Having raised the tone to start the proceedings, last year’s Jokathon winner Mark Cunningham told a number of extremely good opening Jokes. Naturally, John Richardson followed by lowering the tone quite considerably. This was followed by some mildly offensive jokes told with great wit and gusto by the usual suspects. We should also mention a new comedian on the block. It’s a pity that Carol Waters is married to Mike, because I think she would have been up there on the podium with the eventual winner (strict Jokathon rules state that the chairman’s wife cannot win on her first appearance).

And the winner is….

Louise Hunter won both the best seasonal dress award AND the 2015 Jokathon Award. The loser was the rather poor acoustics in the La Sirene dining room. Which meant a number of jokes had to be repeated. And many jokes were retold due to the fact that the next contestant didn’t realise the same joke had just been told. Which was in itself a rather amusing “Dad’s Army meets Ronald Reagan” moment.

The Jokathon was followed by a rather splendid after party in the bar. The next day many of us got scrubbed up and donned our penguin attire and ball gowns and went to the Great British Ball, held this year at the NH Barbizon Palace in the stunning St Olof’s Chapel.