Last week I posted a recurring sketch by Harry Enfield and Chums about a gormless upper class English character called Tim Nice-But-Dim. Yet parodying the upper class in Britain has always been part of British comedy and this next clip is a classic example taken from the comedy group Monty Python. Monty Python is a bit of an acquired taste and I can imagine that some will not enjoy this sketch although I think it gets better as the skit progresses.

I grew up in Australia and when I first moved to the UK just shy of 30 years ago I used to think that the Australian view of the British being in the grips of a class system was over-stated. Sadly however, I have come to realise the sad truth that the British class system, while being completely anachronistic for the 21^st century, is still very much alive and well. The most disturbing modern incarnation of it at present is the current Tory party under Alexander Boris Pfeffel Johnson who single-handedly has brought into sharp focus all that is wrong with a system that allows some of the most intellectually and, more importantly, morally challenged individuals into the heart of government where their actions make the majority of folk poorer and where horrendous policies are enacted to appeal to the darker demons of our nature including xenophobia and racism.

One Youtube comment under this clip which brought a wry smile to my face was the following It's interesting how as time passed, this marvellous sport has developed into something that the entire world gets pure entertainment value from and has been renamed to 'British Government'.

A common joke that does the round at medical school is: "What's the difference between God and a medical student?" Answer: "God doesn't think he is a medical student!". In many ways, this sketch reminds me of this joke although here Harry and Paul are capturing godlike properties of consultants along with their strange educated upper middle class foibles which is only really found inside the English class system.

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.

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

So here is my crazy take on the British as an Aussie immigrant, hahem, I mean expat living in England. This is my hypothesis that aims to explain everything British. The population is dominated by four phenotypes:

1. The Innovator
2. The Gossip
3. The Bad Manager
4. The Comedian

The innovators are incredible. The level of British genius at the top never ceases to amaze me and explains how the Brits were able to change the world through science and technology. A few favourites of mine are Sanger, Newton, Turing and Penrose. The gossips are those who either read the Daily Mail and take it seriously or write rags like the Daily Mail. They are important at making sure the manager phenotypes retain power.

The Bad managers are those that do real damage to Britain and sadly they don't just occupy councils, parliament and the lords, but they occupy pretty much every large business and organisation in Britain from the NHS to the Universities to the middle management of many MSEs and multinationals in the UK. I could write volumes on this lot but if you live in the UK, you only have to experience the omnishambles of the current Tory party to know what I mean. Yet I will point out two subtle symptoms of this group that some may have missed. If you were an innovator trying to write a three year research grant, the compulsory inclusion of a detailed 3 year Gantt chart, along with building some artificially large research consortium, are symptoms that the manager phenotypes have got control of your discipline.

The second characteristic is excessive accounting based on them projecting their own dishonesty onto the rest of the population. Yes we must make them spend hours filling in detailed financial reports on their grant expenditure every few months because, if we had that money, of course we would syphon it off for our own personal use. Braverman is an ugly specimen of this trait when she talks about cracking down on those at the bottom cheating the tax payer by claiming universal credit while she puts over £100k through on MP expenses.

And now we come to most interesting phenotype of all: the comedians. Britain produces by far the best comedians in the world and it is in times of deep political crisis that their work goes into overdrive. What the Managers don't realise is they owe as much to the comedian phenotype as they do to the gossip class because British comedy gives the suffering populous a safety valve to dissipate their anger and rage. Without the comedy phenotype, I think the Brits would be more like the French with much more violent protest to the current shitshow of manager phenotypes that have infested the Tory party. If you have read this far then you deserve a lovely taste of the British humour that is being generated at this bleak time in British politics.

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.

Well since it is the Christmas period, and as we begin 2023, I thought I would end of the Christmas season with the Morecambe and Wise Christmas show 1978. As a child the highlight of Christmas day was my parents putting on the TV at around 7 pm to watch the Morecambe and Wise Christmas special. Looking at it again all these years later, much of the humour is now very dated (although there are still some clever bits that will make you laugh) which raises the interesting idea of how even our comical taste is culturally influenced.

In many ways this is because the world has changed so completely since the 1970s and perhaps this is one of the most disorientating thing about living in the 21^st century. I often wonder if we could have performed an experiment in the 1970s, where we took humour from the 1930s and replayed it, whether it would look as dated as these sketches do now? I suspect not.

Happy new year!