Thing To Do Today: jest.

 The French president M Macron has complained that the British prime minister, Boris Johnson, is not un homme sérieux, a serious man. 

M Macron seems to think that this a bad thing, but to the British being serious has very few attractions.

Anyway, jesting is interesting.

Why do people suddenly start making neighing noises and falling over when they are surprised by a movement or expression? 

Why does a sudden twist in a path of meaning give us such a rush of pleasure?

What's the point of jesting?

Well, happy people don't usually bother about starting wars, for one thing. 

If someone is funny then it shows they're creative, and almost certainly clever, for another. 

Jests very often rely on illuminating the grain of truth somewhere in an often murky mix, for a third.

Jesting may not be fashionable among the intellectuals of Paris (though M Macron did once liken himself to the god Jupiter, which still makes me laugh) but perhaps we'd be better off with more or it.

To be Jupiter, after all, as M Macron must know, is to be jovial.

Thing To Do Today: jest. The Latin word gesta means deeds, and gerere is to carry out something (but not in a coal scuttle-type way).