Let there be Light 2017: No 25

Happiness author Doe Zantamata wrote: ‘’Good friends help you to find important things when you have lost them…your smile, your hope, and your courage.”

A meeting up with great friends can prove a major tonic, especially when you know each other well enough to avoid political correctness. The Jolly German suffers continual ribbing about the war and the early arrival of his towel, the perpetually fat guy floats upon a sea of jokes about the Japanese whaling fleet, and the Frenchman is of course obsessed by garlic and needs several alarms to wake him up in time for the arrival of the Germans.

Enduring lifetime friendships are those in which ribaldry about your differences become the resin which binds you together over the decades. Laughing kindly at yourself and others keeps you close.