Being an early generation Xer, as a young man I grew up with the TV series friends. At the time Chandler was just one of the very funny characters that made this show so enjoyable to watch. It was only when the actor who played Chandler, Matthew Perry, passed away at the end of October this year that many interviews of him resurfaced where he openly spoke about his mental health issues and his struggle with alcoholism and drug abuse. Sadly, like many artistically talented folk before him, Matthew clearly had to battle for many years against his inner demons, a battle that finally he would lose although thankfully not at the tender age of 27 which is that strange age that appears to claim so many of rock stars. Below is a collection of funny moments from the first series of Friends.

One of the great things about Monty Python was they often captured the strange foibles of our humanity by writing them large in their brilliant comedy movies. "Life Of Brian" was no exception. While this movie was controversial at the time, because a substantial number of people saw it as antichristian, the movie was full of little titbits of humour that mocks the way we all sometimes behave as fallen humans. I particularly enjoy this little sketch as it reminds me of an unhelpful habit, which often seems to plague the more left wing among us, of splitting off from one another. The most painful example of this, at the time of writing this post, is the MP Dianne Abbott publicly announcing that she thinks Keir Starmer (the current leader of the UK labour party as of May 2022) should resign if it is found that his takeout dinner with Hartlepool campaigners broke the law in relation to the lockdown rules that were place in the UK at the time the takeout occurred (April 2021). While I guess her comments are technically fair, given the constant infighting in the labour party between the more left and central wings of the party, it does often feel as though both factions of the party would rather the Tories were in power than the labour party of which they are a part if it is the wrong faction of the party.

So last week I shared a comedy video which was a parody of de Feffel's resignation speech. This week we of course now must be subject to the spectacle of those who supported Johnson's car crash vying to replace him. Given that Johnson created a strong evolutionary selection pressure to reward those who were least likely to present any threat to his leadership into cabinet positions, the choice the country has, in relation to the field of possible Tory replacements, is (as the LBC radio presenter James O'Brien stated) a bit like trying to chose a portaloo toilet at the Glastonbury festival.

Thankfully, probably the worst three in Johnson's cabinet of infamy had enough sense not to run and this of course included Nadine Dorries the minister for culture. Sadly over her tenure, Nadine has sadly demonstrated why she would never, in a million years, get a cabinet position under any other Prime Minister who had even a modicum of public duty in his body. Yet for comical effect, the comedian Sooz Kemper imagines what it would be like if Nadine had decided to run to replace Johnson as PM and what her campaign launch speech might have looked and sounded like. Enjoy.

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.

I live in a house with 3 women (two daughters and one wife) so Strictly come dancing is a weekly fixture. While I have tried to get into the show, I only find it mildly entertaining so tend to watch the show very occasionally. However, whenever I do watch it, I am always struck by lots of very young pretty woman and hunky blokes spending hours together in close physical contact. It therefore has never surprised me that dancing couples not too infrequently end up in some form of short or long term physical (and or romantic) relationship. I guess it was only a matter of time before a comedy group would also pick up this truth and run with it in a funny sketch. Nice also to see Michael Spicer (the room next door) making a guest appearance in this sketch.

Last week I cited a Mash report sketch which contained an appearance from Michael Spicer who has his own Youtube series called the Room Next Door. The premise of this comedy is he is pretending to be a hidden media advisor speaking into the earpiece of hapless politicians to help them get through their interviews. Probably one of the most hapless politician of all time is the former Prime Minister of the UK whose tenure lasted all of 45 days after she managed to crash UK Sterling and the economy. In this sketch, Spicer is trying to navigate Truss through an interview with Laura Kuenssberg which of course, as with all Truss interviews, did not go at all well even though she did try to throw her Chancellor under the bus ("it was all Qwasi's fault!").

Ryan George has a real gift of taking the cultural furniture that has been with us for our whole lives and exposing just how strange it really is when observed from a different perspective. I guess our Christmas paraphernalia is ripe for such parody given the thousands of Christmas songs that have accumulated over the centuries this season has been celebrated in the Western world.

Frosty the Snowman has always been one of my favourites since our next door neigbour once bought my daughter Grace a dancing singing snowman with this tune programmed into it. Strangely enough the version in our snowman is a little different to the classic one. Perhaps I am doing a Peter Kay by mishearing the lyrics of my dancing snowman but it truly likes he is singing:

"🎼 Frosty the snowman was a jolly happy soul, with a pink carnation and a button nose and a lively 'I don't know'🎵". My youngest autistic daughter Rebekah and I now regularly sing these words as we both find them rather amusing in their silliness.