Still in Bildeston, Suffolk, on a rather dreary day.
Have gently requested that my parents get me a new quilt cover. The one I’m sleeping under while staying here is the one I had as a child: kid-friendly jokey graffiti slogans on a brick wall. I think there was a small graffiti-loving craze in the late 70s and early 80s, which I’d latched onto. I wouldn’t mind if it was more Michael Rosen or Puffin Club-like. The Puffin Club had style and soul. Michael Rosen was, and indeed still is, a god. It’s not that the quilt cover is childish. It’s that it’s the wrong kind of childish: ephemeral, dating badly, and chained to its time in unstylish ways.
Many of the jokes on the quilt are ancient David Brent-esque puns on advertising slogans of the day. Sample graffito: ‘It’s quicker by snail.’ A play on the British Rail slogan of the time, ‘It’s quicker by rail.’ The slogan is long gone (and was probably on the way out even then), along with British Rail itself. But the quilt cover remains. Social history of a kind. Maybe.
Likewise, ‘Say it with flowers – Give her a Triffid.’ Here it’s two references for the price of one; the first part refers to a flower company’s ad slogan – probably Interflora – while the second nods to the popular TV sci-fi series of the day, Day Of The Triffids.
What fascinates me now is that there will be people reading the above who won’t need the explanations. And there will be readers who will. I love feeling like a kind of ambassador between worlds.
It has also made me think about the differences in the kinds of jokes that make kids laugh, and those for adults. And then of course, you have the studenty types of humour – Look Around You, say – versus broader sitcom fare like My Family. And then the comedy that pretty much unites kids, studenty adults and normal adults as one: Little Britain. And why this is so.
Now I’m starting to turn into a blonder, more louche Jonathan Miller; which was always on the cards, frankly. If I go on any more like this I’ll be presenting BBC4 lectures on how you can look at the socio-economic background of Mighty Boosh fans and make guesses at their favourite newspaper and bands.
Anyway, I remember sitting through some such adult sitcom at an early age, and being absolutely baffled by the laughter at the spoken jokes. Actually, it was probably something like ‘Mind Your Language’, which I wouldn’t laugh at as an adult either. And there’s the ironically funny thing. Now deemed tiresomely xenophobic if not downright racist, any clips from ‘Mind Your Language’ today are shown in a ‘what were they thinking’ capacity by knowing documentaries.
Childrens’ jokes, on the other hand, are far less likely to be susceptible to trends and fluctuations in popular consensus. Jokes for kids are nearly always excruciating puns:
Q: What’s a frog’s favourite drink?
A: Croaka-Cola
I vividly remember I had to say this particular joke to some rough boys at school once, who’d heard I was The Joke Boy and demanded I told them one.
In 2006, I am on a train journey, where my reserved seat means I’m opposite a mother and her two young sons for the best part of two hours. One boy is reading out jokes from a book. Chatting with the family and glad to be of use to the mother, I play the part of the stooge for him, saying ‘Who’s there?’ to his Knock Knocks, and ‘I don’t know, what IS green and goes up and down?’
‘A gooseberry in a lift.’ says the boy, entirely without smiling as he turns the page. Just as kids enjoy reading the Beano, but silently. Reading and laughing aloud being strangely incompatible during childhood.
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Current ailment: an unpleasant, dry kind of stomach ache, recurring for the last ten days or so. Sporadically painful and putting me off eating and writing. Trying Alka-Seltzer, considering painkillers. Everything else is absolutely fine. I always seem to get one thing at a time. It’s particularly depressing when you wake up free of pain, thinking it’s gone, and then the ache kicks in after about thirty seconds. Ow.
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Just sent off my liner notes for the next Fosca CD. Not the new album, but the live set from Saffle. You wait years for a Fosca album, and two appear at once.
I’m told the concert recording is being considered by the Swedish radio show ‘P3 LIVE’, for possible broadcasting. When that’s been decided either way, it’ll be a free download, with special CD versions for promotional goings-on. Hence my liner notes. We’re also trying to gauge if people might be interested in paying a small amount of money for a CD version, even if the recording is available free online. More info as it sneaks in my direction. In the meantime, Fosca fans should keep an eye on the label’s website.
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