Funny business

What makes the British different is our sense of humour. We haven't got one. No, only joking. It's actually our talent for self-deprecation, you see. Self-mockery is what distinguishes us from the rest of the world, according to Professor Christie Davies of the University of Reading in his paper on "The Nature of British Humour", delivered at the International Humour Studies conference in Japan.

What makes the British different is our sense of humour. We haven't got one. No, only joking. It's actually our talent for self-deprecation, you see. Self-mockery is what distinguishes us from the rest of the world, according to Professor Christie Davies of the University of Reading in his paper on "The Nature of British Humour", delivered at the International Humour Studies conference in Japan.

We find doing ourselves down funny. Hilarious, isn't it? Only the British would find it amusing to pretend that our national football team couldn't pass its way out of a paper bag. Only the British would find it oh-so-funny to suggest that we invented cricket, tennis and rugby and are useless at them.

Or that we invented computers, wind-up radios and certain steel-making processes, only to let everybody else make money out of them.

It is just typical of us to run our country down, complaining that our transport system isn't as good as those anywhere in Continental Europe, that our health service might not be up to scratch or that our streets might be strewn with more litter than most places in the world. Very funny. Ha ha.