Laughter is the best medicine! (If you can’t get hold of any valium/vicodin)

I’m veeeery hard to please when it comes to tickling my funny-bone. I’m no lily-livered buffoon who will guffaw at just anything, oh no. I might look amused at a comedy club with a perma-grin pasted on, but that’s simply a tactic to avoid being heckled by the comedians - inside I’ve got a face like a proper slapped-ar$e.

Sadly, this ruse is not practised by my partner. When I took him to see stand-up comic Simon Amstell warming up for Edinburgh, he didn’t even crack a smile throughout the gig. It might have been OK but it was a tiny room and we were smack in the centre of the front row, nose-to-nose with Simon.

Needless to say the grumpy ginger German South-African sitting next to the girl in the wheelchair wearing a corset, fabulous Kiss My Cherry fascinator (this one from the Summer collection)  and insane smile did not go unnoticed. Mr Amstell tried heckling my partner into submission but the ginger would not snap - even with all his best gay Jewish one-liners Simon could not crack the ginger nut. Excruciating. But lovely that I got two ginger biscuit jokes out of that.

Sadly they’ll be lost on my non-UK audience which last month’s Google Analytics informs me are abundant; yes, I’m quite the global phenomenon. No surprises that I’m racking them up all over the UK, US & Canada but interesting that I’m doing healthy figures in Sweden (12), Russia (3) and Turkey (2) as well as being thoroughly enjoyed in the Asian continent; India (1), Malaysia (1) and Thailand (1); Sawadika!

Anyhoo, back to Britain; my partner hasn’t picked up that in this country, when someone’s trying to be funny, even if you think they’re a blithering idiot, you feign merriment - it is just good manners to be completely insincere. Similarly, if you don’t like someone, you simply pretend you do to their face and talk badly about them behind their back, thus, no one ever knows how you really feel and you end up being a people-pleaser. It is not a difficult practise to pick up but apparently in Africa, they are not familiar with such behavioural subtleties, so if my partner doesn’t find someone funny, he won’t laugh and it is just embarrassing for all involved. Except for my partner, who doesn’t find it at all uncomfortable. My bad for taking him to see stand-up comedy; it was an accident waiting to happen.

Talking of accidents, now there’s something that’s sure to invoke a vesuvian belly-laugh from me. Yip, someone stumbling/tripping/falling over will always have me in stitches - not if they are, obviously - I won’t be roaring my head off at someone who clearly requires suturing, but a bit of grazing or a few bruises and there’s my slam-dunk giggle-fit.

Other than people embarrassing/hurting themselves a bit, a chortle from me is hard-won. That’s not to say I’m a miserable sadist; I’ve just explained that I laugh at other people’s misfortune, I’m hardly miserable! But I did not find Bridesmaids that funny second time round.

However, there is one type of funny that transcends all cultures and faiths and can tickle even the most jaded of fancies, and this universal source of hilarity is known as Skype-A-Mum. It doesn’t even have to be your own mum, just any mum will do. My partner and I Skyped both our mums in one night and it was back-to-back side-splitting laughs for us.

We started by Skyping my pseudo mum-in-law in South Africa which is always a challenge because they’re still on dial-up; can you even remember life before broadband? It makes me shudder, but in S.A they’re much quainter and not so up-to-speed with technology because they are understandably occupied with their daily survival such as running away from lions and leopards. Also, the rhinos and hippos dig up the phone lines so they can’t put the really good ones down. They have to make theirs from string and giraffe droppings which are less efficient than fibre optic cables.

We managed to get through to S.A Mum who had spruced herself up for the occasion by changing out of her “camo”s and strategically placing some traditional African masks and wooden giraffes in shot. It wasn’t until she’d complimented us 3 or 4 times on our “set dressing” of pulling the duvet up to cover our naked-ness, that we realised she was awaiting a return compliment and didn’t know that her web-cam was off so we couldn’t see her. We suggested she do whatever she did last time we Skyped, as then we could vividly see the full glory of her African headdress (or she might have just washed her hair). However, her other son had supervised proceedings last Skype and now he was out, probably hunting kudu or searching for stones to make into arrow-heads.

A slew of; “Scheiß menschen!” (translation; “$h!t people!”) and other German profanities ensued plus much clattering of African crafts, but still the web-cam “on” switch remained elusive. We’ve long since learnt the futility of talking a mum through the simple procedure of opening the “Tools” bar and clicking on “Video Settings” so we sat back whilst S.A Mum turned everything on her P.C on and off, to an accompaniment of Germanic expletives and the distant thunder of charging elephants. Mums Skyping hey? Hil-frickin-arious.

No sooner had we said auf weiderzen to S.A Mum, we noticed my Mum was on-line in the South of France, so we hit the Skype again, but Mum in La France (or MILF) didn’t answer until about our the tenth attempt because she thought it was the dishwasher beeping. When she finally picked up her iPhone she’d somehow managed to mute the speakers and the microphone but that was no impediment to her jabbering away, iPhone akimbo.

We couldn’t even attempt to lip-read as all we could see were blurry shots of pot-plants, furniture and ceiling beams in the style of Madonna’s “Ray of Light” video, mixed in with several cleavage close-ups in the style of something you’d rather not find your mother starring in. My frantic yelps of; “Muuuuum! Step away from the iPhone! We can see your boobs!” made no impression; we just had to wait 'til she’d worn herself out. Then, as finding the iPhone volume button proved too much of a challenge, we repeated the whole exercise from her iPad but she couldn’t find the stand for it so it was an up-the-nose shot throughout our chat.

So to re-cap; if you’re feeling a bit glum, Skype yo’ Mum. Guaranteed non-stop giggles!

P.S Wanna look hot for Hallowe'en? Check out my Kiss My Cherry skulls and spiders collection!