Occasionally, when I was a child  in school we were asked what we would like to be. We could list up to 3 choices. I always put 2.

My first choice was: a lady. My father had a book about the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II, full of photographs of the royal family, the ladies in waiting, the ceremony etc. I pictured myself in a fabulous gown, dripping with jewels and wearing a gorgeous tiara. I knew how I could make it happen: all I had to do was marry Prince Charles. I figured he’d be a fool not to have me. (Thankfully I grew out of that one.)

My second choice was: a comedienne. My heroes were the Three Stooges, Abbott and Costello (the Americans, not the politicians!), Benny Hill, Red Skelton, Danny Kaye, Norman Wisdom, Charlie Brown and the girls from St Trinians. (It was in the early days of television and most of the shows were imports from the USA and the UK.)

My enjoyment and admiration of comics has never faded. I love watching good Stand Up comedy. Those people are so brave. They say: Here’s my heart. Here’s my view of the world. Here are all my strange quirks, weird obsessions and odd body shape. Have at it world.

Sometimes they’re not that good and I cringe on their behalf. Sometimes they resort to blue jokes, smut and obscenities and I’m both disgusted and sad for them. I always think that when they resort to that stuff it’s because their skills of observation and imagination have deserted them.

I don’t cope with Joan Rivers. She bases her humour on ridiculing and attacking other people. What is sad is that she doesn’t seem to realise it’s a form of bullying that reveals the dark, insecure side of her nature. But, as a lovely counterbalance, there’s Adam Hills: warm, friendly and able to laugh at himself.

Good comics are like good books, they open up the world to us. The good ones put the spotlight on the unfair, the anomalies and the ridiculous. We laugh and laugh and laugh, and go home feeling good (all those happy little endorphins) and enlightened at the same time.

We need the people who make us laugh. They help to keep us sane. Without the release of tension, the different perspective they bring to situations, and the sheer joy they bless us with, I think this world would be a far more violent, angry, dark place.

Thank you to all the people who make me laugh, who bring me moments of joy and who remind me not to take myself so seriously.

“A merry heart doeth good like a medicine.” King Solomon the wise.