“British humour is British.”

~ Captain Obvious on British Humour

The British have made humour an essential part of their day to day life. Most of them are therefore practised in the art of irony, sarcasm, puns, understatements and self-mockery.

Whilst reflecting on all I have researched and written, the following thoughts struck me:

Much of the day-to-day British humour has been created as a way of getting through the day, a way of making life's large or small hardships more easy to endure. Why cry when you could be having a laugh instead? It is in fact an excellent survival strategy which has served them well over the years and I am sure that this is why the British have cultivated it so lovingly. 

Being too serious, too pompous or too self-absorbed could be seen as a serious crime by many Englishmen who would throw humour into the battle to keep all those 'nasty attitudes' at bay. Despite all of this, it also needs to be said that you could argue that the British are very serious, pompous and dare I say, self-absorbed about their sense of humour. It seems their humour falls down at this hurdle. British humour is no joke! Perhaps I should have used this as the title for this project as there is a sense of irony in the statement.

Whilst writing this project, I've discovered another thing. A lot of typical British humour is in fact hard to put down on paper. Without the intonation, facial expressions (such as a slight raising of the eyebrows or a tilting of the head) and timing of the words, the joke is often lost. This is also why it is so hard to learn as a foreigner if you haven't lived and experienced the culture. As this kind of humour is hard to translate to the page, I hope that this paper has nevertheless been able to make you smile once or twice.

Allow me to give you the opportunity to smile one more time with a classic bit of humour, (and this project wouldn't be complete without it!) Monty Python's Life of Brian song ‘..Always look on the bright side of life.....Tada, tadatadatada...’

You’ve got to keep a sense of humour about it after all!