There seems to be a failure of humour in your publication of late. I say this as an assiduous reader who keeps a scrapbook of the best of the newspaper. At the start of this epic work, I had a whole clutch of clippings to include. The whale that exploded in a Korean street (31 January 2004), the missing manhole covers that were causing chaos in China and elsewhere (25 October 2004). The late Simon Hoggart was usually able to bring a smile to my face but now everything seems to be grim and serious. Perhaps you feel that the internet is the place for amusing asides about the difficulties of gendering hyenas, but can I plead for their return to the paper? The Conservative party is a perennial joke in your pages but the humour is growing so black it hardly counts and your choice of Doonesbury reruns seems to have avoided the really humorous. So more laughs, please, if you wouldn’t mind.
Benjamin Bruce
Chichester, West Sussex
