COMPETITION

Carry on

Jaspistos

12 YEAR OLD In Competition No. 1646 you were in- vited to leap from the springboard of this first verse of a poem by Morris Bishop: 'What is funny?' you ask, my child,

Crinkling your bright blue eye.

'Ah, that is a curious question indeed,' Musing, I make reply.

A fine entry. Thank you, everybody you made my task entirely enjoyable. As I used the phrase 'leap from the spring- board', I didn't require an exact replica of Bishop's metre. The prizewinners, printed below, get £12 each, and the bonus bottle of Chivas Regal 12-year-old de luxe blended whisky is Tony Joseph's.

It's a word of five letters, count them, And it comes on page two-seven-three, Volume Six (Follow to Haswed), In the new Oxford Dictionaree.

`It can mean "comic", "strange" or just "fun- ny",

"Suspicious", "deceitful" (it's true), "Facetious", "odd", "queer", even "tipsy",

Which is really quite strange — funny too.

'It's been used by great numbers of writers To express all these meanings at need, Though never, it seems, by Shakespeare, Still less by the Venerable Bede.

'An example of something that's funny (Funny "funny" and not funny "strange") Is, "Get off the kitchen stove, Granny, You're too old to be riding the range." ' (Tony Joseph) it's seeing an elderly gentleman' (I said, with a twisted grin) 'Executing a somersault On a banana skin.

'That's not exactly malice, It's not exactly spite; The Germans call it Schadenfreude: Joy in another's plight.

12 YEAR OLD SCOTCH WHISKY

'Mind you, there's funny-ha-ha, And funny-peculiar, as well; The first's a joke, the second — odd, As in a "funny" smell.

'I hope that answers your query As to the meaning of funny; It's laughable — and strange — like life. Any more questions, sonny?'

(Stanley J. Sharpless) `I'll tell you what's funny, darling child, And makes me split my sides: It's hearing a bore on Radio 4 Saying that God provides.

'And then there are those other freaks Who make me wet my pants, Like Peter Snow and Melvyn Bragg And Cartland on romance.

'I cannot tell what solemn fools Make you collapse with mirth, Though you must find your mum and dad The funniest folk on earth.

'In short, my child, all kinds of things May strike you as a joke, But you will learn when you grow up There's nowt so queer as folk.'

(Roger Woddis) 'The stream of jesting patter that

One audience so beguiles

That soon they're all so helpless that They're rolling in the aisles,

`Before another audience

May not awake one titter.

No wonder some comedians turn Cantankerous and bitter.

'It sounds, my chubby, chuckly lad,

The sort of life you're after. What nobler avocation than

Exciting happy laughter?

'But who'd be funny must be brave, He must not play the coward' -

Such was the stern advice I gave

The infant Frankie Howerd. (Martin Fagg) 'A fat old gent who falls on his bum, The very word "bum" itself, A red-nosed drunk, and the chamber-pot Are funny, my little elf.

'All kinds of knickers are very droll, Especially when they descend; Bunions and corns and boils and gout, And chaps who are round the bend,

'Farts in class are good for a laugh According to my research;

And jokes that were not funny before, If you whisper them in church.

'Sigmund Freud, who looked into jokes, Has some highly risible theories; And I've heard of a man who was seen to smile At a TV comedy series.' (Gerard Benson) 'Funny has many meanings. Funny is merry and joky.

Funny is Grandpa dressed as a clown, Doing the hokey-cokey.

'If Grandma bruised her elbow And then began to moan, We would cheer her up, explaining, "You've hurt your funny bone."

"'This is a funny business," I say when things aren't easy. Or, "I'm feeling rather funny," When what I mean is queasy.

'Somewhere there is a Promised Land Flowing with milk and honey.

But for millions who never find it Life is just not funny.' (Phyllis Fountain) 'What is funny? Well, it's hard To give a definition, And I'd suggest perhaps it's best To skip the exposition.

'Instead to show what funny is I'll serve you up a sample.

This splendid joke,' grinning, I spoke, 'Will do as an example — 'What's yellow and of banana smells?

Come, tell me, answer quick.' He didn't know, of course, and so

I told him: 'Monkey sick!'

My chuckles finally tailed off.

'Now, have you got it, sonny?'

The little lad said, 'Sorry, Dad,

But that just isn't funny.'

(George Jowett)