London

World Laughter Day arrives wet and grey in south London. Drizzle has settled on the street, the next-door-but-one neighbour is applying a Black & Decker to his floorboards and a fox is shitting in the back garden. No one here is laughing or can imagine a situation in which they ever would laugh. All is as it should be.

But not for long. Even as the rain falls, a gang of professionally cheerful merrymakers are infiltrating Clapham Common, intent on making London laugh out loud. Which, like making Manchester pleasant or Glasgow sober, is no easy task. Feature continues

They are the emissaries of the London School of Laughter, and through the medium of Laughter Yoga they intend to make one of the most miserable cities in the world happy whether it wants to be happy or not. Laughter Yoga was invented in 1995 by Dr Madan Kataria in Mumbai, India, after he found himself laughing for no reason and feeling rather good about it. The discipline, as described by the doctor, consists of these key elements:

1) Clapping in rhythm while chanting, ‘Ho ho ho ha ha ha!’
2) Breathing deeply.
3) Simulating specific life situations and replacing words with laughter.
4) Repeating from step one.

And then they meditate.

Meditation is easy, merely a matter of lying down until the pubs open – which is all any Londoner wants to do on a Sunday morning – but the prospect of laughing out loud in public for no apparent reason is less attractive.

At first glance, World Laughter Day doesn’t look too happy. Rain clouds hang low over Clapham Common and the entire crowd amounts to six people under a tree. The tree is hung with strings of balloons – one of which, reassuringly, is in the classic knob and balls combination – and flowers. I’m greeted by Tamsin and Julie.

‘Is this it?’

‘What?’ Julie smiles.

‘Well, World Laughter Day. There’s not many people here.’

‘Oh no, there are people joining in all over the world. And St Albans.’

On a nearby bench, the competing World Teenage Sniggering Day has attracted a crowd of four. Unperturbed, the ladies of the London Laughter School form themselves into a circle and – as per the doctor’s instructions – begin to clap in rhythm and chant ‘Ho ho ho ha ha ha!’

Previously there were two giveaway indicators of incipient and serious mental health problems: talking to yourself in public or laughing out loud at nothing in public. The first sign is redundant these days because advances in mobile phone technology mean many people now appear to be talking loudly to themselves in public all the time. No longer a reliable indicator of insanity, it merely suggests that the person is a tosspot. That leaves public laughter as the only surefire sign of looneydom. And predictably passers-by look at us as if we are mad.

But gradually more people start to join the group and within half an hour there are 20 people here, running around and laughing. These are mainly women, but there is a middle-aged Indian couple with plans to open their own Laughter Yoga centre in south London and a man called Dave as well.