LES DAWSON

How can you analyse what is funny? What's funny to one isn't funny to another... What's funny to you is a personal thing.

I used to sell furniture for a living. The trouble was, it was my own.

I know my name will always be linked with women.

When we were courting, I told my wife: 'I could live in your eyes.' She said: 'You'd be at home; there's a stye in one of them.'

My mother-in-law said, 'One day I will dance on your grave.' I said 'I hope you do; I will be buried at sea.'

With wives, men hide behind the air of bravado, which is basically a defence mechanism, I think. Clever creatures, women. Very clever.

I discovered the wife's got asthma. Thank God - I thought she was hissing at me.

I saw six men kicking and punching the mother-in-law. My neighbour said 'Are you going to help?' I said 'No, six should be enough.'

In awe, I watched the waxing moon ride across the zenith of the heavens like an ambered chariot towards the ebony void of infinite space wherein the tethered belts of Jupiter and Mars hang, for ever festooned in their orbital majesty. And as I looked at all this I thought... I must put a roof on this toilet.

You do something you're really quite proud of, and the public doesn't like it. Then you do something that perhaps you're not at all happy with and the public loves it. And that's the moment of truth, because it's the audience that's the final judge.

When I was a child, I had wax in my ears. Dad didn't take me to the doctor, he used me as a night light.

The mother-in-law had an accident at work. A hot rivet dropped down her drawers and she fell off the oil rig.

I took my mother-in-law to Madame Tussaud's Chamber of Horrors, and one of the attendants said: 'Keep her moving sir; we're stock-taking.'

My lad chewed and swallowed a dictionary. We gave him Epsom salts - but we can't get a word out of him.

My mother-in-law fell down a wishing well. I was amazed; I never knew they worked.

Marriage is an institution and that's where a couple finish up.

I'm not saying my mother didn't like me, but she kept looking for loopholes in my birth certificate.

Slumps don't bother me.

My wife is a sex object - every time I ask for sex, she objects.

My mother-in-law's so fat that when she passes her handbag from hand to hand she throws it.

I don't mind what the critics say, so long as I get some reaction. The worst thing is to be ignored.

The mother-in-law is the centre of a family.

I can always tell when the mother in law's coming to stay; the mice throw themselves on the traps.

Take my wife... please. I'm not saying she's ugly, but when she went to see a horror film, the audience thought she was making a personal appearance.

My mother-in-law has come round to our house at Christmas seven years running. This year we're having a change. We're going to let her in.