My own generation, repeating catchphrases from The Goon Show or lines from Beyond the Fringe; pleased to be at the Albert Hall, thinking ourselves funny, learning to show off – and none of us knowing who did what to whom at the battle of Rorke's Drift.
It seemed especially funny to learn from the Times that you don't even need to be present to get married there, but it fit in with what I knew.
So it's funny to learn, as we do in Ms. Bag's first solo museum presentation, that her mother was the star of two popular children's programs in the 1960s and '70s.
For those who now know her as a culinary authority, it's funny to learn that before leaving India she failed the cooking exam at school, where her formal kitchen education had concentrated on what she calls "British invalid foods from circa 1930".
Generally sarcastic people are trying to be funny... learn to deal with it... by confronting them one on one.
And they are funny, really, really funny; having learned the hard way, how helpful humor can be for releasing tension and turning a crazy situation on it's head to make it somehow....well....less crazy.
Rivers also gave advice to aspiring comedians saying, "Comedy is learning to be funny, and you learn to be funny in small rooms with young audiences".
"He was becoming more funny, and learning how to relate to people.
White, on the page, is sensitive, funny, highly learned, with a demanding moral compass and a spectacular mind.
There was something wryly funny in learning that the circle itself changes position, like a chair pulled out from under you just when you're about to sit down.
Quick, shrewd, funny, responsive, learned, sceptical, appreciative, mature – but not so mature that you worry they won't survive the hour – generous with their applause and eager to buy multiple copies of your novel afterwards.
