Peter Rhodes on being a gammon, Artificial Stupidity and why Britain is becoming a joke-free zone

I have been denounced as "gammon" by a reader. This insult refers to the flushed pink face of a middle-aged white man whose views you disagree with. Gammon - a racist term used by people who don't think they're racists.

A READER raises a pertinent question. Why can the vet see, and cure, his dog's illness in a matter of hours but when the human owner falls ill, he can't see an NHS specialist until mid-August? The answer is probably that every time you see the vet, he charges you. If we all paid fifty quid to see our doctor, the NHS's problems would vanish overnight. Any support for that? Thought not.

I WROTE a few days ago about AI - Artificial Intelligence. Those of us operating ancient computers sometimes experience AS - Artificial Stupidity. My old PC has just told me it can no longer load up in the usual manner, and would I like to try facial recognition? It doesn't even have a camera. I can only assume it has been talking to the big boys out there in cyberspace and is trying to sound important. So I switched it off and then switched it back on again. This always scares computers into behaving themselves. AA - Artificial Armtwisting.

DID you hear Treasury minister Liz Truss taking a pot at Michael Gove's clean-air plan by making a joke about "wood-burning Goves, I mean stoves"? Pitiful, wasn't it? No timing, no punchline, no delivery. Britain is not only becoming a less musical nation (I blame the demise of churchgoing), but is losing the ability to tell a joke.

THERE is a discipline, a precision about a good joke. For a start, getting the words exactly right is essential. A reader recently referred to a joke about the failing Athens economy: "How much does a Greek urn? About two bob a week." That's not a joke. As any Eric & Ernie fan knows, the question has to be: "What's a Greek urn?" Then there was the Daily Telegraph correspondent on the upskirting issue who referred to an old gag about Scotsmen which she recounted as: "Do you wear anything under the kilt?" Wrong again. The joke works only if the questioner asks: "Is anything worn under the kilt?" because it leads to the ancient and much-loved response: "No, it's all in perfect working order."

THERE must be a PhD thesis waiting to be written on the decline of joke-telling in Britain. I suspect it has something to do with the demise of working-class stand-up acts and the growth of observational humour by posh kids. Out went the mother-in-law jokes, in came Michael McIntyre pretending to be the paprika in the spice cupboard, "praying for goulash day." Very clever and very funny. But not exactly a joke.

FOR further study, "The man who invented knock-knock jokes deserves the Pulitzer Prize" is not a joke. "The man who invented knock-knock jokes deserves the Nobel Prize" is.