In re Chris Hitchens’s sour take on Bob Hope, I should point out, for the

benefit of those readers not raised in Britain, that Hitch’s Hopephobia is

rather common over there. When I was a kid growing up in England we used to

get Bob Hope at Christmas, on the radio and TV. One constant feature of my

Christmas memories is sitting around listening to adults asking each other

why anyone thought that Bob Hope was funny. I can remember thinking he WAS

quite funny: at any rate, around age ten I thought Paleface a funny movie

(though nothing like as good as Abbott & Costello, whom I adored). Well, on

Saturday last we rented The Road to Morocco, since Rosie had never seen a

BH movie. We both agreed it wasn’t the least bit funny. In fairness to

Hope, very little humor lasts more than a few years. I am already starting

to find Monty Python not-funny; and a few months ago I sat stone-faced

through a re-run of Round the Horne, a radio show that had me rolling

helplessly on the floor back in the sixties. (“Why have you strapped me to

this surgical operating table?” “Call it an old man’s whim, m’dear.” “Why

have you strapped me to this old man’s whim?”…) I don’t recall ever

laughing at one of Shakespeare’s jokes, and I find it hard to believe anyone

else has, either, at any rate sinct the 17th century. And those leaden

Austrian gags in The Magic Flute –oy oy oy.