Is laughter the best medicine?

Is laughter the best medicine? If you had asked me the question a few weeks ago I would have given you a look that indicated that I thought you were mad - or possibly that I was mildly constipated (if I’m honest I’ve not really mastered the whole expressive look thing - I regard it as the bastard offspring of mime and an unspecified foreign language. It also probably explains why my acting career was restricted to a brief appearance as a sheep in a nativity play – I was substituted within minutes before I managed to wreck the St Josephs under 7’s Christmas pageant. Apparently my attempt as a happy go lucky sheep came across more as small menacing child, leering dementedly while covered in cotton wool (Andy Warhol could probably have made an unsuccessful art installation out of me...). This so disturbed the front three rows of the audience that they threatened to stage a mass exodus that would have given Moses’ exit from Egypt a run for its money..... but I digress....

I have always been of the opinion that laughter can make everything better....That was before I cracked a rib (or possibly strained a chest muscle, the jury is still out). Suddenly laughter is no longer a laughing matter.  It has become a painful exercise that brings tears to my eyes – although not as bad as sneezing, which currently makes me want to curl up into a ball and scream obscenities that would make a tourette's sufferer blush like a school girl who’s just learned, in front of her entire school, that females don’t have a fartectomy at birth....

I discovered this week that film selection is vitally important to your health and wellbeing when I made the mistake of going to see “Salmon Fishing in the Yemen” as this week’s C.A.C.T.U.S  (Cheap As Chips TUeSday - watch any film for £2.90) choice.  .... It’s not that Salmon fishing is a bad film, on the contrary it is a great film but not if you are suffering from sore rib syndrome.  It turned out to be way to funny (not something that I would normally complain about in a comedy).   The next 24 hours turned into a riot of pain, I should have gone to see something dull and boring instead....

It got me thinking about laughter and how important it is to the British way of life and indeed history...

I suspect that it was through laughter that we built a vast Empire ...they (the soon to be conquered) were so busy laughing at us, in our white socks with sandals, string vests and knotted hankies on our heads (beautifully offsetting our bright red sunburnt faces) that we had taken over before they realised how incompetent a nation we were.... Voila!  Yet another  country had turned pink on the map...

I’m not the only one that is in pain in the house at the moment – Mrs B and I were having dinner the other night, when a loud screech disrupted the night air and the cat flap erupted in a ball of black fur that streaked through the kitchen, leaving a trail of black fuzz like an etch-a-sketch pad in the hands of an active epileptic.... Mrs B almost hit the roof, while I took the opportunity to check the underside of the table to make sure it was safe.... when Mrs B had returned to terrafirma and I had finished off the vital (and long overdue) table safety inspection, we went in search of a rather disturbed Mischief.  We discovered the poor thing in one of the spare rooms,  puffed up to twice her normal size (very impressive considering the amount of fur that had been distributed along her epic escape route), her little heart pumping away like a small boy who has just discovered underwear catalogues.  Her tale had a rather distinct kink in it and she spent the next few days struggling to sit down and getting very tetchy at any attempt to inspect the damage.  We are not sure what attacked her (Fox, neighbourhood cat, territorial robin), although to be honest she can be a bit neurotic at times, I have seen her panic and streak across the garden after doing a poo (truly a case of being scared shitless).

Tea – a non drinker’s guide

A bit of a disaster at South Street Pantry this week as their coffee machine decided to do an impression of an over-sized paper weight – one of those old fashioned paper weights that doesn’t dispense coffee.  I decided to take the opportunity to check out the tea menu....An interesting experiment for a confirmed non-tea drinker....

Massala Chai - I was promised it was like Christmas in a Tea pot....Hmmm it was more like the taste of Santa’s socks after Mrs Santa had left him for one of the Elves and so no washing had been done for 6 months or so....

Gunpowder – If you have been looking for grandma’s false teeth you can call off the search, I think I may have found them, they were in a cup of hot water with just a hint of gingivitis.... 

Lemon and Ginger – like someone had dragged my tongue across a vat full of rusty nails that had been seeped in expertly matured sulphuric acid....

Green tea – So that’s what they do with all the left over grass clippings.....

Earl Grey – Like drinking liquid soap but without the fun of burping bubbles afterwards.... Begs the question: are regular Earl Grey drinkers self regulating potty mouths who have taken their mother's mantra “Wash your mouth out” to heart....

At this point I was saved by the arrival of a replacement coffee machine – just as well as I was only a couple of tea cups away from needing a stomach pump.....

Footnote

Mrs B is a tea-a-holic and does not function until she has had at least one cup of tea in the morning.  We were watching a show on the 100 best gadgets and a Teas-maids was included :

Mrs B - "Why on earth would anyone need a Teas-maid?  How difficult is it to walk down stair's and switch a kettle on?"

Me -    "That's rich coming from someone who is incapable of moving until they have had a gulp of tea....If I wasn't here, how exactly would you manage to get downstairs without moving?" 

5,000 is the magic number 
Unbelievably this week one of my blogs reached the magic number of 5,000 hits, it has been read by almost 5 times the number of people of my next most popular..... I have mixed emotions about this as it is the lovingly titled “Getting in touch with your inner Tranny ” and does not exactly show me at my manly best...

A record of the week

Tea in the Sahara by The Police - I've had a bit of a Police obsession this week, so this was an apt song for my hot beverage suffering.... 

Exodus by Bob Marley - I had no idea Bob was in the audience for my inglorious acting depute and retirement rolled into one painful burst of thespian misadventure..... 

It only hurts when I'm breathing by Shania Twain - or laughing, moving, coughing, sneezing..... well living really....

Photo finish

I've not been able to heft The Beast around much recently but did manage to take some pictures of our friends Sophie & Wayne's,  two cats....Meet -

Lola 

Coco

Both Lola and Coco pops are currently in the dog house as, after 10 months of angelic behaviour, they have recently massacred their first bird.....

Hope to see you next time...