An Irishman's Diary

IT WAS disappointing to read the claim by US humour expert Dr Bill Fry (yesterday) that, as a rule, people rarely die laughing.

I know the film Mary Poppins is not a realistic depiction of the human condition. Even so, its portrayal of the death of an elderly banker suggests what I've always thought is the model way to go. As chairman of Fidelity Fiduciary, Mr Dawes Snr is carried off (literally) during a fit of the giggles - his first in 90 years — which causes him first to levitate and then expire from the shock.

Like Dr Fry and certain schools of yoga, the creators of Mary Poppins clearly believed in the transformative powers of laughter.

Mr Dawes's happy ending, which is central to the film's, is set up by an earlier scene in which Mary and Bert the Chimney Sweep (played with the worst cockney accent ever by Dick van Dyke) rush to the bedside of old Uncle Albert who has also been rendered airborne by a joke. Their attempts to bring him down to earth fail. Instead, they all end up laughing - probably at Van Dyke's diction - and bouncing off the ceiling like balloons.

Not even the "giggling guru of Bombay" - a leading exponent of Hasya (laughing) yoga - promises that his techniques will result in such levitation. The movement he spawned merely uses the contagious quality of laughter in a group to ease stress and increase well-being. John Cleese, who knows a thing or too about being funny, is a big enthusiast.

But I wonder if the establishment of laughter clubs in financial institutions might help them find a way out of the current crisis, as it did in Fidelity Fiduciary. If Dr Fry is correct, the technique would not create any vacancies at board level, Mr Dawes style. It might, however, reduce everybody's stress levels. Maybe then they'd start lending to each other again.

ONE OF the most exciting things about parenthood - perhaps the most exciting - is hearing a child laugh for the first time. Unlike Mr Dawes, most humans discover their laughter reflex early in life - at nine months or so. And yet the event always comes as a shock to everyone involved, not least the infant itself.

One day, someone in the vicinity will do or say something that causes the little critter to explode with laughter, every muscle in his tiny frame going into spasm from the effort involved. The trigger might be a funny sound, such as somebody saying "Boo!" Or it might be an accident - such as the child's father tripping across his toolbox and shooting himself in the foot with a nail-gun.

Preferably it will be the former, because whatever is, the perpetrator is now doomed to repeat the act, while the baby's mother rushes off to get the video camera. And at every repetition, the infant will explode anew. The laughter is irresistibly infectious. Soon everybody in the room will be joining in. Even the father, as he shoots his foot over and over, will have to chuckle through the pain.

Laughing babies are, of course, one of the most popular genres on YouTube. When she visited Google's London offices last week, Queen Elizabeth joined the 64.5 million viewers to date who have watched a Swedish baby having hysterics every time his father says "Bing!" (Swedish for "Boo!") or "Doing!" Sure enough, it set the queen off too.

In another YouTube hit, a different baby falls over hilariously - unlike his Swedish counterpart, he's not in a high chair - every time his father tears a piece of paper (try it at home with your bank shares: it's very therapeutic). That one has had about 19 million hits so far. If laughter is the best medicine, as Dr Fry implies, there are a lot of people out there self-medicating.

THE REALLY good news from the professor's talk at UCC was that short bursts of intense laughter can be just as beneficial as rigorous exercise.

This is timely information. With yet another year having passed in which I didn't quite manage to train for the Dublin City Marathon, I plan to compensate next Monday by watching the Marx Brothers' Duck Soup on DVD. After that, if I haven't hit the wall, I might trawl YouTube for more baby videos.

But you can overdo anything, even laughing. On a sobering note, I read recently about the infamous "Tanganyika laughter epidemic" of 1962. It broke out among a group of girls at boarding school (which subsequently had to close), spread to other schools and villages, affected more than 1,000 people at its peak, and was not finally brought under control until 1964.

As psychiatrists who studied it have been blue in the face explaining since, there was nothing funny about the incident. It was a case of "motor-variant mass psychogenic illness", the reasons for which are unclear. Laughter was a symptom rather than a cause, and only one of several symptoms. Nobody died here either, but the attacks left people partially incapacitated for weeks afterwards.

So it's as well to be careful. If you're planning to watch old Marx Brothers films or YouTube videos this weekend, especially in a group situation, make sure to pace yourself.

The other important thing is to hydrate properly. And don't forget to warm down afterwards.