RECENT controversy over the Irish joke in the village newsletter in Christchurch has sparked a flurry of enthusiastic raconteurs eager to share with me their latest gag.

March town councillor Mark �Purser’s offering the other day seemed the best of a bad lot, keen as he was to recount the story of a lad arriving home from school to eagerly tell his dad he had got a part in the school play.

“‘That’s good,’ says dad. ‘What’s the part’?”

The son replies that he’s playing the role of a man who has been married 25 years.

“‘Never mind,’ says dad.

‘Let’s hope next time you get a speaking part’.”