"There are limits to my comedy. There are things that I'll never laugh at. The handicapped, because there's nothing funny about them" said David Brent (Ricky Gervias), star of cult BBC sitcom The Office.
Young Jack Carroll proved that theory wrong with his Stand Up comic routine, um while sitting down on Britain's Got Talent.
Fourteen year old Jack, who has Cerebral Palsy, used his walking frame to its full capacity and pulled the flip down seat to "Sit And Deliver" (I know, I know) effortlessly funny gags about his disability to such a high standard that ironically I forgot he was disabled.
Having read a number of national newspapers and online content about the funny-man (or should that be boy?) something struck me about the write ups. Here was a funny, doubtlessly talented youngster and yet in almost every article it said he "suffers" from Cerebral Palsy.
To my mind he is hardly "suffering".
Now if he had walked on stage and his routine had gone down as well as George Osborne did at the Paralympics last summer then yes indeed he would have "suffered", surely the focus should be on his talent and the ease at which he is naturally funny?
While I used the word "handicapped" in Brent's quote I in fact hate this dated term which went out of fashion about the same time as, pale blue three-wheeler cars that were only meant for "the handicapped". There is something ironic about making a car that was only meant to be driven by disabled drivers which, um has a bit missing.
During my driving days I drove a bright red sporty Honda Civic that spent most of its time on three wheels due to the way I took corners.
The question I suppose I am asking is: When is it ok to laugh at disabled people? My answer to that would be anytime, well within reason.
Now don't misunderstand me if you are in a nightclub and you spot a bloke on the dance-floor in a wheelchair having a bit too much of a bop, so much so that his chair tips over and he falls out, whatever you do don't just stand there and laugh it is so uncool.
Oh, ok yes I did just stand there and laugh (while my mates went to his aid). Being disabled myself it would have been like 'Challenge Anneka', without Anneka, if I had tried to help the poor dab!
Why did I laugh? Um because it was funny just in the same way my mates often used to laugh when I used to fall in school, and in later life, pubs, clubs anywhere really I'm not fussy.
We are laughing because it is physically funny just like most things usually are. Just take a moment to think of the Del Boy leaning up against the bar sketch .. . . . I rest my case.
Something that really isn't funny is people being stopped from having a laugh. I'm not talking about the countless times I was kicked out of lessons during my schools days for finding something amusing, there is a time and a place I guess, I just couldn't fully grasp the concept.
I remember my cookery teacher bellowing: "Stuart Taylor do you realise that the kitchen is not the place to laugh and mess about?" I suppose she had a fair point given the fact that me and my mate were using plastic sieve's to cover our faces and wood spoons as a sword. Like I say time and a place.
Imagine you went to cinema with your family to watch a funny film and you were asked to leave for laughing to loudly. Sounds a bit pathetic right?
It was recently reported that a young girl with Down's Syndrome had been asked to leave the cinema for laughing too loud. I find this so sad. Have I missed something? Has it become a crime to laugh? If it was I would be halfway through a life sentence by now.
There was another recent case of a girl with Down's syndrome being shouted at to "shut up" by a businessman who was trying to work, while on a train. Was this guy at the back of the queue when they were handing out "common sense"?
It seems to me that while there are many examples of a more positive attitude towards physically disabled people since the Paralympics, those with learning difficulties such as Down's Syndrome are still left wide open to verbal abuse.
Easy target? Cheap laugh? Whatever the motive may be I find it sickening that in today's society, which is sometimes over-the-top PC, that such shocking behaviour is seemingly brushed aside?
If this was racial abuse then the people dishing out the hurtful verbal rubbish would rightfully be punished.
Sadly until mainstream comics such as Ricky Gervais are stopped from using pathetic terms such as "mong" and "retard" then society; be it the pub, workplace or sporting venues, will deem these terms acceptable.
You are right after all Ricky some things just aren't funny.