IN THE kingdom of animals, we are surely the most cruel. It's not just the abuse we mete out to children, animals and each other, or that we hunt for sport instead of food. It is even in our humour.

And that cruelty is there in even the most decent of humans.

York will reverberate to the sound of laughter this week as the first York Comedy Festival sets us giggling. But what makes us laugh is usually a cruel joke. When somebody trips and falls, our immediate reaction is to titter. If there is a broken bone involved, it becomes a rib-cracking guffaw.

Is it really because we find it funny, or is it the shock of the experience that finds a relief, an outlet in hysterical laughter?

That's not the case, however, in cold, calculated jokes that are a long-time in the telling, because most jokes are based on some form of prejudice.

Black and Jewish people, Irish, Scots, Welsh, people from Goole, or those with some form of physical or mental disability, baldies like me, or mothers-in-law or nuns.

Did you hear the one about the two nuns...? Let's not go there.

In America they pick on the Polish; we call condoms French letters, while in France they call them English overcoats.

Did you hear about the Scotsman who was granted three wishes and he asked for three everlasting bottles of whisky?

Gay people are the topic of many jokes, like the Spanish homosexual who never let a dago by.

What about the Irishman who died with a smile on his face? He was struck by lightning but he thought he was having his picture taken.

Even animals and old folk are not safe from our cruel humour. Like the lorry driver who ran over a cat at 70mph and stopped to ask an old lady if the poor creature was hers. When she asked him to describe the cat he said: "Well, it has a surprised expression on its face and it is a quarter of an inch thick."

Then there are the mother-in-law jokes made famous by Les Dawson, God rest his soul. My mother-in-law is so ugly, her lipstick backs into the tube; skinny jokes such as: "She's so thin, when she wears a blue dress she looks like a Biro refill."

Religious jokes are often told because it is taboo. How come the Jews have ten commandments? Because when God offered them to Moses, he asked how much they cost. When God said they were free he said: "Good, I'll take ten."

Dirty jokes don't have to be cruel, just shocking. Some are funny and witty, the product of extremely fertile minds, though not the Chubby Brown obscenities that are peppered with as many expletives as one sentence can possibly hold.

Graffiti is another form of humour which can also be clever but cruel. Seen on a York pub lavatory wall: "My mother made me a lesbian!" scribbled a tortured soul. Some wag had scrawled underneath: "If I get her the wool, will she make me one." Or: "The meek shall inherit the earth - if that's all right with you."

The nicest, cleanest, daftest jokes are kiddy ones. Which is probably why grown-ups don't find them that funny. "Why do elephants have their feet painted yellow? Because they can hide upsidedown in a bowl of custard without being spotted." Boom-boom. Why did the hedgehog cross the road? To see his flat mate.

Two tigers strolling down Coney Street one Saturday afternoon. One says: "It's quiet down here today."

Perhaps crude racist, sexist jokes whispered in pubs and offices are a pathetic, wimpish attempt not to capitulate to the tidal wave of political correctness that, like the Daleks, is threatening to e-x-t-e-r-m-i-n-a-t-e our history and culture and forcing us to mentally examine every word before we dare utter it in the presence of the PC police.

Political correctness has gone far too far but then no one wants to see the return of the likes of that awful, bigoted man, Alf Garnett.Whatever happened to good clean fun? Why does it take so much more to make us laugh these days?

Anyway, got to dash, to pick up the mother-in-law. I don't make jokes about her any more because she has a tongue that can kill a man with one lash at 20 paces, and she beats me every time. When I told her I was going to dance on her grave, she replied quick as a flash: "Good, I'm being buried at sea."

Incidentally, what makes you laugh? Contact me on bill.hearld@ycp.co.uk

Updated: 08:54 Tuesday, June 24, 2003