Laughing to keep out the dark  Updated December 04, 2009
07:32:00  I remember the jokes. They were usually about one of
two things: hardship or fear.  It's been strange, this week, to
reflect that most people will never know, as I did (albeit as a
visitor) what it was really like in the old Soviet Bloc.  But
the jokes used to tell the story.  An American dog, a Polish dog
and a Russian dog are talking. The American dog says, "Where I
live it's good. You bark loudly enough, and they give you meat".
The Polish dog says, "What's meat?" The Russian dog says,
"What's bark?"  Why have they brought in this new law in Moscow
that the bread shops have to be separated by two kilometres? To
keep the queues apart.  I was in Poland, in the autumn of 1981.
Lech Walesa had founded the national Trade Union, Solidarity,
the year before, and with the tacit support of the Polish Pope,
had reached unprecedented heights of popularity. The rectangular
red and white 'Solidarnosc' badges were on every second lapel.
But people feared