Laughter is inappropriate both when you are told that your Geography teacher is dead, and also when some rich bitch comes into class in tears because her smack-head aunt had become a cabbage and had her life support turned off. Inappropriate, but irresistible.

Laughter is also apparently inappropriate when the Scout leader who once stopped you sneaking out during the night on camp to shag the first girl you ever loved cops it in a car accident.

It is especially inappropriate when accompanied by thrusting your arms into the air and shouting "Hey lads, Giddy's dead!" in joyous tones. This can lead to push-ups beyond number being administered by Giddy's fellow scout leader and best friend who is stood behind you.

During assembly our headmaster announced that our former German teacher who had an (unfounded)reputation for being gay was enjoying his new position at a boys school in Birmingham. The entire fourth year erupted in laughter and detentions whizzed through the year like bullets on the Somme. The casualty rate was high in those terrible minutes. Smirking and giggling with hand in front of face were vigorously dealt with while the two boys who began to simulate buggery while shouting "ich bin Herr Gay" were removed by Teacher snatch-squads and only returned some hours later after parental phone calls.

Mr. Johnson: "In 1945, the American army dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima."
Tom: "Gutted!"