Today, in his series on comedy on Radio 4, Miles Kington looked to the past to see what we were laughing at in the days of yore. Far, far back into the depths of time… to those good humoured Danes in comedy helmets, even back before Bob Monkhouse. He found a 700 year old joke. It goes,

Man goes to a doctor. Doctor says ‘That cup is killing you.’ ‘Ok,’ says the patient, ‘If I’d known that years ago I’d have used the saucer.’ Bum Bum! I’m sure I heard Bob Monkhouse telling that one.

He went on to talk about political correctness. One time comedian Mark Lamar reflected upon how restricting it was in the 1980s, and how he was heckled on stage by a black man but felt restrained from giving it back by his very ‘right-on’ audience. Eventually, when he succumbed and he made a jibe back, the black man turned to his girlfriend to ask ‘Is he talking to me?’ Lamar began to say, ‘Of course I’m talking to you, are you bli..! But of course, he was blind.

Lamar says that political correctness doesn’t exist like that any longer. It’s political correctness gone sane, I tell you, political correctness gone sane!