I listen to a lot of Radio 4, and there’s a lot of humour on the channel, and even more talk about whether something is funny or not. There’s a lot of ‘or not’ too.

“Feedback”, a programme that looks at Radio 4 output, has recently had people complaining about a ‘so-called funny programme’ (so-called used here because they think it’s not ) called “Jonathan Pie”. This character first appeared on Social media and was a credible take on a TV News presenter’s foul-mouthed interaction between him and his producer, Roger. It was funny because it was so credible. For a brief few seconds, one believed he was this news reporter interacting off-camera,

Someone on the BBC must have thought the same and commissioned a series for Radio 4’s 6.30 pm ‘comedy slot’. It’s had a lot of complaints, and I believe the female producer has been on Feedback defending its bad language at such an early hour and further getting the backs up of lots of listeners.

For me, its worst sin is that it’s not very funny and has the look of a programme that needed the visual and the suspended belief of being believable. Instead, it’s been commandeered and has a team of writers in there beating it to death. But then there’s evidence of loads of this sort of thing on Radio 4’s Six Thirty Comedy Slot.

The perception is that the Comedians either spontaneously think up witty answers to questions or write them themselves. Like on ‘I’m sorry I haven’t a clue’ Well that’s never going to work, no one in their right mind is going to let them ad lib, the thought of a deathly silence is too much for radio comedy. I’m sure the performers have an input, but if you get to watch a programme like this, you’ll see them carefully reading from a script, and the list of writers at the end is quite long. So, if it’s a success, then toast the writers, please, as well as the performers.

It’s all a bit of a minefield.

‘Ve hef veys’ as the German officer is quoted, but wait a second, don’t we know that the Germans have no sense of humour? Not true. What about the Americans? We seem to think they have no sense of humour and then conveniently forget that they have, and by God, they need that right now. If you want to watch a man who can ‘make people laugh’, try this guy: Nate Barghatzi , a bloke with a surname that might put him at risk of being watched by those ICE goons. He also makes a thing of never using bad language.

I knew a bloke who many years ago had some success as a cartoonist in the gag cartoons field, submitting to Punch ( yes, that long ago ) and getting submissions accepted. He was a great joke writer and even got as far as a writing room at the BBC. He found it intimidating and depressing, all these blokes ( and yes, it was just blokes then ) sitting around in a smoky room ( almost everybody smoked at work, especially in these highly charged creative offices). He said, and I’ve no reason to not believe him, that absolutely no one laughed. If you were lucky, you might get a curt nod. Kurt Nodd, well known German comedian, Boom! Boom! No, not funny. I’ll get my coat.

My point here, if there is one, is that opinions on humour are hugely diverse (I am beginning to sound like a pompous producer here ). Some listeners wrote in to Feedback saying how good they thought Jonathan Pie was. They are wrong and I and others are right on course. I used to think that a lot of Monty Python stuff was unfunny way back when, I can’t stand ‘Just a Minute’ and turn it off a nano second after it starts, my son is one of the funniest people I know and can and does quote Alan Partridge verbatim, but recent iterations of this on TV have been dire. Being a stand-up seems to be a career option these days, probably because the money for success is eye-watering, so it’s all got so serious.

I call myself a cartoonist, but used to call myself a cartoon illustration chap. Calling oneself a cartoonist tended to elicit a response, or a look, from some people that said, ‘ Go on then, make me laugh’. I recall going to Belgium to do some work for a big ad campaign for a carpet retailer, which involved a flight to Brussels, an awful flight, and I arrived in the offices of the agency somewhat dishevelled. Later on in the day, the creative director told me that when I’d arrived, his assistant had come to his office and told him that ‘ the English cartoonist had arrived but didn’t look very funny’ almost as if I needed to arrive wearing a clown outfit with a steady stream of jokes about carpets, Boom Boom! My father, a policeman, used to say at times that he was a post office worker, because the response to being a policeman could be a little negative, some people actually taking a small step back from an introduction, whereas with me they sometimes take a small step forward to hear my witty repost that doesn’t arrive, me just mumbling something like: ‘No I don’t do jokes’ or ‘Yes, I think he or she is very funny’, when they mention their favourite cartoonist who isn’t me. It’s usually Matt in the Telegraph.

Perhaps I should have joined the Post Office?