It is important, in the light of what Buddha says about humour, (not telling jokes), that one always separates Humour and Reality.

In an example of a joke that I give on the page on humour I tell of a joke with a punch line including the word “Slags”. Part of the reason I found it difficult not to be amused by that story was that the couple who told were so lovely and caring. I am oje of those guys who loves women so much that I find words like ‘slags’ difficult to think of let alone say.

Some of what has happened since the events of 1977 have conspired to grind me down but I still do not like using such terms about women.

However in a similar instance to that described in the joke, I was at a comedy club when the compere asked the audience during the interval to think of “Prequels” to films as part of a competition. The idea is that many films have “Sequels” like “The Terminator” but not many have “Prequels”. the winner one night was a young woman. I was shocked she had won because I had already labelled the joke as in bad taste so assumed it was from a misogynist man. However I relaxed and it did make me laugh when I realised it was a woman and it reminds me now of some of the humour in the book I mention on the page “Humour”, the Penguin Book of Women’s Humour”.

I was later to relate this incident to a girl I met in a wine bar as we were talking about how wonderful those evenings at the club had been before it closed. Suddenly she said, “Oh that was me”. Again, like the previous jokers, it was clear she was a wonderful caring and intelligent lady of the middle classes.

Her prequel was a prequel to “Spice Girls the movie”. Now I know this will appall my old school friends but I quite like easy going pop songs, so I quite like some of the songs of the Spice Girls. The prequel she came up with was “Five talentless slags” As I like the Spice Girls music, women in general and have even written a letter published in the British national newspaper The Guardian, defending Gerry Halliwell in 1998 I think this illustrates why it is important to separate Reality from Humour.

One should try to avoid adopting what one finds funny as an attitude to life. This is how to include humour in a Buddho-Darwinist life