So working through the comedians in the comedy picture spread above, Rowen Atkinson's famous comedy creation Mr Bean always brings a laugh to most people. Apparently Bean is popular even without translation in other languages because his humour is so visual. The set of sketches in this video are well worth watching if your day needs a lift with some light slap stick comedy. I particularly enjoy when Bean goes to the theatre to watch a horror movie with his long-suffering girlfriend.

There is an interesting back story to this character which I discovered when I saw an interview with the great Ian Hislop of Private Eye and Have I got News for you fame. The wikipedia entry for Harry Enfield and Chums states the following under the subheading Tim Nice-but-Dim Esq.

The character was initially created by Ian Hislop and Nick Newman, who are both Old Ardinians. They wrote the character as an antidote to contemporary portrayals of ex-public schoolboys as sharp-minded, high-achieving young men, and instead chose to base the character on former school contemporaries who had plenty of money and good manners but were light of intellect. Tim's catchphrase is "What an absolutely, thoroughly, bloody nice bloke!" A notable scene was him going to the school reunion of another school.

Once again this sketch is a classic from the Armstrong and Miller series. Quick tip for those who are considering how to conduct a job interview. When your prospective employer asks you what do you see are your faults make sure you answer something like you find it hard to take breaks because you are so passionate about your work. 😉

This is quite a funny sketch with Harry Enfield playing the Queen. Not much to say on this one. Best just to watch and enjoy it. I wonder if the real queen would find this little sketch funny?

The works of Monty Python are a bit like marmite. You either hate them or love them. I personally enjoy some of the Python movies and one of my favourites was Monty Python and the Holy Grail. There are so many classic scenes from this movie but one of my favourites is when king Arthur receives a lecture on modern constitutional democracy. Probably a lesson that our current PM contenders Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak would do well to learn.

After living in the UK for just over 30 years, I have come to the conclusion that one of the ways the British cope with their corrupt politicians is by laughing at them. Although this method helps makes coping with the worst excesses of the British class system bearable, I wonder if it might inadvertently stifle true political progress in the UK? Certainly Boris Johnson is one of the most terrible, lying corrupt Prime Ministers Britain has had for well over a century. Yet so much of his appeal to the voting public is he was able to play the fool and make people laugh. Although I enjoy British humour very much, I do hope that one day the Brits come to realise that the amount of corruption in their political system probably rivals some of archetypal African nations to which so many Brits feel superior in relation to their "mother of all Parliaments".

So last week I posted a compilation of sketches by Armstrong and Miller which captured the sometimes strange dynamics that occur in "high powered" workplaces full of alpha male (and sometimes female) middle managers and their underlings all vying for patronage from their boss. The Armstrong and Miller show often ran the same sketch each week developing it little by little each time. If you want to see how the striding man character developed during their comedy series then look at last week's post

The sketch below is the final instalment of the Striding Man and I guess the moral of the story is no matter how successful you are inside your workplace, there is always a chance it could all come crashing down in a moment. I guess this even applies to CEOs who can find themselves fired by their boards. Having said that, I think most CEOs know that even if they get fired they will walk away with a gigantic severance payment and into another CEO role in another large company such is the old boys revolving network that seems to exist at that level.