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.

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.

So I guess this strictly isn't comedy although it certainly contains very funny elements. I must confess I am mentally exhausted living in a world where wicked people always get away with it and seemingly never face the consequences of their many crimes. I think for me the last few years in Britain has been really tough as I have witness an extremist faction of the Tory party (the European Research Group) get control of the party and through their stooge Boris Johnson, completely reek havoc on the UK economy by taking Britain out of the European Union trading bloc while allowing a man like Johnson, who does not have a honest bone in his body, lie his way through his premiership. The harsh consequences for the country has been the highest death toll in Europe from Covid-19, a National Health Service in complete meltdown, sustained double digit inflation, a severe cost of living crisis that the government is not even pretending to deal with, and finally a political campaign to find Johnson's replacement fought by too completely incompetent non-entities who should not have a job cleaning toilets let alone running the UK as the next PM.

Anyway, in this video you will see how Kitboger strings along a professional scammer, who normally preys on poor old ladies and gentlemen, to waste 5 hours of his day and give him the complete run-around as he thinks he has an easy target on which to ply his trade. The sense of schadenfreude in is strong in this video.

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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.

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.

Time for another sketch from Armstrong and Miller. In their comedy series, they developed thematic sketches and one of their themes was the hapless educational historian who examines "priceless" historical artefacts only to accidentally destroy them through some odd mishap. A very simple but effective comedic theme.

One of my favourite shows on TV in the 80s was Alas Smith and Jones. Thankfully I also had the pleasure of seeing them in concert when they toured Australia. This sketch goes all the way back to when the Channel Tunnel was under construction and is a classic dig at two particular weaknesses in English culture: 1) poor upper management and 2) terrible workmanship. Sadly if you spend any time living in the UK you will experience both. While there are great trades people in the UK they are sadly not in the majority. Rather a sizeable number are absolute cowboys who do terrible work if they ever complete it in the first place.

Likewise the standard of British management in my experience can also be pretty poor. I have now worked in universities and for both small and large companies and for some mysterious reason the more dysfunctional and incompetent a person is the more likely it seems that they will end up rising to a very senior position. I guess this phenomenon is so common that academics have even tried to give it a name. The Peter Principle was first proposed in 1969 in a semi-satirical book by Laurence Peter and Raymond Hull and was actually based on Peter's research into the operations of hierarchical organizations. Yet I think the modified version of this principle, first proposed by the author of the Dilbert cartoons (Scott Adams) is even closer to the truth. The Peter principle states that individuals in an organisation are promoted to the point where they reach a level of incompetence that prevents them from being promoted further while the Dilbert principle goes one step further stating that individuals are promoted because of their incompetence.