TWITTERING ON

BY ANGELA KELLY

LOCKDOWN HUMOUR – TRADEMARK OF STOIC BRITS

IT may be a particularly British trait but when it comes to ongoing disaster and major concern we tend to turn to humour.

I’m sure it was the same in wartime and in other countries. When something enduringly scary threatens, we discover the funny side of it and use it as a form of defence against the awfulness.

That has certainly been true of the pandemic. While it’s too difficult and too raw to actually laugh at Covid-19 itself, we have been turning instead to the sideeffects and restriction of lockdown to cheer ourselves up.

In fact, I think we are at our most inventive here.

Humour surfaced early in the first lockdown and mainly online. One of the first things that made me laugh – a surprise, really, given the seriousness and overwhelming worry of the threat then – was a short video of a good-looking shirtless man in a hat dancing. The before lockdown and after lockdown footage showed the tight torso changing to a wobbly belly. We laughed at the change, soon learning the irony as many of us munched our way through the months ahead. We’ve laughed at the possible results of lockdown. One of my favourite Facebook postings was: “Do you ever get up in the morning, look in the mirror and think ‘that can’t be accurate!’”

We’ve become happy to laugh at ourselves. We smiled at jokes about over-zealous hand-washing, mask-wearing and taking precautions.

“Pretty wild how we used to eat cake after someone had blown on it. Good times ….” went one popular post. And so many were crazily accurate. “Set in retrospect, in 2015, not a single person got the answer right to ‘Where do you see yourself five years from now?’” We even found our own occasional desperation worth a smile. “Where is far far away and how do I get there?” was a post offering a bitter tinge. Then there was: “I’m looking for a moisturiser that hides the fact that I’ve been tired since 2010” which hit home.

Then there were the clever ones: “I told my suitcases that there will be no vacation this year. Now I’m dealing with emotional baggage.” Add those to the many cartoons, videos, memes and observational humour and you discover a funny underside to what is plainly an international disaster that could scarcely have been predicted.

Personally, I feel it says something fine and stoic about our individual make-up that allows us to react to very dark times by sometimes laughing out loud. Little has been innately funny about this global pandemic and its terrible effects on people. But, our ability to find the humour in it, to share that with others and to laugh together has proved to be a brilliant way

FANCY A PAIR OF OUR BET’S BEST EARRINGS?

WHEN actress Julie Goodyear became an unusual sort of national icon as Coronation Street’s brassy landlady Bet Lynch her wardrobe was not the envy of women everywhere. The too-short skirts, too-tight tops, heavy make-up and upfront behaviour behind the bar of the Rovers Return brought out the prude in most of us.

Tutting at Bet became a national habit – when we weren’t laughing at her antics and lines, that is.

Fast forward from 1966 to 2003 when she was in The Street to last year and Julie Goodyear MBE impressing the nation in a different way. The Manchester actress donated a large amount of Bet’s jewellery and her own to help local hospice Willow Wood.

“When I heard that they had been forced to cancel almost all of their fundraising events in this their 21st year, I wanted to do something to help,” compassionate Julie explained. The jewellery was sold in an online auction as part of Coronation Street’s 60th birthday in December, resulting no doubt on a major donation for Willow Wood and some delighted purchasers. Who today, though, would really wear Bet’s finest horrors? Well, me for one. Bring on those earrings like a birdcage – they’re great!

WORKING OUT THE TRUTH FROM FICTION

THE danger with TV is that sometimes we struggle to differentiate between fact and fiction.

Like many millions, I’ve loved watching blockbuster series The Crown on Netflix. The writing, acting and production are first-class. Now, though, many of those around the royal household are calling for its fictional nature of the programme to be stressed before every episode.

The reason is simply that too many people see how Prince Charles and Camilla in particular are depicted in a rather unflattering light here, believe every word and then take to their keyboard to troll them mercilessly. Their ire focusses on the way that Princess Diana was allegedly treated by them both throughout her married life. The Crown Whatever the truth of the matter, the singular approach of The Crown in vilifying the pair has led to a plummet in their popularity and possibly even a threat to the line of succession. There have been other stretches of the truth in the name of entertainment in this riveting series and strong defences of criticism by its makers.

But it’s obvious that their main argument is always “let the people decide” and that means we are too quick to decide against on the often questionable evidence presented.

Don’t get me wrong. I felt so sorry for Princess Diana in an unhappy married and cried buckets with everyone else when she died.

However, no situation is ever as simple as it’s painted. For The Crown to create a remorselessly black picture of individuals without offering any other point of view is at the least unfair and the worst dangerous. TV influences millions so simply. It can be used to educate, entertain and inform but it has an over-arching duty to be fair and it doesn’t look like that at the moment.