Comedians in a row over material? Frankly, this is getting beyond a joke

This little row has been a few things, but one of the many things it hasn't been is funny. Keith Chegwin has been castigated for posting, on Twitter, unacknowledged jokes. Most of them are simple one-liners – "Stone the crows, I'm in trouble with the RSPB again"; "Felt like a true gentleman today opening the door for my wife, but I was doing 60" – and essentially sub-sub- Two Ronnies , or nicked from the Armada Book of Fun (1976), my personal bible, but one or two have been nicked from extant comedians, such as Jimmy Carr's "I used to go the circus to see the fat tattooed lady. Now they're everywhere." And I, as very possibly did you, felt an unwelcome tug of oh-dear ness when learning that comedians Simon Evans and Ed Byrne, among others, had "reprimanded" Cheggers, because there's only one thing more dreadfully sad than comics getting precious about tiny tiny jokes, and that's the last reel of Lassie Come Home 1 . It turns out that Ed and Simon were mild, conciliatory, and just a micro peeved, and that the row has of course been a media confection – but there is still a serious point here. If you go to an Evans or a Carr or a Byrne gig, and hear them coming out with a one-liner they made up, might be funny might not but it's theirs, there's a danger that someone will say, through dogburger and haggle-teeth: "But that's Keith Chegwin's. " We all steal. It's far easier in print than on stage. Far easier still on radio. I made a gag last year on a Radio 4 programme which got me about my only decent laugh of the night. There was some odd news story about Hitler having rubbish table manners and I drawled the more you learn about that guy, the less there is to love – standard Observer pub-table talk, about politics and world wars (far more frequent than you might expect, what with all this paper's Cohens and Corens and, er, Richthofens). Turned out it had been absolutely nicked from Rich Hall, as the very next night you all kindly pointed out, or even po'int-e'D oUUt 2 . I had a wonderful evening, but this wasn't it 3 . I lay awake and hated myself, then bent and bit my own toenails to shreds, because the only antidote to mental suffering is physical pain 4 . We all steal: but it's far worse doing so from living comedians, who have to make a comedian living, and Mr Chegwin should quite probably stop, now: and stop being angry at his detractors and come back with some grace and acknowledgment, and humour, of which he is not entirely devoid. Although Keith Chegwin has 36,000 followers on Twitter. That's 36,000 people who apparently know and like him or want to be in some manner of relationship with him, quite possibly involving fluid exchange 5 . That's the entire population of Bury St Edmunds. Not literally. Still. 36,000 people. Is this some kind of a joke? 1 I nicked that from Moonlighting. Whatever happened to that Bruce Willis? 2 I nicked that bloggo illiteracy thing from the style of Private Eye's "From the Message Boards", I think it must be Tim Dowling. 3 Marx, G. 4 Marx, K., though possibly less instantly funny. 5 Probably not really actually.