Humour in History by Jamie Dunford Wood

The tendency to look at Cathedrals and historical monuments from behind a video camera has reached epic proportions. Sights have become tick-box tourist relics affording little chance of being able to make that connection with history which can be so rewarding. But occasionally, very occasionally, it can happen, and it's the element of humour that can do it most powerfully.

Now, it is all too easy for Anglo-Saxons to overlook the Bayeux Tapestry, on the basis that it was rammed into us all at school. It's also a mecca for the bus tourist, readily digestible in 20 minutes before the visit to the cider factory. Indeed one of them told me on the way out that I only needed five minutes to get round it, and you are encouraged to move along with the flow, as it is displayed behind glass in a dimly lit room along one vast, specially constructed wall.

However, you are in danger of missing something very illuminating. Stopping and starting the pre-recored audio guide and irritating the Brits trying to squeeze past you it is easy to be mesmerised for an hour or more. The detail is astonishing, and it is the humour that stands out - the most stunning example being the flattened hair - cartoon like, so modern - of the racing horsemen telling of HaroldÕs accession, just one small reminder of how humour remains unchanged down the ages. Henry VIII would have chuckled at that, as would Mark Twain, Churchill and the millions who've been before you. It's your single private minute in communion with medieval man - or woman, as the tapestry was probably stitched by nuns. We've all seen or read about the graffiti in Pompei - Brutus for Senator, that sort of thing, but try Ostia near Rome. It's far less crowded. I saw a mosaic displayed there of a Roman woman - a coy, young girl - in the open air, worn thin by the tread of countless visitors. She was composed of hundreds of small white marble squares, with browns and yellows for her features and her flowing hair. But she was not all that coy, for her breasts were white and bare - except for a single brown mosaic marble chip dead centre of each. I suppose not every visitor is as childish as I, but I could still hear, centuries later, the sculptor having a small laugh about that as he popped it in place like a jigsaw.