Thursday 22 October 2009

I'll come clean: I don't have a sense of humour, or so spoof sci-fi 'buffs' would have you believe.

I'm obviously in something of a chatty mood tonight, so after a little drama — Lifeline SouthWest rang to say my stepmother had fallen over, was not hurt, had to get up again, so could I go round, which I did — I've decided to inform those non-Brits among the two of you of a spectacularly unfunny sci-fi radio series and its spectacularly unfunny follow-up series. You might, of course, hear about it from others for whom 1) the original series was spectacularly funny, and 2) the follow-up is an equally smash-hit ribtickler. I am, of course, talking about The Hitchiker's Guide To The Galaxy. Its fans regard those such as me as philistine who have had a sense of humour bypass. We regard them as nerdy, geeky fuckwits who in the pecking order of those to be kicked regularly come just before trainspotters and C&W 'buffs' from the West Midlands. Actually, make that all buffs. If any group of people deserves perpetual scorn and a dose of swine flu, it is 'buffs' whether their thing is films, the blues, C&W, photography, cars or stamps. Incidentally, it's strange how you cannot be a 'buff' of some things: no one could be a fishing 'buff', for example.
Back to THGTTG, I must admit that it leaves me absolutely and utterly cold. Where's the joke. I posted a message along those lines on the Radio 4 website and was told that I lacked a sense of humour. Perhaps I do, but if thinking the crock of shit is funny gains you you Humour Badge, then count me out.
Actually, it occurs to me that slagging of buffs of every stripe might be worth an entry in itself. Oh, what the hell, life's too short.

2 comments:

  1. Come back Auberon Waugh - all is forgiven [cont p94]

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  2. A PUFF FROM A BUFF or A WORD FROM A NERD
    I'm improbably driven to assert that Douglas Adams was a truly original comic genius. After 30 years, even 'Red Dwarf' ia a pale imitation, derivitive and just slighly sordid. Time after time, I found myself actually spilling my tea with laughter at the sheer irrational inventiveness of the scripts and the plausability of an impossible future. Who else would have suggested that an ATM card would still be expected to work in centuries to come. I'm off to have my anorak reproofed.

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