FUNNY thing, humour – one of those clichés we’re told to avoid like the plague (!).

But aren’t the best ones worth repeating? Discuss.

Different things amuse us, but at the meeting of the Airedale Writers’ Circle this month our wallowing in comic verse and prose made us all chuckle.

It’s been said that you can be “as smutty as you like in limericks”, according toAlison Chisholm.

Airedale Writers Circle member Rita restored decorum with a limerick she had written:.

Her limerick read like this: “We tell of a famous relation/ Whose thirst to acquire information/ Showed knowledge of wine/ So exceedingly fine/ But it ruined his good reputation.”

Pat , another member of Airedale Writers Circle, followed with Lucky, or What?, one of her many entertaining poems in The Spice of Life, a 2006 collection of her poems.

The poem’s seven verses relate many a mishap despite possession of a four-leaf clover.

Here’s the last verse of the poem: “My little car’s a write-off – the insurance claim is pending/ I can’t recall what happened, but the charges I’m contending/ My leg is still in plaster, but the elbow fracture’s mending/ and I’ve got my four-leafed clover to ensure a happy ending!”

Pat then regaled us with comments made by policemen apprehending wayward motorists.

One of these comments was: “You don’t know how fast you were going? I guess that means I can write anything I want to on the ticket, huh?”. And best of all, “The answer to this last question will determine whether you are drunk or not. Was Mickey Mouse a cat or a dog?”.

It’s much harder sustaining amusing lines over many verses but Trevor Carter’s poems do just that.

I have seen him perform some of them in public, and by “perform” I mean a wide range of Spike Milliganesque gestures and dramatic changes of tone and pace.

His Joy of Sloth runs to 57 lines, starting with Of all the creatures that are known/ There’s one we mostly leave alone/ It barely moves or makes a sound/ And likes to hang out upside-down.

The Joy of Sloth ends with this verse: Yet in this world of frantic action/ Sloth philosophy could hold attraction/ As mankind storms towards the brink/ Perhaps we should slow down and think/ Take time out, hang upside-down/ And contemplate what makes us frown/ And maybe we’d be better off/ Rejecting haste, embracing sloth? This is a fine example of wise messages being embedded in amusing text.

The vexations of delays in receiving goods ordered on the internet featured in verses of his own recited by Julian, and Lisa read a few paragraphs from Joy in the Morning, one of PG Wodehouse’s many skillfully-crafted books.

Finally Sandra reminded us of the Monty Python sketch Whatever Have The Romans Ever Done For Us? in which John Cleese only reluctantly concedes “sanitation, medicine, wine, education, public order and peace.”

All are welcome at our next meeting on September 10 at 7.30pm in the Sight Airedale building, immediately behind Keighley Library, in Scott Street.