WHO am I to argue that we are living through unusually horrible, hate-filled times?
It certainly feels that way, though…
Especially as we come to terms with the revelations from court that a British Muslim – a convert from Hinduism – plotted a wave of terror bombs in the UK and America.
Dhiren Barot admitted planning to explode a “dirty bomb� in Britain, the country that has been his home since the early 1970s.
Make no mistake, these are tense, nasty times, nationally and internationally.

At home, we hear that more than 1,000 violent crimes, including five killings, had been committed by prisoners released early with electronic tags.
And every day all of us who live in urban areas (even small market towns) are spied on by CCTV cameras that are operated by council employees on behalf of a state that simply does not, cannot, trust its own people.
Most despicable of all are the cases of public abuse of soldiers in NHS hospitals while Our Boys are being treated for injuries sustained in combat in Iraq and Afghanistan.
We should treat our servicemen and women with respect when they return from tours of duty on the terror frontline. Shame on those too thick to realise why that should be so.
Now we must also endure the miserable experience of the head of the British Army, General Sir Richard Dannatt, calling for the UK to withdraw troops from Iraq “soon�.
Memo to the general: Your job is to make certain of victory not to sow seeds of doubt over this very important campaign.
And Dannatt should remember that when the going gets tough for the British Army, the proper and traditional response is to sharpen resolve and redouble efforts… not to run away.
Whenever things got tough and unpleasant in the recent past we British used to be admired for laughing in the face of adversity. But I wonder if that is still the case…
I suspect that these days we simply prefer to sneer in a very unpleasant way at those doing the dirty work of trying to make our complex world survive with love and justice intact.
I can do without, for instance, the nasty comments made by Irishman Dara O’Briain about my country on “Mock The Week� on BBC2 – a show that “stars� the usual rabble of smug-faced, intellectually lightweight whingers, such as Jeremy Hardy, Frankie Boyle and Hugh Dennis.
The show is supposed to be topical satire, all off-the-cuff and daring, but it seems very rehearsed and strained to me, with stand-up mediocrities shamelessly feeding each other lines. Pathetic.
A similar array of politically correct tosserati were assembled for “8 Out of 10 Cats� on C4, hosted by Jimmy Carr, who is even smugger than Dara O’Briain, and even harder to like.
Why is it that there are so few modern comedians that you can actually warm to, love even, these days?
The only one who is remotely likeable is Harry Hill. A further bonus is that Hill is funny, which most modern comics aren’t.
I perhaps should add here that Ricky Gervais is just about likeable, and certainly very funny. “Extras� is a triumph.
Of course, we all knew where we stood when the top comics were the likes of Tommy Cooper, Benny Hill, Dick Emery, Eric Morecambe and Frankie Howard. Each of those was easy to like. Flawed, but easy to like.
Not sneery and smug, like Carr and O’Briain, who have faces you could slap, and slap again, and carry on slapping.
All but one of the old school British comedians are dead now, replaced by the kind of slimy lightweights favoured by TV’s clueless metropolitan commissioning editors.
The only really good comic left from the recent past is Ken Dodd. He is, of course, brilliant, and still going strong at the age of 78.
I look forward to seeing his next performance at the Floral Pavilion, New Brighton … providing Wirral Council doesn’t rush in and demolish the venue and arrange for it to be replaced with yet another block of bug-hutch flats designed by a depressed Russian architect.
If Doddy does play New Brighton again I’ll remember to take a Thermos flask and sandwiches, because it is always a marathon session where he’s concerned.
He’s been known to shout at departing audience members in the early hours: “I know where you all live. I’ll follow you home and shout jokes through your letterbox.�
Ken Dodd is a comic genius. The modern stand-up comics are not fit to lace up his boots.
And the Knotty Ash mirth-master is no fan of theirs, as it turns out.
In a perceptive interview published by the Spectator recently he said: “ I can’t understand some of these sour-faced malcontents who sneer all the time, because that is not true comedy.
“Many of them have not lived long enough to realise that, while you have to have a degree of disbelief in life, you can’t go around decrying everything all the time: the Queen, the police, the law, what is called the Establishment, because life is better than that.
“I like to celebrate life. People may come into the theatre with the blues but I’ve got to send them away feeling happy.�
He’s absolutely right, of course.

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