I'm a Joke and So Are You: Reflections on Humour and Humanity

by Robin Ince

This is why I love Laurel and Hardy, and I am more likely to trust people who love them, too. You can read academic psychology books on what it is to be human, or you can watch Stan and Ollie in The Music Box. I think all of us should spend more time trying to deliver pianos up steep hills and stairs. The trouble with Camus’s The Myth of Sisyphus is that there’s just not enough slapstick. The question of whether to live or die is written all over Ollie’s face as that piano lands on his toe again.

For instance, the oft-repeated idea that ‘we only use 10 per cent of the brain’ has no basis in fact, although recent research suggests that people who perpetually repeat that we only use 10 per cent of the brain may be using even less of theirs.

At a time when there have never been so many ways of having criticism delivered to your door, at every hour of the day or night, it is increasingly difficult to believe that you really are your own worst critic, when so many others are auditioning for the part.