FLAKES: Beautiful but humourless

The airport taxi arrived at my hotel late at night. The entry procedures were complicated and my powers of observation were numbed by fatigue.

So the following morning, as I planned to walk to the conference venue, I asked the stunning guest relations manager whether the hotel gate lay towards the right-hand side.

She confirmed that I had gauged the direction correctly, however, she advised me to go left since the reception roundabout was a one-way road. I replied jokingly, “I think that I will walk right towards the gate since I am a pedestrian.

However, I hope that I will one day grow up to be a car and then I will obey your traffic rule and go left around the roundabout!”

“No Madam!” She exclaimed in horror, “You will never be a car!”

Sad observation

It has been my sad observation that beauty and humour are rarely packed in the same box. Granted that beautiful people tend to smile quite a lot.

Who can resist smiling when it has the same effect on observers as a police flashlight shining directly into the eyes late at night?

However, when you have the face of a retired buffalo and any attempt to smile motivates passers-by to find you a seat and start fanning you vigorously, then it helps to be able to laugh at yourself and at the world.

(I know that Andy Rooney said that a smile is the cheapest way to improve your looks, but for some of us a smile is just a form of comedy!)

The many unkind jokes directed at blondes may originate from envy, but all humour has a small grain of truth in it. What do you call a blonde who is wandering about in the Arctic Circle, quite lost? A snowflake.

If a blonde and a brunette fall off a building, who hits the ground first? The brunette because the blonde paused for a while to ask for directions. What is eternity? Three blonde drivers at a Nairobi junction.

Or my favourite: What do you call a blonde skeleton that is found in a wardrobe? “The 1965 World Hide-and-Seek Champion.”

Silly jokes

Despite those silly jokes I am sure that the exclusion of humour from beauty has more to do with time than it has to do with intelligence (or the lack thereof.)

Beautiful people tend to spend a lot of time making an excellent appearance even better. There must be a mathematical explanation as to why a small enhancement on a beautiful person creates a stunning change, whereas the efforts of the ugly to enhance their looks tend to be laughable.

Never mind! As Mahatma Gandhi said, “If I had no sense of humour, I would long ago have committed suicide.”

The leopard inspires wonder, but the gnu also inspires joy. You can look at a mirror and smile, or look at a mirror and laugh, and in both cases enjoy a little bit of happiness.

If beauty is time-consuming then so is humour. While beauty is plumping up her curls then humour is absorbed in the twists and turns of language and life, mining for that little bit of strangeness that will produce some wit.

The jaded spectacles of humour are no less valuable than the rose-tinted spectacles of beauty.

It is said that the average woman would much rather have beauty than brains because she knows that the average man can see much better than he can think!

Between Beauty and Brains sits the comedienne who uses both mind and looks to inspire that most beautiful of musical scores, the genuine laughter of an amused soul.

According to the Huffington Post the signs that someone has a sense of humour include that they prioritise laughter, practice self-acceptance, accept aging (absolutely the best time to achieve that funny face) and are conscientious, creative and physically fit. Beauty, on the other hand, is scientifically proven to be about symmetrical faces and correct nose to mouth or eye to chin ratios.

This Saturday, prioritise laughter and be part of the “everyone can do humour” democracy.