George E. C. Paton is Lecturer in Sociology at Aston University. He is the co-editor of and contributor to Humour in Society: Resistance and Control (Macmillan, London, 1988); he was President and Co-Chair of the 1995 International Humour Conference held at Aston University, Birmingham. Chris Powell is Lecturer in Criminology and Social Theory at the University of Wales, Bangor. He is the co-editor of and contributor to Humour in Society: Resistance and Control (Macmillan, London, 1988) and author of a number of articles on social control. Stephen Wagg is a writer and part-time lecturer at Leicester University. He is co-editor, with Dominic Strinati, of Come on Down? Popular Media Culture in Post-War Britain (Routledge, 1992) and editor of Because I Tell a Joke or Two: Comedy, Politics and Social Difference (Routledge, forthcoming). He also writes on sport and childhood.