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.

We now move onto a slightly different genre of comedy sketches with this recent sketch by the comedian Tom Walker who has created a fictional character Jonathan Pie. Walker created his character by imagining what professional journalists might really think of the stories they are reporting on the TV, especially when they relate to the crazy goings on of our elected officials.

Most of his skits follow a format whereby Jonathan begins as if he is concluding his news report and then as he says the final line of his report "Jonathan Pie reporting from London" or something like this, he then goes into a massive comical rant about what he really thinks of the subject matter he has just reported on.

This sketch is a slight departure from his standard formula as here he imagines his character Jonathan, has been asked by the New York times to give a rundown for an American audience of UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson's character and behaviour. One of the distinct aspect of Pie's humour is that his rants often have an almost prophetic tone to them whereby the hearer is often left with a strong desire to say Amen as one feels his anger at the corruption that currently plagues the UK ruling class.

This clip combines one of the most naturally funny comedy duos with one of the greatest rock bands to ever grace our planet. Unfortunately, the footage is restored and quite old as it was filmed in 1963. However, it is still really iconic footage to watch and for both Beatle and Morecambe and Wise fans will make you feel very nostalgic.

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.

Time for change of comedy genre. The two Ronnies are the type of comedians that you could safely take you neighbourhood monk to and they would probably not be offended. Ronnie Barker was very gifted at coming up with clever ideas for sketches and this one, while not a play on words, is nonetheless clever in its execution. It also has a nice little punchline to bring the sketch to a fitting conclusion

Peter Kay is a master of observation and so much stand up comedy relies on observing the funny little things that we all do as foible-ladened human beings.

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.