The James Clayton Column: laughing in the face of death Having watched Joseph-Gordon Levitt's sterling performance in the brilliant 50/50, James concludes that, when faced with death, laughter is the best response... Once upon a time, an old one-legged man with leprosy and a case of criminal halitosis inched up to me in a hospital waiting room, guffawed insidiously and uttered these wise words: "Well, you've gotta laugh 'ain't'cha?" Before I could reply and express my disgust, we were assaulted by terrible sounds from above, the building shook and, incredibly enough, the ceiling proceeded to cave in. A large airship (zeppelin, blimp, balloon kind) shaped like Yoda's head crashed through the roof and brought the entire hospital down around us. I survived, of course, but the old man didn't. Even though the low flying Yoda blimp didn't crush him, the shock of the whole thing sent him into such a state of apoplexy that his neural system overheated and he spontaneously combusted right before my eyes. It was like the end of Raiders Of The Lost Ark where the Nazis open the Ark of the Covenant and get melted by supernatural ghastlies, except this time there was a colossal Star Wars balloon and the additional stench of cooked meat and surgical fluids. Really, I love the smell of burning leprous flesh in the morning. It smells like victory. Assessing the scene of mass destruction surrounding me I started to laugh, first nervously (I was in shock) and then raucously, howling