Unfortunately, legendary comedian Dave Allen has died. I shall leave it to others to pay tribute to his comic genius, but I’m mourning the loss of quite possibly the only man who made my father and I laugh at the same time.

It’s alas a cliche to say that fathers and sons in second-generation immigrant families rarely understand each other. My Dad still has no idea what I really do for a living, and just tells people I do computer stuff. He doesn’t see the point in reading books (except to go to University and become a doctor) and my interest in comedy he just considers juvenile and silly. (He probably has a point).

One time, he came in after a hard evening at work, to find me watching a Dave Allen tape, at a point when Dave was listing the absurdities of the ways in which we tell the time … (“see, now there’s a third hand, which we call the second hand.”) – and all of a sudden, with my laughter I could hear my Dad howling away. Which I haven’t really heard before or since.