As this year's Red Nose Day is almost upon us, Gazette & Herald columnist HANNAH GIBBONS, 17, is going to be funny - so, you'd better laugh...

THIS week, I'm obliged by Lenny Henry to be funny, and I'm not joking - it's a hard task.

But in the name of Comic Relief and the deeds it does, I will seriously try my utmost to make you giggle, fall off the couch, pick your Red Nose in glee or just use the phone and pledge some cash so you don't have to read any more of my bad puns on the comic theme. (It won't work though, I never shut up.)

I reckon Comic Relief is the best day in the calendar. You can act like a psycho-mouse on high-fat cheese and for once no one tells you that your behaviour is inappropriate (although, apparently my underwear from a previous campaign's Pants to Poverty was. How can I help it if my size eights are made to fit under my trousers, not over?).

Sadly, however, I have reason to doubt the amount of enjoyment that I'll derive from this year's fundraising heifer of an evening, after having come across an old tape from the event four years ago. How could I have spent hours of my impressionable life being so amused by the Spice Girls giving their kisses away for a quid to some fat old geezers?

And the most fun always came when our teachers thought they'd be "down with the kids" and lay on a whole host of jolly-hockey-stick-style fun, hilariously eating doughnuts in a less than girls' school fashion (I don't know if the choking part was meant to happen, but it certainly added to our innocent enjoyment) and listening to risqu Bible stories in place of the favoured parables (come to think of it, that wasn't even funny four years ago...).

But I'm always game for charity and a chance to make a fool of myself, so this year, I won't be going all mature - rather, the theme being "big hair and beyond". I've taken tips from the rebel boys in my year and boycotted my hairbrush for a few days. And, who knows, maybe I'll manage to enjoy watching comedians running round naked and soap stars singing songs from Oliver! down their street. But it would take a bit more than Billy Connolly skipping around Parliament Square in his nuddy pants to make me sit mesmerised at the telly for days after - honest!

Updated: 15:46 Wednesday, March 09, 2005