Another good newsletter from the New Yorker's Bob Mankoff on what I suppose you would call humour theories, including The General Theory of Verbal Humor (G.T.V.H.) and Benign Violation Theory (B. V. T). Mankoff cites Steve Martin's “comedy is the art of making people laugh without making them puke.” to explain B.V.T and includes a diagram that Frankie Boyle would have done well to consult before this. The truth is, as Mankoff points out, that all attempts to explain why something is funny are themselves inherently unfunny. As Amis says in The War Against Cliche (see post below): "A sense of humour is a serious business; and it isn't funny, not having one."
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