Sentimentality, cruelty and our sense of humour

Dr Wiseman adds the piquant detail that the Germans laugh more often at more jokes than anyone else

At last, the 2 million tests have been done, and the search for the world's funniest joke is over. For this feat we have to thank Dr Richard Wiseman, of the University of Hertfordshire, who led the government-funded research as part of Science Year. Those without a sense of humour can only be thankful that Science Year is short. The rest of us can be thankful that if this sort of research is the stuff of academic science, then there's no need to panic about this year's A-level results after all.

Since only 10 countries appear to have participated in the year-long hunt for the gigglers' utopia, the title is perhaps a naughtily post-imperial little joke in itself. Certainly, the winning rib-tickler crosses boundaries. But the top jokes for each country are so representative of every stereotype ever heard about the nationality in question that this fact is more remarkable by far than the jokes themselves.

Dr Wiseman himself warns that "the results of the research suggest that people from different parts of the world have different senses of humour". The results of his research also suggest that the desire to be in possession of the coveted GSOH is perhaps the least of our various national worries.

The world's funniest joke

"Two New Jersey hunters are out in the woods when one of them collapses. He doesn't seem to be breathing and his eyes are glazed. The other guy whips out his phone and calls the emergency services. He gasps: 'My friend is dead! What can I do?' The operator says: 'Calm down, I can help. First, let's make sure he's dead.' There is a silence, and then a shot is heard. Back on the telephone, the guy says: 'OK, now what?'"

Of course, the world's funniest joke is set in America, that giant bestriding popular culture. But the content – stupid, unthinking, literal-minded, trigger-happy yanks, subjecting innocent people to unnecessary slaughter? Dr Wiseman may have mistaken laughter for the similar sound of rising hysteria. Americans, by the way, prefer jokes that focus on "a sense of superiority".

Britain's funniest joke

"A woman gets on the bus with her baby. The bus driver says: 'That's the ugliest baby I've ever seen. Ugh!' The woman sits down fuming. She says to a man next to her: 'The driver just insulted me!' The man says: 'You tell him off – go ahead, I'll hold your monkey for you.'"

Yes, repulsive infancy, speaking volumes about the British and their attitudes to children. This tale reminds me of a recent bus trip of my own. I started to get on a nearly empty bus with my six-month-old baby in his pushchair. The bus driver – a woman – told me that I would have to fold it up and put it in the luggage rack because there was one buggy on the bus already. I pointed out that there was plenty of room, and I was getting off in three stops anyway. She insisted that I collapse the buggy, and sat there while I was compelled to lay my baby on the filthy bus floor in order to do so. Really hilarious, but you had to be there. The baby jokes get me every time.

Canada's funniest joke

"When Nasa first started sending up astronauts, they discovered ballpoint pens would not work in zero gravity. To combat the problem, Nasa scientists spent a decade and $12bn to develop a pen that writes under any conditions. The Russians used a pencil."

No inferiority complex from them up north, of course. Instead a kind of weird eternal optimism about the simple common sense of totalitarianism. How we long for the good old days of "mutually assured destruction". How could the pen have turned out to be so much mightier than the trusty old pencil?

Australia's funniest joke

"Woman rushes into a doctor and says: 'When I woke up this morning, I looked at myself in the mirror and saw that my hair was all wiry, my skin was all wrinkled and pasty, my eyes were all bloodshot and bugging out, and I had this corpse-like look on my face. What's wrong with me?' The doctor calmly replies: 'Well, there's nothing wrong with your eyesight.'"

Goodness, people will start thinking that Australians have funny attitudes to women. I thought this was a myth until some years ago I and some flatmates met two Australian guys travelling the world in a camper van. We all went out clubbing, returned to my flat, talked until dawn and then crashed out until late the next morning. When we asked the lads if they'd like some breakfast, they went and got their until-then-unmentioned girlfriends out of the back of the camper van to help to cook it.

Germany's funniest joke

"A general notices one of his soldiers obsessively picking up pieces of paper and saying: 'That's not it.' Eventually he's seen by a psychologist, who concludes that he's deranged and issues him with a discharge notice. The soldier picks it up, smiles, and says: 'That's it.'"

Basil Fawlty might have some things to say about what not to mention. Freud might have some things to say about collective guilt and cathartic wish-fulfilment. Dr Wiseman's research adds the piquant detail that the Germans turn out to laugh more often at more jokes than anyone else. I think they're over-compensating.

England's funniest joke

"Two weasels start insulting each other in a bar. One shouts to the other: 'I slept with your mother.' The bar falls silent as the crowd waits to hear a riposte. The other weasel says: 'Go home dad, you're drunk.'"

A timely reminder, if such were ever needed, that while in England extramarital sex goes on all the time, only married love-making can ever be alluded to in public life. You'd have thought that absolutely everybody had grasped that by now. But seemingly not.

Northern Ireland's funniest joke

"A doctor asks his patient: 'Do you want the bad or the worse news?' The patient wants the bad news. 'You have only 24 hours to live.' And the worse news? 'I've been trying to contact you since yesterday.'"

How on earth did the idea of sudden death without warning manage to insinuate itself into the Northern Irish psyche?

Wales's funniest joke

"A turtle is mugged by a gang of snails in New York. When the detective questions him, he replies with a confused look on his face: 'I don't know, it all happened so fast.'"

Perhaps the Welsh sometimes feel afflicted by a lack of dynamism. Is this joke a comforting suggestion that even in the most time-conscious city in the world, slow people can blend in? Would the joke be offensive to the Welsh if it were set in Cardiff? I don't really get the Welsh. And I don't really get this joke. But I do know that, somehow, it's quintessentially Welsh.

Scotland's funniest joke

"I want to die peacefully in my sleep like my grandfather. Not screaming in terror like his passengers."

Now, perhaps because I'm Scottish myself, I find this joke quite funny. But even I can see that its appeal to me and my countrymen lies in its juxtaposition of sentimentality and cruelty, truly the two the dominating characteristics among the richly dazzling ones that we Scots possess. If you ever wondered what Hogmanay, with its traditional three-day hangover, is all about, well, wonder no more. It's all about sentimentality and cruelty.

d.orr@independent.co.uk