[derrida]

Second question

> awk '/^laugh/ { print $0 }' night-before-christmas.txt

[aidenn0]

Get rid of the caret and it works; it wants lines with laugh, not lines that start with laugh,

[derrida]

Ah cheers thanks, my stupid! (And what's worse - wasted some others attention and even thought what someone took time to create was at fault!) However thankful for kind directness there.