Colm O'Regan: An elf, a chicken and a slice of toast walk into a bar...

Children invent their own absurd rules of humour and it will most often surpass anything funny an adult can think up

Comedian Colm O'Regan could see his kids inheriting the stand-up comedy genes.

I feel a sense of fatherly pride. To see the children following in their Daddy’s footsteps and tell a joke. Maybe just like my father felt when he saw me in my little white-topped red wellingtons taking my first steps in farming. When I say ‘first steps in farming’ I mean scraping gravel with my heel, waving a stick and running away, screaming, from hens. I was a very nervous toddler, afraid of lots of things as well as hens: cattle, dogs, cattle-dogs, even banana skins.

So my children telling me jokes is already off to a better start. It started with their curiosity about Daddy’s job. “Where is Daddy going?” And in the last year – “what is Daddy doing upstairs.” Since the answer is “Telling jokes to make people laugh.” It seems only natural they’d want to have a go.