I once told the story of how I once dived off the end of a long pier into murky water that turned out to be two feet deep. Saltwater, bad cuts and scrapes, lucky I didn't break my neck.

But it was a merely true story that went nowhere, the conversation died. We were getting food together, got it served to our friends, and to rescue the mood I tried this. "But ever since then my Dad says I'm not the same. He says sometimes I'll be telling a story, and it seems to be over, then five minutes later I start into it again like I never stopped. But, I don't do that".

You have to trust me that it was very funny. I'm not funny, but have a very deadpan voice, a little like Garfield the cat I'm told, which allows any little joke I do to sneak up on people. I'm frustrated by e-communication because my humour doesn't work.

Once I had a car stolen, a beat up old box on wheels, and so there was a police report, I heard my dad in the next room asking What did the police say. I called in, "they said, They couldn't have gone far".

   The last thing my Dad ever said was a joke, to the nurse, but it was a silly joke in itself, and not only did you have to be there, you had to actually be one of the people who actually was there.

   But I'll try to render how stomach-achingly funny my wife and kids can be. The point here is that they are so like themselves, being so much the way they are. One night I've gone up to bed because I have to get up very early, and my 8 yrold girl Etta comes up to report there's trouble. To begin with, it's funny that she comes up, breathless, to report the crisis to me. Jim (my 6yrold) said to my wife that his birthday was "soon" right? and my wife said, "well, not really" and so now Jim's mad and there's a big fuss going on.

That's it. I laughed so hard, it eventually hurt like I was being beaten.

   Someone's story above about her family, her ex, has stuck in my head for days as the kind of forthright talk I've always admired in people, and the jokes seemed funnier too, because of it. I wish I was like that. But I'm not. Anyway, thought I'd try to convey how my family is funny, after hers.