The English, Milan Kundera once said, are the funniest people in the world. The Czech novelist, an ironist of gold-medal rank, said everybody knew the English are the funniest people, as though the matter had been settled by some international decree. It’s a great honour, and — let’s get out that trumpet — fully earned. Whether we are being playful, pompous, smutty or plain batty, the English (not in this instance the Scots or the Welsh) have tickled outsiders for centuries, even when they are baffled. Or, as Albert Modley, now largely forgotten, used to ask: “In’t it grand when you’re daft?”Across the globe people know about English bawdy

Source: The Times September 04, 2020 16:12 UTC