There is an interesting back story to this character which I discovered when I saw an interview with the great Ian Hislop of Private Eye and Have I got News for you fame. The wikipedia entry for Harry Enfield and Chums states the following under the subheading Tim Nice-but-Dim Esq.

The character was initially created by Ian Hislop and Nick Newman, who are both Old Ardinians. They wrote the character as an antidote to contemporary portrayals of ex-public schoolboys as sharp-minded, high-achieving young men, and instead chose to base the character on former school contemporaries who had plenty of money and good manners but were light of intellect. Tim's catchphrase is "What an absolutely, thoroughly, bloody nice bloke!" A notable scene was him going to the school reunion of another school.

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.

Today I was listening to James OBrien and a 97 year old caller rang in to say that he feels the UK government under Johnson is the worst it has ever been in his long lifetime. Given this government is constantly trying to gaslight its electorate, by telling us that Johnson got all the big calls right in relation to Covid-19, Brexit and the war in Ukraine, it seems this sketch by Harry Enfield is entirely appropriate even though the heart of the sketch suggests that in the past the media gave the government an easy time in terms of holding it to account.

Sadly those days appear to have returned with a vengeance given the pressure this current Conservative government is putting on organisations like the BBC and channel 4 and the revolving door between Parliament and the client journalists that supply ministers to top government positions.

I think one of the funniest comedy series made in the teens of the 21^st was the IT crowd. The concept of the series is based around the IT department of a big multinational (Reynholme industries) that produces a product that is never revealed (part of the comical concept of the whole series). The IT department consists of two geeky guys: a classical geek (Moss) and a more subtle geek (Roy) who boasts to his boss Jen in the final episode of the whole series that his girlfriend thinks he is on the "emotional artistic spectrum". In some episodes (including this one) a goth called Richmond, who lives in the Server room, also puts in an appearance just to add to fun.

The series in general was brilliant but like all series, there were some episodes that were particularly funny. This clip is taken from the first episode of season 2 where Moss and Roy gate crash a date with their boss Jen who taken to the theatre by a bloke she hopes will be her next love interest. Unfortunately for her, he is gay and the musical he takes them to is not what one would describe as "mainstream". Yet given this is Moss's very first time at the theatre, he is very impressed, although, unbeknown to him and Roy, things are going to get interesting as the episode unfolds with Roy having to fake he is disabled and Moss ending up working behind the drinks counter and causing utter mayhem. All crazy stuff that generates a ton of very funny comedy. The clip below is the beginning of this very funny episode.

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.

A nice little thematic compilation of sketches by Armstrong and Miller exploring the age old dynamics (fluid or turbulent?) of couples. Some quite funny punch lines in this set.

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.