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This series of articles is based on Health Kinesiology ’Adjunctives’, and any of you who have had adjunctives during your HK treatment, know how seriously your body takes such things. Adjunctives are homework, and play often figures strongly, particularly if things have been difficult for you lately. We all need to have fun! What follows is an extract from Amanda Mansell’s book ‘Attention, Seekers’, which she has been kind enough to allow me to reproduce here for you.

There is much to be enjoyed in Amanda’s book, which is a fabulous patchwork of information and opinion. There’s a great section on colour and it’s meaning which will have you watching your family and colleagues more closely to see more than just the clothes they wear!

I hope you’ll pop along to her blog and then click through to order the book - it would make a wonderful Christmas gift, whether to someone who is spiritual, becoming spiritual, or just someone who is a thinker. I hope you’ll enjoy this chapter.... read on...

LAUGHTER

I daresay every generation complains about the humour of the next generation but I find so little to laugh at on the television these days. There is so much coarseness, even cruelty, and so little gentle but witty cleverness. Thank God for Rabbi Lionel Blue who recently made us laugh uproariously for well over an hour while offending no-one [though offence, without malice behind it, can be hilarious]. I flew into Darwin some years back and immediately had all my Balinese booty confiscated. I was aghast. The next day I had to take a taxi to some out of town warehouse and the two gentleman who ran the place were so rude about me, my nationality and my Balinese bits and bobs that I nearly made myself physically sick laughing. When one man unwrapped one of my carved wooden thingies and an ant came out [ok two ants ok several, but they were very small] they were met with such an hysterical hail of abuse that my knees buckled and I was literally hanging onto the desk to stop myself sliding onto the floor. My stomach hurt for days and I will love those two men until my dying day. Later, Peter the coach driver and Steve the pilot were equally rude about me but they also told me hilarious stories that made my hair curl. Were the stories accurate? Who cares? This sort of humour was par for the course when I was a child, but we are humourless in Britain these days and I don’t hold out much hope for Australia if it goes on being suburbanised. At least Darwin is outbackish. It's full of strange people - I simply loved it and felt at home there.

I desperately miss not being able to relax into a funny programme. I always liken it to listening to a really good singer and being able to relax and enjoy their singing because you know they can push a word or beat to its limit but then effortlessly pick it up again. There are many who emulate Frank Sinatra but few who can manage to control a song the way he could. It is the same with most of today's humour - I am edgy. I have such happy early memories of relaxing family moments when each of us was rolling off our chairs roaring with laughter while watching or listening to a humorous television or radio programme. I miss Stanley Baxter and I do wish someone could persuade Robin Williams to take his place and do a Christmas special for the world to laugh at. I feel Mr. Williams is missing his sacred contract. He could poke fun at everyone and bring down mental barriers. He is a very funny man living in a time when humour is so desperately needed.

I find it difficult to comprehend why we are bludgeoned with poor taste humour on television but workplace humour is frowned upon, or worse. The forces used to be very keen on humour and my father could recount endless tales of tit-for-tat shenanigans that would have a whole RAF station giggling. I remember that the Canadians aircrews were mighty keen on reciprocal practical jokes aimed at their British counterparts; swiped mascots and moose heads clocked up a lot of air-miles in aircraft designed for more deadly passengers. Their antics, retold by my father over an evening gin, even had my mother tittering in the kitchen. 'Boys will be boys', she would sigh at me.

I suppose every generation has its own humour and what makes me giggle would not amuse youngsters today. Or would it? I was lucky enough, in the first half of my nursing life to laugh a lot - much of it silently, as we were trained not to laugh out loud in case a grieving relative was offended. Even in such a strict nursing environment practical jokes were the order of the day and in my training hospital a great deal of energy was expended on thinking up new ways to infuriate pompous senior members of staff. In several hospitals I worked in, Christmas leniency allowed for slightly lubricated and rather hairy rugby players, in wigs and pink tutus, to patrol the wards [doctors? I couldn't possibly comment] while tipsy voices took over the tannoy system and made impossible requests or announcements that had us nurses holding up the walls and weeping with hilarity. Ambulance drivers behaved impeccably, most of the time, the rest of the time was hugely enjoyed by all. Working in theatres was a minefield of naughtiness. I had a couple of hideous experiences, one of which was the very first time I was scrubbed for an operation. I was staring at rows and rows of what looked like impossible cutlery with ridiculous names while waiting for the surgeon [well known for his temper tantrums] and the start of a double hernia repair. I was completely and utterly terrified. Moments before the surgeon appeared, as I stood scrubbed, shakily ready and unable to retaliate because I dare not contaminate my gloved hands, a second anaesthetist, who was skulking aimlessly about, shot his hand up my theatre dress and tried to remove my knickers. I knew only too well that nurses knickers were collected for the flag pole outside the doctors mess and their fluttering indicated that more than a trophy had been taken. My only course of preventative action was to spread my legs as far as possible to stop the knickers from dropping further. I successfully suspended them at knee height moments before the surgeon kicked open the door and we were on the surgical off. I performed my scrub nurse duties magnificently while in the position of a giraffe at a water hole. After the successful operation I left the theatre walking as if on outstretched skis and readjusted myself. It was now war. The anaesthetist, an Australian of course [we had quite a few male Aussie docs and they behaved appallingly - we simply adored them], was sorely outnumbered by student nurses who screamed with hilarity at my tale and whooped with laughter planning revenge. Revenge was had ..... censored ... sorry.

Years later, at another hospital, hostilities broke out again, but this time the nurses were being lined up in the sights of policemen who would ring in the early hours of the morning declaring, 'This is *** ****** Police Station and it's war'. If coppers, cadging midnight coffee, on quiet patient and criminal nights were careless enough to leave their panda cars unlocked .. well ... they had it coming, we thought. A decoy was used to make the coffee and the rest of us would tiptoe out to extravagantly decorate the car, inside and out, with things pleasant and not so pleasant. Our grand finale was a metal bedpan tied, on a lengthy piece of string, to the exhaust. We would watch the panda car pull away, string unravel, bedpan fly up and as the bedpan came crashing noisily down we would run and hide. We always won the skirmishes because we knew which cupboards to hide in and they always forgave us our antics and brought us fresh doughnuts from the all night bakery, if they could. None of these antics interfered with the extremely high standards of nursing care. It also promoted a strong bond between working staff because humour always unites and the bond extended to those put upon police officers, which was just as well because they saved our bacon on numerous occasions when we were confronted by fists or weapons. Bless you and thank you, each and every one. I feel really sorry for the nurses of today. All work and no play. It stems from the top of course. You can always tell what the hierarchy is like, in any establishment, by the manner of the staff. We checked into The Taj Residency Hotel in Cochin [Ernakulam, India] and an hour later, as we were leaving to sight-see, I told the receptionist [called Cindrella - truly - and she was adorable, even without the ‘e‘], that the hotel had an outstanding manager. 'He is wonderful - how did you know?', she asked. 'Because he has infused the whole hotel with good service and happiness', I replied. In Britain, humourless government officials lacking second and third chakra power have infected the whole country and television has followed suit. Humour has become almost a dirty word but you need laughter in every walk of life and you especially need it in hospitals to counteract all the grim and sad reality of sickness and death.

© Amanda Mansell 2007 and Lis Goodwin 2009