18/04/2022
I’m always amazed at the brain’s retentiveness for trivial nonsense whilst items of true importance are carelessly discarded, never to be retrieved again. In essence, if I regarded an item as funny then it will have been indelibly impressed on whatever internal structure it is which provides a home for these thoughts. I don’t suppose it is ever as simple as remember/forget. The whole memory retrieval process shows signs of being very complex.
As I grow older it is clear that people’s names are increasingly difficult to bring to mind. Most will recognize the feeling that they know the name; can almost see it bubbling up through the swamp; that they have located the index entry and the librarian is even now retrieving the document for them. But it is also clear that the rules of conversation demand that the retrieval has a time limit of, maybe, five seconds. It’s surprising then that we are so often guilty of starting a sentence in the knowledge that there is a missing component about two thirds of the way along. The calculation is that the answer will arrive before it’s needed. Given the necessity to offer some sort of solution within the five-second limit, the ever-resourceful brain comes up with a stopgap which suggests that the mental linkages are more complex than one might think.
I recently began a sentence which would require the name of a famous snooker commentator. It wasn’t there, but I knew it would come. I only had five seconds of course, or my listeners would conclude that I’d had some sort of seizure or had silently expired on the settee. So, I offered what I had, Steve Zodiac the well-known puppet commander of Fireball XL5. The true answer, when it finally came, was John Virgo. That’s mysteriously close, isn’t it? Something like a cryptic crossword clue.
Something similar occurs when I play the real game. I’m no expert but I can make a valid contribution to the clearance of a table. But, more frequently than is good for my confidence, I will line up a shot and work out all the angles, only to find that it is the cue ball which disappears into the pocket. As though I’ve calculated the correct co-ordinates but mentally applied them to the wrong formula. The outcome is the mirror image of the expectation. I can’t explain it, but since a snooker table is a minefield of physics calculations anyway, perhaps I shouldn’t be too surprised by this.
Even non-players will have seen enough of the game on television to know many of the stock commentary catch-phrases. “How’s your luck?” when cannoning the cue ball into the pack of reds. “Where’s the cue ball going? WHERE’S THE CUE BALL GOING?” And, given the distain that snooker has for the use of adverbs, “He’s hit that a bit thick”. But, without a doubt, the most memorable piece of snooker commentary I can recall, was so stupid that I felt compelled to record it in my diary sometime during the 1980s. “Jimmy White is making the balls talk. And what a story they have to tell”. It was only the hushed and reverential tone which elevated this word salad to partial acceptability.
Words are very important. Now that I have grandchildren it’s the misuse of words which can provide the biggest belly laughs. Two of them were in the bath one day and the boy was demonstrating his grasp of anatomy and physiology. “I’ve got one of these, which is called a penis. And she hasn’t. She’s got a China”.
My first job was with Oxfordshire County Council. I was young, and my humour was juvenile. I have a recollection of being very pleased with this COBOL computer programmer’s joke from the late 1970s…
“You have to be a bit of a character to have a slash in a binary field”.
Which is hilarious, obviously, and also technically plausible. But there was an earthier and more adult humour in the office which, frankly, shocked me a little. One of the women had gone on holiday and had sent a postcard to the office. It read, “Am writing this in bed. Wish you were here. Mary”.
In another place, another time, and a little older, I found that in addition to my normal duties I also had to run the coffee club. It was my role to buy in all the tea, coffee, biscuits and crisps which the office block needed. But after some years I got a bit sick of this and so devised a poster to tender my resignation. “Dear members, the coffee club and I have decided to get divorced. Over the years I have purchased over 500 bags of coffee, and I think those are grounds enough. Signed Bev R Age”. Yes, still juvenile.
But now it’s the senile things which make me laugh. There are, situated around Wantage, several very impressive developments of flats for the older generation. One has a poster which is intended to drum up business, but unwittingly offers a rather gloomy prognosis for the buyers. Set against a large photo of smiling, older people drinking prosecco and eating croissants, is the headline WELCOME TO THE NEXT CHAPTER OF YOUR LIFE. And a little further down, LAST FEW REMAINING.
Putting names to faces. That’s always been difficult. But putting names to faces you’ve never seen before – that’s on another level. In the town where I live, I’m quite well known. This is mainly due to a decade or so as compere at the concerts of the local brass band. With the bright lights on I might be looking at a couple of hundred people, but all I could see was a black void. The audience could see me alright though, and soon came to recognize me as the bloke in the dickie-bow who cracks silly jokes the whole time. The problem comes when shopping in the local supermarket and a complete stranger claps you on the back and says “Hello Andrew”. “Oh. Hello… er … um … matey”.
The problem has been exacerbated recently since I was press-ganged into taking on a part in a local pantomime. I played that well-known character, Gormless the robot. Since that time, more people than can have possibly been in the audience have come up to me in the street and said, “Hello Gormless”. In our church community we are often exhorted to watch out for new faces in the congregation and to make them feel welcome. Recently I spotted two likely-looking candidates and, having asked round to make sure they really were new, I engaged them in conversation. As the exchange came to a close, I touched my chest and said, “By the way, my name’s Andrew”. “Oh,” they said, “we know who you are, Gormless”.