Home Comforts -- The B-Sides: Irony

The charge for the last biscuit at the youth leaders' meeting that day
would prove to be of particular interest.

In fairness, this yearning is largely based upon our narrow perception that the world has singularly failed to engage with us Brits’ very ‘individual’ brand of humour. Still, in a society where Mother’s Day is celebrated with a parade of Miss Bolivias, and where the government gives parents an ‘educational support’ bursary the weekend before the cerveza-sodden ‘Day of the Beni’ weekend (which comes at the end of the school year, no less), you need a healthy dose of humour to stomach the appalling contradictions.

Day-to-day conversation can be full of pitfalls too. When you’re in, say, a youth leaders’ meeting, and the issue is raised of how to make the teaching spots more interesting, and you pipe up that maybe the speakers should consider wearing superhero costumes, and your colleagues start looking up the numbers of local spandex merchants…a little bit of you does die inside.