Have we lost the ability to laugh at ourselves?

 On Wednesday night, I went up to the Etihad Stadium in Manchester, to watch City play Aston Villa. For those of you not particularly familiar with the rituals of football supporters, one of the biggest joys is singing songs to wind up your rivals. For decades, Aston Villa fans have sung "Champions of Europe, you'll never sing that", to wind up the City fans about the relative lack of success in Europe's premiere competition. Villa won it in the 1980's. Last season, Manchester City won the trophy. Wednesday's game was the first game at the Etihad since. About half way through, the City fans started chanting the song. It was a rather sarcastic and ironic riposte to the years of wind ups from Villa. If you were there, you probably sniggered. However, the Telly pundits completely missed the joke and social media was alight with how 'ignorant the City fans are'. 

It made me think about how humour in the UK has changed over my lifetime. In  the 1960's, you laughed at anything. Tragdey, misfortune, race, religion, your mother in law, your mate's spots and freckles, etc. Most of all, you had to laugh at yourself. When I was at FCHS, one bloke in our class was teased merciless for five years, because he burst into tears on the first day. Another was teased for having a German name. One of my best mates, got mercilessly teased by the teachers for his eczma, being taunted as 'Baconface' by one. To our credit, we didn't join in. Eventually my pal had enough and retorted by responding with "Toadface". The teacher, taken back, responded with "You can't call me that bacon face". To which, he got the riposte "Why not, you call Baconface, Toadface". We all roared laughing and like most bullies, Toadface backed off.  If you didn't laugh along,  you'd go mad. Don't get me wrong, much of the humour was harsh, cruel and pitiless and if you were the continual butt of jokes it would have been horrible, but somehow we did manage to laugh.

I think that everyone in our class at FCHS had a fairly disparaging nickname. hedgehog, snail, Nelly The Elephant were just a few of the lesser ones that I could put in a blog without reprimand. Mine? I was known as Tramp, mostly because of my unique clothing style, mostly based on the fact that my mum didn't believe in buying new clothes for children. "If it's been good enough for the six fanning boys, it's good enough for you". Until I was about 14, it bothered me. Then punk came along, and it worked to my advantage. I had a nickname that was pretty punk already. I also had a paper round and could buy my own clothes. A pair of pink flourescent socks fell foul of the powers that be at FCHS. The Headmaster told my mum it was a sign that I had homosexual tendencies, which was seen as the worst thing possible at the school at the time. Mum replied that Elvis wore pink socks and he definitely wasn't gay, which the headmaster had no answer for. By then, I'd stopped caring what the Headmaster thought. When Mum told me, I laughed. I told her that if my mode of dress was upsetting him, I was happy.

When we started a band, we all took it very seriously. Any criticism was seen as not funny at all. Our first review was in a fanzine called Xpert-I. It said "The only thing more immature than their music was their sense of humour". The rest of the band were livid, but I laughed and made a badge with the logo on. When Pete Conway left the band, I made a badge saying "Pete Conway never could sing". I bumped into him at a Fall gig six months later. He saw the badge and asked if he could have it. It became a prized part of his attire. He even wore it for a newspaper interview when he launched his solo career!

Being in a band in the early 1980's required a thick skin. When Allen Ashley joined the band, our first gig as a full band was at The Cricklewood Hotel. A yobbo in the audience kept directing aggressive comments in his direction. Allen was getting upset. The idiot, who was standing with his girlfriend, then turned his ire on me. He announced "You are a right ugly bastard". I grabbed the mic and replied "That's not what your girlfriend said when she was giving me a nosh before we came on". After that, he shut up. At the end, he came up and said "That was a bit harsh". I replied "If you can't take it, don't dish it out". He ended up being my best mate and buying me a pint. Allen told me later that he had been cross I'd been so rude to him, but realised it was the way to deal with hecklers. 

When you go to see comedy and you heckle, you should expect to be firmly dealt with and not get upset. I do sometimes wonder if we are losing the ability to laugh at ourselves.  There is little comedy that is actually funny, as no one wants to offend anyone. I suspect that this actually not good for us. 

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Anyway, if you want a good night out, why not come along to The Bull Theatre in Barnet on the 13th. The False Dots will be playing with The Silencerz, which is always a great night,if you like a bit of Ska and Reggae.