Life is Healthy

Last night I was watching Newsnight. Gavin Esler was telling us about the risk of catching diseases from infected blood products.

GAVIN: "We speak to a man who has HIV, hepatitis C and fears he may also have vCJD."

ME: "That's a tough Scrabble rack."

Sadly, my only audience was two teddy bears and a puppet dog.

I scan the TV guide, my baby on my knee.

"Ross Kemp in Afghanistan?" I say to him. "I don't think we'll be watching that. Well, not unless he's wearing an orange boiler suit."

My baby blows a raspberry of appreciation.

I was in the Olympic Stadium, Berlin, watching a football match with some friends. This, of course, was the venue of the controversial 1936 Olympics, the highlight of the opening ceremony of which was a flypast by the Hindenburg, the largest aircraft ever to be built.

And what did they have at half-time? A radio-controlled model airship flying around the stadium. It was pretty impressive, though I assume that health and safety regulators had insisted it be filled with helium, like the Hindenburg was originally designed to have been. I assume this as, with no sympathies for any survivors or relatives of victims who might have been present, the person flying it proceeded to accidentally crash it into one of the goals.

This was a golden opportunity for someone as quick-witted as myself. How many times in my life would I witness an airship crash, particularly in such resonant circumstances as that day's? But what were the chances of my friend having at least a passing knowledge of Herbert Morrison's radio commentary of that tragic event from 1937?

I had to risk it. I turned to him and, in my most anguished tones, wailed, “Oh, the humanity!”

He just stared at me. By the time I'd explained it all the second half had kicked off.

I do not often suffer from l'esprit de l'escalier (coming up with the right thing to say far too late). Instead, I suffer from something whereby I say funny things at exactly the right time, but to a particularly small, unappreciative or incomprehending audience.

Some time ago I was with a girlfriend who had a bit of a problem in her “lady area”. It was the kind of problem that can be cured with the help of natural yoghurt, so when we were out she popped into a shop and bought some Greek-style yoghurt. When she showed me her purchase, quick as a flash, I said, “Surely if it's Greek-style, you'd stick it up your arse”.

This is quite possibly the quickest that my wits have ever worked, but the audience was (a) just one person, (b) who didn't know the non-dairy product meaning of “Greek-style”, and (c) who wasn't in the best mood for laughing anyway, what with having a poorly front bottom.

How come Oscar Wilde never had this problem? Though I suppose that his partners never needed natural yoghurt...