the bus. I therefore found myself in High Holborn at noon in my pants. The cold-looking Evening Standard sellers, cross van and taxi drivers, and the unsmiling bus conductor all rediscovered their humour most efficiently and simultaneously, and triumphed this with whoops and hollers and enthusiastic blasting of horns. The no-longer dour conductor even sprinted merrily down the bus to bash the window of the driver in order to share the joy. My boss, however, was stupefied. As the bus moved off the road taking him and my dress with it, he implored, in a loud voice which I think suggested to gawping onlookers that flashing was rather a habit, "No, no K-san, PLEASE to not take off dress in street."

You see, I look back on this now and can see, somewhat ruefully, some sense of slapstick here, but the point is, I wasn't trying to get a laugh. Were that the case, I would certainly find other ways which didn't involve charging around London in my underwear and jumping off buses.

If I try to get a laugh, I generally get a polite one, which tells me the listener has, some time ago, actually switched off. Or, they look at me in silence for a second, realise I have made a joke, and in an attempt to cover up any lack of comprehension, throw themselves into a ham demonstration of mock hilarity which quite clearly can stop as quickly as canned laughter, as soon as my back is turned.

I'm not asking for sympathy, I just would like to be funnier. But what is to be done? How does one become a Funny Person? Do I lurk around town in front of a placed banana skin and hope for friends to pass? Do I pull the chair away from under my own backside at the dinner table? Or do I continue to throw myself into physically painful or personally mortifying situations, all for the sake of other's mirth?

Ok, Blog Critic, I really will try. Funny Things to Think of While Houseworking. I'm onto it.