And when you're on your own there is that terrifying possibility that you may be the only person on the planet who thinks it's funny - and you have no way of finding out.

It's a funny kind of month, October. For the really keen cricket fan it's when you discover that your wife left you in May.

If the laughter of the audience was malicious we wouldn't show it.

If all the world is a stage, and all the men and women merely players, where do all the audiences come from?

Then after that came word processors and it's hard to make those laugh.

What is a harp but an oversized cheese slicer with cultural pretensions?

The comedians all finished their acts with a song. They would get a certain amount of money from the song publishers and would use that money to pay the writers. None of them paid very much for their comedy material, but it all added up.