Oddly, I have often been asked by journalist colleagues to express an opinion on matters of taste.
I say oddly because I have a great love of bawdy humour, the double entendre and the inappropriate. Part of my inner world is governed by a 10-year-old's glee at the comic absurdity of bodily functions. Yes, I still find farting funny.
This appreciation of things not always de rigueur in the politest circles was established in my childhood. My detective father and teacher mother shared a love of reading and storytelling, but always with a eye for detail.
He often went to post-mortems, scenes of armed robberies and to courts; infant pupils would innocently divulge family secrets to her, such as "My daddy pays money to the horses... My daddy fell over the television set when he came home last night." At times like those, if you didn't laugh you might cry.
I was so relieved as a teenage wannabe intellectual to discover Chaucer through O-level English literature, television adaptations and the theatre.
His wonderful observations on human behaviour in The Canterbury Tales, written 600 years ago in colourful Middle English, seemed to legitimise what I found funny. My favourite, involving a ladder and an ill-advised kiss in the dark at a window, is The Miller's Tale.
I fantasise that had I been born 30 years earlier I might have been able to ply my trade as a scriptwriter for the Carry On films.
Making jokes about the state of the world can be a hazardous occupation. My memory of the various attempts at humour right after 9/11 is that they were, without exception, terribly misjudged, hopelessly mistimed, not funny, and often plain sick.
As a gentile boy growing up in east London, I had many Jewish friends and for me Jewish humour is among the best. I know there are very dark jokes about the Holocaust. Would I tell them? Apart from as illustrations of the depth of Jewish humour, no. Context and the teller are sometimes all.
And so I come to today's pocket cartoon by Matt for the Telegraph. I think he never fails to display his two core skills magnificently: a wonderful ability to draw distinctively, and an innate instinct for finding the hilarious in the news. You know it's a Matt without seeing the logo.
In 13 words this morning, he walks the tightrope of making a combined joke about terrorism and the Scottish independence referendum. In my opinion, it is in the best possible taste, a work of genius. And it is incredibly witty.
Enjoy more of Matt in his Telegraph archive.
I say oddly because I have a great love of bawdy humour, the double entendre and the inappropriate. Part of my inner world is governed by a 10-year-old's glee at the comic absurdity of bodily functions. Yes, I still find farting funny.
This appreciation of things not always de rigueur in the politest circles was established in my childhood. My detective father and teacher mother shared a love of reading and storytelling, but always with a eye for detail.
He often went to post-mortems, scenes of armed robberies and to courts; infant pupils would innocently divulge family secrets to her, such as "My daddy pays money to the horses... My daddy fell over the television set when he came home last night." At times like those, if you didn't laugh you might cry.
I was so relieved as a teenage wannabe intellectual to discover Chaucer through O-level English literature, television adaptations and the theatre.
His wonderful observations on human behaviour in The Canterbury Tales, written 600 years ago in colourful Middle English, seemed to legitimise what I found funny. My favourite, involving a ladder and an ill-advised kiss in the dark at a window, is The Miller's Tale.
I fantasise that had I been born 30 years earlier I might have been able to ply my trade as a scriptwriter for the Carry On films.
Making jokes about the state of the world can be a hazardous occupation. My memory of the various attempts at humour right after 9/11 is that they were, without exception, terribly misjudged, hopelessly mistimed, not funny, and often plain sick.
As a gentile boy growing up in east London, I had many Jewish friends and for me Jewish humour is among the best. I know there are very dark jokes about the Holocaust. Would I tell them? Apart from as illustrations of the depth of Jewish humour, no. Context and the teller are sometimes all.
And so I come to today's pocket cartoon by Matt for the Telegraph. I think he never fails to display his two core skills magnificently: a wonderful ability to draw distinctively, and an innate instinct for finding the hilarious in the news. You know it's a Matt without seeing the logo.
In 13 words this morning, he walks the tightrope of making a combined joke about terrorism and the Scottish independence referendum. In my opinion, it is in the best possible taste, a work of genius. And it is incredibly witty.
Enjoy more of Matt in his Telegraph archive.
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