Here are the 15 funniest jokes of 2017 from the Edinburgh Fringe (an annual comedy festival in Scotland) - as voted for by the public.

Not all of these jokes will make sense to those not from the UK but, if you read through them, they all have one thing in common which I'll mention after the list of jokes...

1. “I’m not a fan of the new pound coin, but then again, I hate all change.”

2. “Trump’s nothing like Hitler. There’s no way he could write a book.”

3. “I’ve given up asking rhetorical questions. What’s the point?”

4. “I’m looking for the girl next door type. I’m just gonna keep moving house till I find her.”

5. “I like to imagine the guy who invented the umbrella was going to call it the ‘brella’. But he hesitated.”

6. “Combine Harvesters. And you’ll have a really big restaurant.”

7. “I’m rubbish with names. It’s not my fault, it’s a condition. There’s a name for it...”

8. “I have two boys, 5 and 6. We’re no good at naming things in our house.”

9. “I wasn’t particularly close to my dad before he died... which was lucky, because he trod on a land mine.”

10. “Whenever someone says, ‘I don’t believe in coincidences.’ I say, ‘Oh my God, me neither!”’

11. “A friend tricked me into going to Wimbledon by telling me it was a men’s singles event.”

12. “As a vegan, I think people who sell meat are disgusting; but apparently people who sell fruit and veg are grocer.”

13. “For me dying is a lot like going camping. I don’t want to do it.”

14. “I wonder how many chameleons snuck onto the Ark.”

15. “I went to a Pretenders gig. It was a tribute act.”

What makes these jokes funny is the element of Surprise...a statement that is seemingly heading in a certain direction leads to something Unexpected...often you have to think for a few moments about what you've just read - and then the laughter follows.

It's the unexpectedness/surprisingness that causes us to find them funny. And the sudden shift in energy flow as a result of that "funny" perspective expresses itself naturally as laughter.

So, in my view, if you want to cultivate a sense of humor, start looking at things in different ways to most people...develop a bit of a "quirky" outlook on things.

How would you do that?

One easy way is that you could start watching/listening to a lot of stand-up comedy and, after a while, it might start rubbing off on you. Stand-up comedy, by the nature of the artform, tends to have to "deliver the goods" thick and fast, otherwise the audience may start throwing things, so you can see the patterns of humor more quickly.

Quirky oddball comedians seem to be the best for this sort of "humor through osmosis" effect, someone like Steven Wright perhaps.