Month 11 – Think Bensonium

Week 48: Flight Announcement, Saturday Night Live

Roderick Benson — Fri, 24 Feb 2023 00:00:57 +0000

If you’re a nervous flyer perhaps best not watch this sketch. Aircraft have definitely been a setting for many comical scenes over the years

Week 47: Northerner terrifies Londoners by saying “Hello”, The Mash Report

Roderick Benson — Fri, 17 Feb 2023 00:00:28 +0000

Time for another Mash Report sketch. This one is having a dig at Londoners in terms of their unfriendliness. The final line in the sketch however equalises the diss by having a laugh at Northerners who are subject to “Headbutting when cornered”.

Week 46: Enlightenment – The little flowers, Armstrong and Miller

Roderick Benson — Fri, 10 Feb 2023 00:00:07 +0000

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.

Week 45: Silly Money – Investment Bankers, Bird & Fortune

Roderick Benson — Fri, 03 Feb 2023 00:00:08 +0000

On the day I wrote this post, the UK was in utter political chaos. It is heart breaking the damage the current Conservative government has done to Britain through their corruption, incompetence and greed. Brexit has been the disaster that was predicted yet as with all major mistakes made by those in power, the most affected by their errors are the poor.

Sadly, however this has always been the reality of situation, and the 2007 banking crisis was another great demonstration of how those who cause the most damage to our society, face zero negative consequences while nonetheless being highly rewarded for their mistakes. In many ways, I think this is one of the biggest problems with modern Capitalism. It prides itself on the idea that the free market will be a good arbiter of judging success and failure yet in reality, we often find that those who do offer the most benefit to society are not rewarded even with a liveable wage while those who cause the most damage (and this includes CEOs who destroy individual companies) are almost never held to account. Sadly, those who try to raise this objection are often dismissed as simply being too left-wing when in fact this critique has no bearing on one’s view of how socialistic a society should be.

Returning to the comedy at hand, Bird and Fortune were too rather elderly Gentleman who produced a cracking series in the naughties critiquing the obvious political shenanigans that plagued the globe around the time of the financial crisis of 2007/8 and the war on terrorism that preceded it. Sadly John Fortune passed away on New Year’s eve of 2013 aged 74 while John Bird passed away only recently on Christmas Eve of 2022 aged 86. RIP John F & John B.