In the Northern hemisphere we are almost at the end of the dark and gloomy season. All that remains to scare us is one last waggle of General Winter's willie bringing totally unexpected snow and ice, to Wales of all places, and the rapidly descending Chinese space satellite which may have fallen in the middle of Trafalgar Square, killing more pigeons than the mysterious man with a cardboard box, by the time that you read this column.
It is a time for peeping over the parapet. Spring and Summer are at last in view after the boredom and discomfort of January and February. One wakes and dresses in the light, in the garden the first greening of shrubs and preening of bulbs is quietly taking place. It is not so many weeks til that annual miracle of the brightest of bright greens sweeping across the countryside.
So why is there an air of disquiet abroad? In the aftermath of the England victories over the United Arab Emirates and Holland and our defeats by everyone else in the Cricket World Cup a serious commentator, Peter Roebuck, wrote in The Sunday Times, 'In part our cricket is in trouble because our country, with its rotten institutions is in trouble. No nation that smiles upon Sir David Frost, David Mellor, Clive Anderson, Danny Baker or Angus Deayton can consider itself in a happy state.'
What can he mean? Which rotten institutions? Does he mean Parliament and the Law and the Stock Exchange and Lloyds and the Army and the Rugby Football Union and the TCCB and maybe, heaven forefend, even the Church of England? Well, the copious coverage all these institutions attract, focussing on their troubles, lead one to believe that they are at least smelly if not completely rotten. What is certain is that respect for each and every one of them has vanished. The modern style of apportioning blame elsewhere to the extent that it miraculously disappears up its own fundamental orifice and the advanced stance of fence sitting that is adopted by all so called people of responsibility have combined to drive the quality of public life to its lowest level since the dark ages.
Our Leader, John Major, is a sponge absorbing the standpoint of every person he meets and giving some semblance of agreement with their views. Thus all find him pleasant and easy to communicate with but many are surprised when his ultimate stance is the opposite to the one they assumed he espoused.
That's enough of the generalities, what of the men mentioned by Mr Roebuck? Are they not amusing enough for his taste? Are they the unfunny five? Does he feel as a cricketer and a respected columnist that Ray Illingworth and Mike Atherton are funnier?
Certainly they are wits rather than comedians and their humour often depends on deriding other individuals. In that sense they are purveyors knocking copy causing amusement by distressing others, who are often unable to defend themselves. They are as one with Messrs Badiel, Skinner, Merton and Hislop who are masters of semi sanitised alternative comedy.
These guys rely on smart word play and poisoned darts to raise a laugh. Maybe in today's multi media world it is the only way to feed fresh material to the bulimic television audience.
But in the days when Lord Ted strode to the crease and Beefy bowled his heart out, those who made us laugh were gentler, kinder men. Only last Saturday, BBC 1, the top state TV channel, prime timed with Morecombe and Wise repeats from the 1970's. They have the effect of stimulating an unconscious reaction, like a dog scratching its side, that brings pleasure without stress or even understanding. How could two men, one smoking a pipe, be shown in bed together on early evening television without causing offence or even comment? Even more therapeutic was the legendary Tommy Cooper, the only comedian who reduced his audience to helpless laughter by his mere presence. From his 10 to 2 feet to the tassle of his fez, he expressed blind panic as he blundered through his banal repetoire of catastrophic conjuring tricks and hoary old gags.
The bathos with which he enacted his two handers, playing both parts by dividing himself vertically down the line of his nose, so that sailor Jack and his girlfriend Mary were played in profile, was transparent. Even more uplifting were the plays where several parts were played by changing hats to distinguish each character. Needless to say the the plot thickened as the hat changing became more and more frenetic and out of sequence.
Tommy Cooper was a performer who was able to translate thousands of hours of practice into unmitigated fun for thousands. Because of his uncanny ability to find the epicentre of human happiness his act bears unrestrained repetiton.
This magical type of humour is not dead it just needs a new person to revive it. Until this happens we will have to exist on a diet of negatives, fed to us by whey faced wordsmiths.