Make like Snoopy, in these difficult times; lighten up with laughter

The times are so stressful, for all of us, that we need to find some laughter somewhere. “In difficult times if you can find humour, you win”– Snoopy.

Where better to turn for some levity than PG Wodehouse? The first quote we find from him applies to everyone of us today: “I can’t remember exactly, but I fancy it was Shakespeare who said that just when a fellow is feeling braced by the joys of life, Fate is likely to sneak up behind him with a bit of steel pipe.”

Apropos of nothing but a wish to find a little amusement, some more from the great humorist, Pelham Grenville, who once worked in Hong Kong for HSBC, or whatever it was called in the late 19th century:

• “The Right Hon was a tubby little chap who looked as if he had been poured into his clothes and had forgotten to say, ‘when’.”
• “There is only one cure for grey hair. It was invented by a Frenchman. It is called the guillotine.”
• “The village of Market Blandings is one of those sleepy hamlets which modern progress has failed to touch. . . The church is Norman, and the intelligence of the majority of the natives is palaeozoic.”

We have just been blessed by the discovery in the Emerald Bay VRC’s library of a classic

of literary humour, Mordecai Richler’s “Barney’s Version”. Barney runs a company called Totally Unnecessary Productions Ltd. He gets a letter proposing a movie to be written, starred in and directed by a strongman, “The Great Antonio Real Gold Mine”. The Great Antonio says he is a living legend, “greatest of the great human strength, strongest man in world, prehistoric man strong like 10 horses, pull four buses with a chain. . .”

Barney writes back to the Great Antonio declining to invest in his blockbuster idea, but referring him to Bobby at Amigos Three on Yonge St in Toronto. “Bobby is the former Hungarian amateur wrestling champion, and he has bet me a considerable sum that he can take you two falls out of three. I’m betting on you, Antonio, so don’t fail me. Immediately you enter his office, try him on a drop kick. He’d love that. Good luck.”

If you’re looking for laughs to lighten up a bit, check out Ignatius J. Reilly: “In addition, I am at the moment writing a lengthy indictment against our century. When my brain begins to reel from my literary labours, I make an occasional cheese dip.”

Then there’s the hilarious scene in one of Joseph Wambaugh’s police comedy series. Was it The Choirboys, the Blue Knight or The New Centurions? The scene is a police officers’ party. Everyone is more than plastered, they’re zonked. Even the well-oiled padre who has a secret passion for a voluptuous lass we will call Gloria, a blonde bombshell policewoman who is totally unaware of the padre’s longing. It’s the early hours of the morning, the party is roaring. Somehow Gloria is now pantyless and sitting on a glass table. The salivating drunken cleric is sliding under the table, licking his lips and leering upwards. . . And Gloria looks down between her legs through the glass table. . . ( Ed: Stop right there, Trevor. This is a family publication.)

Censored.