I wasn’t sure what to write for my Substack today. Instead of a fresh topic, I got sidetracked planning for an upcoming Toastmasters’ contest. Which is funny, because I’d been thinking about whether I wanted to stay in Toastmasters at all.
The honest answer is that it’s become an important social group for me. I enjoy it, I’m good at it, and it’s a place where I can relax and be the funny version of myself. It’s a key outlet for the humorous side of my personality.
The Intoxication of Laughter
The category I’ve won the most in Toastmasters? That would be humour. There’s no feeling quite like a room full of people erupting in laughter because of a humorous story or a joke you’ve told. I still remember one speech that had the entire room in an uproar. It was so intoxicating.
In that winning speech, I used two real-life incidents. One had actually happened to me, and I twisted it to happen during a wedding I was officiating—turning a private embarrassment into a very public one in the story. I ended the speech with a hilarious story I’d heard from a priest, which I also adapted to happen at a wedding. The speech was well-crafted, well-rehearsed, and well delivered on the night.
Winning the contest was great, and I was thrilled, but what I remember most isn’t the trophy. It’s the sound of that laughter. It’s what I crave more of.
Michael McIntyre
This reminds me of Michael McIntyre. I’m a big fan of his observational humour. He takes ordinary, everyday things and turns them into brilliant comedy. He makes it look simple, but it’s far from it. It’s highly-crafted and clever, built on thousands of hours of experience. He’s a master of words and wordplay—like his bit about a husband usually wanting "hanky-panky" but if his partner isn’t in the mood he’s just got the "hanky." He’s also brilliant with his physicality—his floppy hair, his expressions, his movements, and his voice. His style is conversational, building a story with incidental laughs along the way until it crescendos to a big climax.
It’s the kind of humour that’s both relatable and incredibly impressive to watch. And it’s something I’d love to try my hand at on the page.
A Happy Demon
This usually weekly substack is a bit like my journal—I write about whatever I’m thinking at the time. It might be Trump or Putin, Gaza or Ukraine, or personal things that are going on in my life. Should I try a bit of humour? Humour is very hard to write. It so easily misses the mark. In a room, you know if it’s working because people are laughing—or aren’t. But on the page, you don’t get that feedback.
I remember reading At Swim-Two-Birds by Flann O’Brien back when I was a seminarian, about three centuries ago. I read it in bed at night. We had paper-thin walls separating each tiny bedroom with its uncomfortable, short, single bed, desk, and sink from the neighbours on each side.
I had taken Flann to bed and the seminarians either side of me heard me guffawing aloud. I guess they wondered what we were up to. Maybe they prayed for my soul-in-jeopardy, as Mr. O’Brien tickled me, erupting in such unruly, uncontainable laughter.
Thing is, when I settled in with Flann, at first I didn’t find him funny. He was just there, sharing the crumpled mattress. His humour wasn’t doing it for me. And then, it was like getting on his wavelength; I suddenly got him. Grasped him, as it were, and I heaved with laughter, tears streaming down my face.
‘What are they getting up to in there?’ my pious next-door neighbour later confided, as he rattled off rosaries for my imperilled vocation. ‘And whoever is he with? And how many of them are there?’ For neither one nor two mortal souls could make the racket I was making, he reckoned, as I guffawed like I was possessed by a happy demon.
I was. Thank you, Flann. You tickled me in all the right places.
Happy days,
Joe
Joe Armstrong’s acclaimed first memoir In My Gut, I Don’t Believe is available on Amazon in Kindle, Paperback, Hardback and Audible editions. His second memoir Saved by a Woman is available on Amazon in Kindle, Paperback, and Hardback editions.
