LOCAL author Benita Moore always finds her copy of the Citizen an entertaining read.

But when she picked up a recent edition she laughed in disbelief as she read that, according to a survey, Southerners were funnier than Northerners.

So much so that Bentia, who has written 12 books and interviewed more than 1,000 people about Lancashire, is preparing to compile a tape of some of the funniest lines she has heard during her research.

Benita, of Rising Bridge, Accrington, told The Citizen: "They may be able to spin a better line than Northern folk, but in terms of humour, we win hands down.

"People from the north don't know when they are being funny, it is just natural and comes out in even the shortest of conversations. It is something Southerners don't know how to handle. Perhaps it is because the humour is so dry, and they don't how to take it, but it is incredibly amusing. It is missed by a lot of people but in-bred in northerners because they have led such hard lives."

Librarian Benita, who defended the North on the TV discussion show Kilroy last year, added: "Our wit is not something which passes that well over the phone, it is something which needs facial expressions and the like to work. But there is no doubt, Northerners are much, much funnier."

The survey, compiled by Cancer Research Campaign, revealed that 70 per cent of callers to a joke hot-line were from south of Birmingham.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.