My first book was a wide-ranging survey of jokes and their place in our culture. I always relish the challenge of blending the learned with the light-hearted, and making obscure academic concepts broadly accessible. From theories about the function of laughter in evolutionary psychology, via Freud and Bergson to Lenny Bruce and Stewart Lee, with a whole bunch of playground humour and a joke on every page: this is the book that thanks God it was written in a lull between culture wars.

Now a staple of downstairs loos across the UK, it was warmly received by the critics and bought by lots of people as a Christmas gift for their uncles and nephews.