麻豆社

Good morning.

I suggested to my friend Taffy that we pose among the college gargoyles and spurt water on passers-by beneath. I was sent to the Dean: he said it was exam term when others are feeling fragile and it wasn鈥檛 funny.

High carvings beyond the reach of authority have long given scope for poking fun. Now a builder has fashioned in stone the face of the local councillor he blames for refusing him planning permission and perched it on the building he鈥檚 been told to convert back. A contemporary grotesque with its stone tongue sticking out. The dignitary being pilloried is proudly using it on Facebook.

Far out of control of those in charge, the medieval stone mason took what Ruskin called 鈥渄elight in the fantastic and ludicrous鈥︹�� with what William Morris expressed as the 鈥渟heer pleasure of labour鈥� and joy of work. The Gothic cathedral has been described as 鈥渢opped with caricatures and jokes.鈥�

Apt, for architecture that speaks so eloquently of the numinous?

We see faith as a solemn affair. Its subjects 鈥� life and death, love and eternity 鈥� are serious matters. But faith and humour go hand-in-hand, subverting pompous human power.

Any decent teacher exploits a good laugh and the divine Rabbi was no exception. The blind鈥� leading the blind. Sieving out a fly to swallow a camel. Taking the carpentry out of your own eye to see the sawdust in your friend鈥檚. Threading a camel through a needle. Hiding a naked flame by putting it under a wicker basket...

Meanwhile, students continue to love pranks and let鈥檚 hope they always will. Presumably because they鈥檙e on the cusp between the glorious irresponsibility of childhood and the heavy burden of sensible adulthood.

Growing up in a university town I heard plenty of such stories from my delighted mother, like the car left atop the Senate House in the dead of night, to be discovered next morning as if it had driven there.

My favourite is of the undergraduates who tipped Police off that some of their irresponsible friends had dressed up as workmen and were digging up the road. And then tipped off genuine workmen who really were digging up the road that some of their irresponsible friends had dressed up as Police and were about to move them on.

Their Dean claimed ignorance about the hoisted car, then sent the culprits congratulatory fizz. My Dean alas died of Covid, his obituary referencing his ever-present smile. When he told me off it seemed very much as if, like God sometimes, he too was trying not to laugh.

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