Many years ago I read an Isaac Asimov short story in which a vast computer
(and as this was the 1950s, it was the size of Montana) was programmed to
uncover the mysteries behind human beings’ capacity for laughter. After many
months of grinding away, it finally revealed that our species’ sense of humour
was actually part of a massive controlled experiment by aliens, which, once
exposed, was immediately abandoned, and no one ever laughed again. [stet
itals]
I mention this for two reasons. First, looking at some of this year’s batch of
"humour" books I felt pretty much the same way. But more significantly, it
points up a quality of humour which we ignore at our peril. Humour is a
fragile thing and cannot endure careless handling. Analyse it, explain it, or
worse still venerate it and you kill the whole thing stone cold dead.
None of which has prevented Orion bringing out The Pythons Autobiography
by The Pythons, a monstrous behemoth of a book retailing for 30 pounds and
weighing not much less, avoirdupois. On the 30th anniversary of "Monty
Python’s Flying Circus" in 1999, I wrote in these pages how Python had
graduated beyond being a cult in the conventional sense to being something
more like a religion, not least because it offered the chance of salvation to
sinners who had no sense of humour but who could attain a kind of grace
through endless repetition (like the catechism) of the Dead Parrot sketch, so
that other people might think they were funny after all. The trouble is, as I
realised when I watched "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" again the other
night, Python itself just isn’t funny any more, and becomes even less so when
you tear aside the veil of the temple and let Cleese, Idle, Palin and co ramble
on about how they met at The Footlights, had a row on location doing "Grail",
bitched about each other all the time and really rather disliked the late Graham
Chapman for being a pissed up old poof. Not only didn’t I laugh, but I
finished the book feeling thoroughly depressed. Then again, maybe that’s the
point. Given its dimensions, this book is probably intended to chained like a
bible in cheese shops, the better to uplift the devoted.
The other explanation for it is publishers’ indestructible belief in (financial)
salvation through faith (in TV). Thus Alan Partridge: Every Ruddy Word
(Penguin/Michael Joseph, £16.99), an unreadable collection of all the scripts
ever broadcast featuring Steve Coogan’s cringe-worthy alter ego. As I’ve
often said, in the absence of braile editions, books of collected TV scripts only
make sense if we imagine that we’re in immanent danger of the Earth letting
of some enormous electro-magnetic fart which will wipe clean every last
videotape or DVD, and the scripts will all we’ll be left with. Until then,
there’s no point, except for obsessives.
The only exception to this rule proves the point. Methuen has reissued The
Dagenham Dialogues (£6.99), from Peter Cook and Dudley Moore’s 60s TV
show "Not Only... But Also", which first came out in 1971. By that time most
of the original tapes had already been recorded over by the BBC, who then
maintained a policy which evinced a healthy contempt for venerating their
heritage. Indeed, it’s said that their recording of the 1969 moon landing was
wiped when they taped the 1970 European Cup Final over it. So this really is
your only opportunity to savour Pete and Dud in their prime before the
Tourette’s set in.
Nowadays, of course, TV isn’t the only other medium cravenly pillaged by
idle publishers after another quick buck. The internet is a seething cauldron of
dross, ripe for being repackaged, and although I forgive the book editions of
The Onion Ad Nauseum (Vol 14) (Boxtree £12.99) and Historic Framley (Penguin £12.99), both spoof
newspapers which appear on the internet and, in a third degree of separation,
are now books, this is because they are at least funny. Unlike Wearing of this
Garment does not enable you to fly... And Other Really Dumb Warnings and
You May Not Tie an Alligator to a Fire Hydrant...And Other Really Dumb
Laws (both Simon and Schuster, £8.99), from a website set up Jeff Koon and
Andy Powell which has, I’m sure, received millions of hits from bored geeks
surfing for porn. Just looking at the cheesy mugshots of these high school
nerds on the dust jacket, I too wanted to give them millions of hits, but not like
that.
Luckily help is at hand when confronted with mindless drivel like this, in the
form of Talking Dirty: 5000 Slang Expressions for Every Occasion (Cassell,
£6.99) compiled by Jonathon Green, that Dr Johnson of the Demotic. So,
when confronted with the nerds’ books stating the bleedin’ obvious, just turn
to the relevant section and scream "Are the Kennedy’s gun-shy?" or "Do
beavers piss on flat rocks?" in addition to all the phrases you’re already
familiar with. And then you can turn to the pages and pages of expressions for
masturbation, including "double-clicking your mouse" (don’t ask).
A felicitous phrase I coined in an argument with my 15 year old son a few
weeks ago, which I trust will appear in the next edition, was "If shit were
sherbert you’d put Barrett’s out of business!" Please feel free to use this when
considering Michael Gerber’s Barry Trotter and the Unnecessary Sequel
(Gollancz, £6.99), A.R.R.R. Roberts’ The Soddit, or, Let’s Cash In Again
(Gollancz, £6.99), Charlie Hamilton James’ The Matewix (HarperCollins,
£6.99) and Shite’s Unoriginal Miscellany by A.Parody (Michael O’Mara,
£9.99). It’s not that I’ve anything against parody, or that the targets here don’t
deserve it, it’s just the soulless contrivance of it all which made my heart sink
deeper and deeper with every book. Nor was it lifted by The Wicked Wit of
John F. Kennedy, compiled by Christina Koning (Michael O’Mara, £9.99), a
respectful and drearily dull tribute to the womanising warmonger 40 years
after his assassination (see above), and which noticeably does not contain the
line "Increased security? I need that like a hole in the head!"
This is all getting too depressing for words, so let’s quickly belt back to Pete
‘n’ Dud’s book, and turn to the Art Gallery sketch, which contains one of my
favourite ever gags.
PETE: Have you seen that bloody Leonardo Da Vinci cartoon? ... I couldn’t
see the bloody joke.
DUD: Well, of course, you know, Pete, people’s sense of humour must have
changed over the years... I bet, when that Da Vinci cartoon first come out, I
bet people were killing themselves. I bet old Da Vinci had an accident when
he drew it.
Indeed, indeed, and on to this year’s crop of cartoon books. Steve Bell’s
Unspeakable If... (Methuen, £10.99), Peattie and Taylor’s The Best of Alex
2003 (Masterley, £9.99) and The Best of Matt, Matt’s Town and Country and
Matt’s Modern Times (all Orion, £4.99) are all essential compilations by
Britain’s top newspaper cartoonists, and actually read much better when
presented together and sequentially in book form. Also well worth buying are
Both by Tom Gauld and Simone Lia (Bloomsbury £7.99), a wonderfully
quirky and very funny collection in the traditions of Edward Gorey and
Stephen Appleby; the hilariously and inventively sick Book of Bunny Suicides
by Andy Riley (Hodder and Stoughton, £7.99), which effortlessly manages to
overcome the kiss-of-death jacket encomia from David Baddiel and Paul
Whitehouse; and "Get Your War On" by David Rees (Serpent’s Tail, £9.99)
which, again from the internet, is a refreshingly foulmouthed take on the
absurdities of America’s War on Terror (and, for good measure, Iraq as well).
Why, the royalties are even being donated to clear minefields, so you can
laugh with heartless glee without endangering your liberal conscience.
But best of all is a book which owes nothing to TV or the internet or
newspapers, but is entirely a book and nothing else. Christopher Matthew’s
Now We Are Sixty (And a Bit) (John Murray, £9.99) is the follow-up to his
previous volume of geriatric parodies of A.A.Milne, Now We Are Sixty, and as
I said when that book appeared, it’s the kind of wise, perceptive, moving and
very funny stuff you used to get in Punch in the 50s before we all started
worshipping the Holy Python in its sacred telly tabernacle. And it’s all the
better for that.