So let's begin our collection with some old comedy from the late great Dave Allen. This video are a set of short sketches Allen did which used to appear between his comedy monologues. Some of the short sketches in this mashup are funnier than others (some are quite dated now especially the old woman whose dog fouls on the pavement) our Dougal does that all the time and of course any modern dog owner now carries a complete set of poop bags for such eventualities.

However, there are a couple in this mashup that should make you laugh out loud especially the one with pretty woman trying to flag down the car driver.

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.

It has been often observed by historians that the Brits, unlike many other cultures (here's looking at you France 😀), never appear to rise up in full mutiny against their government. Of course British politicians and too many of the British public assume this is because the British government has been generally more functional than most other ruling institutions and a lot less corrupt. This believe however is surely utter fantasy and this fantasy has been aptly demonstrated by the utter chaos of the last 3 years with Britain being subject to one of the most dreadful governments in living memory, lead by a narcissistic liar who is up to his ears in corruption and enabled by a complicit cabinet of individuals who appear not to possess anything resembling a functioning conscience or talent.

So what is the secret to the lack of British ire against a ruling class that often makes their lives miserable and, in more extreme circumstances, even costs them their very lives (UK covid death statistics combined with people now dying at home because they can't get an ambulance to them in time to save their lives)? My conjecture is it is British comedy that takes the mick out of its immoral ruling class. I wonder if such mockery, by British comedians, acts as some sort of national safety valve that lessens the rightful anger that many Brits feels against those who treat them as serfs that deserve nothing more than to be exploited.

If my conjecture is correct, then it should be talents like Matt Green that receive a knighthood from de Feffel Johnson rather than non-entities such as David Frost whose greatest claim to fame is achieving a form of "Schrodinger's cat" Brexit where his own deal is simultaneously his unique achievement yet one that now needs complete reneging through a parliamentary bill which, if acted upon, amounts to breaking international law.

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.

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.

Private Eye Annual is a compilation of funny satirical pieces that were release in Private Eye magazine during the previous year.

So one of my Christmas treats is reading the Private Eye annual which my lovely wife Helen purchases for me every Christmas. As the tag line to my comedy page states, I fully believe now that the comedians role is partly to provide a painkiller for the frustrating banal evil that infects the leadership of many nations. Sadly Britain has been subject to worse forms of this sickness in 2022 so it is soothing to see individuals like Johnson, Farage, Truss, Mogg and Patel subject to the only earthly justice that is available to us for all the problems their poor leadership has caused and that is some humour at their expense.

In a strange way the politicians whose subjugation to wealthy special interest groups and billionaire media moguls, should be thankful for the English tradition of taking the mick because I often wonder if their excellent work has protected these individual from societal anger which in other nations results in sometimes violent insurrection. Perhaps this is the answer to the mystery of why the Brits continue to tolerate a class system that was more at home in the dark ages than in the 21^st century.

This compilation of sketches parodies certain modern work environments where everyone competes for patronage from the alpha male that occupies some senior position in their company. As with so many workplaces, there is always the poor Declan who never can find a path into the in crowd no matter what juicy information titbit he brings his boss.

Armstrong and Miller in their comedy series often ran the same sketches for several weeks in a row developing the theme each time as this compilation demonstrates. However, this series of sketches has quite an amusing punchline to it which is the subject of next week's comedy post