Trying to be funny

Auberon Waugh

This review is being written on the evening of Tuesday, 30 October 1984. In today's Times there are three attempts at pictorial humour. On page one, Calman gives us two characteristic but largely ndifferentiated faces. One is reading the inside pages of a newspaper whose front Page has the headline: SCARGILL & , 1HE LIBYANS. The other is saying: 'If You've got COLONEL GADDAFI for a friend — you don't need enemies.' On page two, Mr Peter Brookes is given a four column spread, four and a half inches deep — 311/2 square inches in all — fn.r his newspaper's main effort in this difficult field. Colonel Gaddafi stands in front of a painting on the wall which shows sciine mines floating in the sea. It is labelled RED SEA. He is saying: • And please assure Mr Scargill of my ueeP and abiding interest in mines.' Chl page ten, facing the leader page, under the curious version of a Royal Warrant holder's badge which the Times has taken to splashing around everywhere under its most recent editor, we find the Tones Diary Cartoon of the Day. Two characteristically drawn but largely un- differentiated men are talking to each er, holding glasses of wine in a bar (is "us an indication that they are of the upper class?). One says to the other: 'With a name like Roger Windsor, Gaddafi clearly thought he was royal.'

This is plainly a reference to the NUM re

.Presentative called Roger Windsor who "sited Libya on Mr Scargill's behalf. Every aY, in my family, we have a furious debate (2n the subject of which Times humorist "as made the least amusing joke. On this °ceasion we decided that Calman was :lead), not even trying to be funny. So far vv-8 he was making any sort of statement, he as expressing disappointment at a set- ,lack to the miners' cause, and a set-back to „!ft-wing' causes generally. Even so, he n'as probably making a statement of some a, 0 r t Ifl his preference for the construction fYou've got' over the more normal English sc'rin. 'you have'. What he was in effect aYing was that the average, illiterate, sower-class Englishman (presumed, for ine reason, to be a Labour voter) was IlsaPpointed by the turn of events. But at iedst he was not pretending that there was

anything witty in this observation.

Mr Peter Brookes, on the other hand, was definitely setting his cap towards some sort of humorous idea by using a pun (Tun sb.1662 . . Origin obsc. The use of a word in such a way as to suggest two or more meanings . . . so as to produce a humor- ous effect' OED) on 'mines' (recreation and social welfare centres, mostly in the North of England) and 'mines' (floating magnetic bombs). Thereafter, however, Mr Brookes's humorous intention dissi- pates itself somewhat. Has Libya in fact put minefields in the Red Sea? I have not heard this suggested. Libya has virtually no navy and no border with the Red Sea. I have seen no reports of mines in the area. There are undoubtedly some mines in the Persian Gulf — 1500 miles away — which are thought to have been put there either by the Iraquis, or by the Iranians, or possibly by both. Nobody has yet accused Libya of putting them there. Vot sort of joke am dis?

Mr Fantoni's joke is even more puzzling. Agreed that the British Royal Family briefly adopted the surname of Windsor (ex Wettin 17 July 1917 — Sondeburg- Glucksburg-Schleswig-Holstein, alias Mountbatten-Windsor —8 February 1960) but where is the joke in supposing that Gaddafi thought this proletarian Marxist was a member of the Royal Family? Is Gaddafi known to have a soft spot for Royalty? You would not assume it, by his treatment of King Idris. Has Gaddafi, like Norman Stevas, a long record of sucking up to the Queen Mother? Nobody has hinted it. Where, then, is the joke?

My sad conclusion is that the present editor of the Times simply does not under- stand about jokes. This is a fairly common failing nowadays. It certainly would not matter if he did not pretend to understand. There has always been room in our toler- ant, easy-going society for the avowedly humourless. To employ one dud cartoonist may be disregarded as a misfortune; to employ two looks like carelessness; to employ three suggests a serious personality disorder. Douglas-Home, like Mrs Thatch- er, is probably beyond the reach of humane persuasion. If he weren't, I should earnestly advise him to pack it in and accept what an enormous number of social and emotional cripples already maintain, that the modern world with its Scargills, Gaddafis and cruise missiles is too serious a place for jokes. Sock it to us like a good prep schoolmaster in straight-talking lead- ers, however ignorant or illiterate the 'sophisticates' may judge them to be. If

you can trust yourself when all men doubt you . . . yours is the Earth, and everything that's in it, and — you'll be a Man, my son!

Even so, this frightful Fantoni is with us yet, lest we forget — lest we forget! I suppose we must agree he has a nose for news. On Friday 22 March, 1983, during the run-up to the last election, he noticed that Mrs Thatcher had visited Marks and Spencer. A newspaper placard reminds us of this fact: THATCHER VISITS MARKS AND SPENCER. 'I hope that means that if we don't like her election manifesto we'll be able to take it back and change it', says a man walking a dog.

You see, there's a genuine social consci- ence there, too. On 23 July, 1983, he showed a placard announcing that two million adults were now illiterate. An illiterate adult looks at it. 'I'm not sure', he says. 'I think it says further government cuts in education.' He kept up with all the latest jokes, too. On 1 September, 1983, a man holds a newspaper (the Times, of course) which announces on its front page that a colliery is to close in Lynemouth. 'They could always sell the name to a cheese manufacturer,' he says. Lyne- mouth, Lymeswold, geddit? Never mind, we none of us have the faintest idea where Lynemouth is. Mrs Thatcher is being un- compassionate again . . .

One sometimes wonders how he chooses his news items. On 1 October, 1983, his traditional Times reader is informed on the front page: USA BUYS MORE ROLLS, with a picture of the motor car. This prompts the memorable joke: 'Must be a result of the F-plan diet'. On 25 Novem- ber, 1983, however, he caught up with the Falklands war. A mother holds a copy of the Times with the curious headline: KIDS VIEW VIDEO NASTIES. The child says: 'I saw one, but it wasn't nearly as nasty as the Falklands war.'

There is a tender social conscience at work here, y'see. It is only when he tries to be funny that he becomes totally incompre- hensible. Placard: CATHOLICS URGE FISH ON FRIDAYS. Joke: 'Do you sup- pose it is a move to get us used to paying VAT on take-aways?' Placard: COM- EDIAN IN SOCCER TV AD. Joke: 'Lucky them. Ours plays in goal.'

The tragedy is that the Times once had a genuinely witty cartoonist in Mark Boxer. His stuff continues to appear in the Guar- dian, although I do not suppose many people notice it there. A drunk old lady at a cocktail party: 'Tell me, Colonel, which Lady Di look-alike is your son?' Tramp on a bench: 'Do you remember the first time you wrapped yourself in a newspaper announcing the recession was bottoming out?' One Sloane to another: 'I'm moving in with a real man — devious, self-centred, manipulative . .

The most striking difference between these two humorists is in their understand- ing of the world around them. This is Fantoni's summary of the year which ran from 22 March, 1983 to 31 May, 1984: 'Silly Season 'The summer, instead of bringing the traditional silly season, was highlighted by the sexploits of a headmaster and his wife at the select Dartington Hall School . . .

'Mixed emotions 'The Greenham women remain with us, arousing our divided opinions of either admiration or condemnation. Mark Thatcher, who everyone was accusing of benefitting from nepotism in Oman, is now in America, where many feel Cruise mis- siles should be.'

Of course they do. How astute of Fant- oni to spot this. How clever of the new Times to employ him. Thank God for the Daily Telegraph.