GSOH

People tell me I have a good sense of humour. I know I often use humour as both a weapon and a shield. A shield because I tend to laugh at myself first rather than have others laugh first - a hangover from being bullied in childhood probably. And as a weapon? I find confrontation hard so will often use a humourous jibe to try and 'gently' get my point across. When teaching adults, I was often surprised when they completed those dreadful 'end of year' forms that assessed the quality of my teaching and how much they had learnt over the year how often there would be comments on how much my sense of humour had enlivened and enhanced the 'teaching experience'.

But somethings go too deep to even joke about. I still can't talk, let alone laugh, about having to give up the job I really enjoyed suddenly due to health reasons. It will come [like now I am going say I don't miss those awful bureaucratic end of year forms referred to above!] but I am still 'raw' after two years.

However one often has to laugh about items in the news, sometimes if only in an ironical way, as in this news about the new iBook feature on the iPhone:

the-sauce.org: iMarx iManifesto: Apple dishes out millions of free copies of the Communist Manifesto

or sardonically as in the announcement that David Cameron will be campaigning about AV voting:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/david-cameron/7867977/David-Cameron-to-campaign-against-AV-in-voting-reform-referendum.html

or triumphantly at the news that there may once have been female gladiators in Roman Britain:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1291446/Archaelogists-muscular-body-female-gladiator-Britain.html

Sorry to end on a sad note, but I cannot finish without remarking on the sad passing of the writer, Dame Beryl Bainbridge [an image of one of her bookcovers is above] She was a bit of a female gladiator imo. Sleep gently.