You miss so much fun if you can’t laugh at yourself!

Double Vision with Charlie Adley

Everyone acknowledges that a good sense of humour (GSOH) is an essential ingredient in a partner, but there’s more to it than that. Any fool can laugh at others, yet nothing compares with the ability to laugh at yourselves.

Self-deprecating jokes serve both to illustrate the way we live our lives as well as allowing us to preserve and protect much-loved cultural traits from discrimination.

Maybe I’m a little biased, but I love Jewish humour.

How many Jewish grandmothers does it take to change a lightbulb?

“Don’t worry about me. I’ll just sit in the dark and die.”

Cruel yes, but like all strong humour, truth runs through it. Last weekend I had one of the best laughs I’ve had for months, entirely at my own expense. Had there been nobody else in the house I’d still have laughed out loud, repeatedly, interspersing my chuckles with mumbles about how I do not bloody believe myself sometimes … what an idiot I can be … that kind of malarkey.

A friend who’s leaving Galway to move back to the States was visiting and I planned to celebrate the occasion with a nice bit of roast rib of beef on the bone, Yorkshire pudding, the works.

Leaving home to pick up our guest deliberately early, I enjoyed a couple of sunny Saturday afternoon hours sitting on Quay Street, watching the Galway Shuffle. What a great place Galway is. I’ve invested very little into the place for years, yet so many faces and friends stopped to chat, a glow appeared inside my soul.

Unfortunately the heat of my love for my fellow humans is always the vanguard of a desire to experience that other glow, the one which arises from the consumption of whiskey. Alas no, I couldn’t. I was driving. While all around me swigged bottles of cider, pints of cold lager and shots of whiskey, I sat nursing my mug of tea.

By the time we returned to my gaff, it’s fair to say the summer heat and city dust had combined to create a thirst. I had to open a bottle of red for the gravy, so I thought I’d open the Bordeaux to let it breathe, and then, while I was at it, why not open that lovely Californian red too?

‘I mean, come on!’ I thought to myself, ‘It’s four in the afternoon and there’s a long night ahead.’

While our friend and the Snapper caught up with all their news in the living room, I peeled spuds and drank a little California red, sealed the meat and slurped, chopped the veg and swallowed a drop more.

As my soundtrack to the cooking, I had the commentary of the big match on the radio. Outside the kitchen window Shaggy the donkey was living up to his name, his member trailing the ground, while Brownie, his supposed mate, remained steadfastly indifferent.

To read Charlie’s full column,  please see this week’s Galway City Tribune.