Hoo hoo boo hoo

Some wiseacre – Woody Allen, Oscar Wilde or one of those lads – came up with an interesting formula for defining funny: Comedy = Tragedy + Time. What they neglected to mention in this snappy sound bite, however, was exactly how much time has to elapse before laughing in the face of tragedy becomes acceptable. A few minutes? An hour? A day? A week? A month? A year? When is it safe to laugh without incurring the steely wrath of the moral majority?

I can’t speak for anyone else, but I first began biting my lip when it occurred to me that if any grandchildren I might have in the future ever sit on my knee and enquire as to where Gramps was when he heard that the twin towers of the World Trade Centre were blown up by loony terrorists, I’ll have to tell a lie or else confess that I was sitting in bed watching Neighbours.

Then I’ll bashfully watch their angelic little faces screw up in concentration as they do the math: “But that was in 2001 Granddad, you were 28 years old. Exactly what sort of gormless moron were you?” With any luck, they might just assume I was some sort of pervy peeping tom and wonder why a handsome stud like Granddad had to resort to spying on the girls next door.

My whereabouts when I heard of Lady Di’s death weren’t quite as embarrassing. As I recall, I’d been banished to my then girlfriend’s sofa as a result of some minor boyfriendly indiscretion or other. Unable to sleep, I flicked on the television and within seconds I had bounded into her bedroom: “Wake up! Wake up! Lady Di’s been killed in a car crash,” I

panted excitedly, tugging at her duvet

like Lassie trying to tell the sheriff a child’s

fallen down a well. “Nice try Barry,” was the sleepy response. “Now fuck off back to the sofa.”

Only the most cold-hearted fiend could fail to have been traumatised in some way by the death of so many innocent people in such appalling circumstances, but while the atrocities in New York, Washington and Pittsburgh themselves weren’t exactly side-splitting, many of the events surrounding them were. Funny ha-ha and peculiar.

For a kick-off, I couldn’t help chuckling when Yassar Arafat appeared on the television, his lower lip all a quiver as he attempted to make sense of the madness he was watching unfold. As he composed himself and began to speak, a mobile phone in the background started playing a very loud, very shrill samba. As Arafat continued, his musical accompaniment played on. And on. And on. And on. A fucking samba for Christ’s sake.

Then the first tower crumbled. An excited journalist or eyewitness on the line to the CNN news desk told the anchor that “the whole building” had collapsed.

“What, you mean the whole side of the building has collapsed?” enquired the incredulous front man.

“No, the whole building has collapsed,” repeated his witness.

“The whole building has collapsed,” parroted the anchor, with the weary cynicism of a man who had decided the person he was speaking to was a complete imbecile.

Most amusing of all was the appearance at my front door later in the afternoon of a friend who was supposed to be at work in the city.

“What are you doing here?” I enquired.

“Our offices were evacuated,” he announced with what can only be described as barely disguised jubilation. “One man’s terrorist atrocity is another man’s afternoon off work. Here, I’ve brought some beer and popcorn, let’s watch the news.”

He’s going to hell.

Then again, maybe not. Everyone has their own way of coping, whatever the scale of a tragedy. Whether it’s the passing of a close friend or the brutal slaying of thousands of people you don’t know, it’s different strokes for different folks. Personally, I’ve always found that laughing in the face of such sheer bloody awfulness is an infinitely better tonic when you consider the alternative is becoming involved in one of those obscene “who can grieve the most” competitions that invariably come hand-in-hand with bad news: “I’m more upset than you are, London is more upset than Dublin is, England is more upset than France is…”

I have no idea how events in America were covered at home, but in Blighty the commentary was nothing if not predictable: initial shock and horror quickly followed by calmer rationalisation and then the inevitable grotesque tabloid focus on people “saving themselves” by jumping from windows and reports of firemen finding mangled bodies and severed limbs.

Needless to say, the question on the lips of every British broadcaster with a hotline to the States was: “Does America know how upset we all are in Britain?” One imagines that as Uncle Sam went about the business of searching through the smoking rubble for survivors, he didn’t give a flying fuck how anyone in Britain felt.

Then there was the weeping, wailing, gnashing of teeth and laying of flowers and wreaths outside American embassies everywhere – always the most meaningless and empty of gestures. Whether it’s for an individual like Veronica Guerin or an anonymous mass of folk like those who perished in America, laying flowers in memory of someone you don’t know is self-indulgence of the highest order; an emotional wank, as it were.

We’ve all made jokes or got fits of the giggles at funerals when we know we shouldn’t, but when the alternative is a well meant gesture or platitude that is ultimately bland, empty and bogus, you begin to wonder if maybe laughter is indeed the best medicine.

I know for a fact it was Mel Brooks who said: “Tragedy is if I cut my finger. Comedy is if you walk into an open sewer and die.” He was probably exaggerating, but you can see where he was coming from.