Funny or Not

Funny or Not ©

By Michael Casey

just read in the DT that it’s so hard for comedy writers at the BBC, there has to be a committee to decide what is funny or not. Though this is really a PC committee, God Help Us. I know a little about the subject, as I try and write humour in the main. Oh No You Don’t I can hear in reply, in best Panto tradition.

Humour is all about timing, and I know about that too, Oh No You Don’t I can hear you all mutter as you chew on your Easter eggs. I also know about pain, thanks to my Arthur and my Triple Heart Bypass. You deserve all that pain, just for posting all that “humour” I can hear you mutter as chocolate dribbles down your face this Easter Sunday.

Let’s assume I do know what I’m talking about, don’t choke on your Easter eggs, on second thoughts do, I can’t talk to you while you are sniping. So as I sit here talking to you, a few spasms of pain rippling through me, you are quietly choking on your settee, so I’ll just say thank you for not interrupting.

I spent 3 years at a 4 star business hotel, the CPNEC, so I had plenty of time to practice talking to people. Robin would always lean over the reception desk and ask “what did you say, why are they laughing?” Then when I explained what I’d just said he never quite got it. Why? Because of the timing, you have to be there to understand otherwise the “moment” is lost. It’s all in the timing. Some unkind people on the desk said “Michael’s doing his routine” it was no routine it was personality. You can continue choking on your Easter egg, I will not be interrupted any more.

I saw and maybe spoke to 100,000 guests during my time at the hotel. So that’s why I can boast, or rather state I have experience. I started writing back in 1987, so my view on life goes back to then, prior to the writing I spent 20 years listening constantly to BBC Radio4. I would encourage any parent to glue their child’s radio to BBC Radio4.

Writing is all about observation, some may not see the humour in the world around them. I was in the queue at Iceland yesterday there was a very tall lady paying for her frozen peas. It wasn’t frozen peas but it reads better and funnier by saying frozen peas. Anyway she gets her purse out and what’s on her purse? The design is giraffes, a tall lady with a giraffe purse. I told my wife and small daughter when I got home and they laughed. Now if you are not smiling at the very least then all I can say is that you really should choke on your Easter egg, because you are already dead.

We all go about our daily lives with our eyes closed, if we open them we can see the humour all around us. Look in the mirror do you laugh at yourself? I do. Look at your family and see God’s gift to you, it makes me laugh, I had stood by the fridge and cried and prayed for a family, and what did I get? You can google me and find the family photos for yourself, just google “michaelgcasey” Then you can see God’s sense of humour.

As for words and stories they build a picture and can bring laughter, lots of laughter. You just have to be slow about it, give the words space to breath. There is nothing worse than being too fast, than a smart Alec interrupting and killing the flow of the story. At this point in time in our family, the wife has a new car, my daughters are getting a kitten, and what did I get?

Triple Heart Bypass surgery. Thanks God. But seriously I should thank God because I’m still alive and can see my children grow up. I used to sing and scream out the song Blasphemous Rumours by Depeche Mode when I was on the night shift maybe 25 years ago. The line in the song goes “And when I die I’ll see God laughing” And you know what? I bet that’s exactly what will happen.