Best Of

Am I the only person on PB who thinks Mrs Browns Boys can be moderately amusing at times?

Yes

Early series very funny.

Gone on 5 or 6 years too long.

Many series go on too long. Even the last series of Dads Army was pretty much a dud.

Knowing when to stop is hard. Fawlty towers has so few episodes but is probably better for it.

Especially given the career temptations to go on a bit too long.

The Yes, Minister story ended at just the right time (as long as one ignores the unfortunate revival, which one clearly should)... what else managed the trick?

Father Ted, Derry Girls, IT Crowd, Black Books. I guess it helps if you have another good idea to move onto. Cleese did some good films after Fawlty Towers, I think.

Blackadder, Dads Army, The Young Ones, Cheers (possibly), The Office (UK version), Butterflies...

Blackadder had its ups and downs. Only the second series is genuinely great. And the Young Ones is also quite inconsistent. Butterflies I don't really know.

I am in a tiny minority who liked the first series of blackadder the best . I like ridiculous characters and Brian blessed at king was it !

@jaylyall.bsky.social‬

Russia sending improved Geran-2 drones to Iran, along with intel and humanitarian aid designed to shore up regime. Also looks like they're delivering man-portable anti-aircraft Verba systems

https://bsky.app/profile/jaylyall.bsky.social/post/3mhw3gxqsts2i

This confuses The Donald.

Easier for him not to believe that it's happening I would guess. Is anyone in the administration going to make a big thing about it to force him to confront it? I would doubt it.

This is the sort of thing that makes decision-making so bad in an authoritarian state, and it's one reason why we should think of the US in those terms.

See also the daily "cool videos of explosions" breifing that the Donissimo gets each morning;

Each day since the start of the war in Iran, U.S. military officials compile a video update for President Donald Trump that shows video of the biggest, most successful strikes on Iranian targets over the previous 48 hours, three current U.S. officials and a former U.S. official said. The daily montage typically runs for about two minutes, sometimes longer, the officials said. One described each daily video as a series of clips of “stuff blowing up.”

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/trumps-daily-iran-video-briefing-fuels-concerns-hes-not-getting-a-full-picture-on-the-war/

Yes, I was thinking of that too. Trump is someone who doesn't want to be troubled by uncomfortable truth. We're in a situation where his best anchor on reality might be Fox News updates on the market reaction.

I think Trump's judgement is astonishingly bad, but he's also making decisions on the basis of bad information, because he's trained people to lie to him, to not give him bad news.

The obituary can't come soon enough.

Am I the only person on PB who thinks Mrs Browns Boys can be moderately amusing at times?

Yes

Early series very funny.

Gone on 5 or 6 years too long.

Many series go on too long. Even the last series of Dads Army was pretty much a dud.

Knowing when to stop is hard. Fawlty towers has so few episodes but is probably better for it.

Especially given the career temptations to go on a bit too long.

The Yes, Minister story ended at just the right time (as long as one ignores the unfortunate revival, which one clearly should)... what else managed the trick?

Father Ted, Derry Girls, IT Crowd, Black Books. I guess it helps if you have another good idea to move onto. Cleese did some good films after Fawlty Towers, I think.

Blackadder, Dads Army, The Young Ones, Cheers (possibly), The Office (UK version), Butterflies...

Blackadder had its ups and downs. Only the second series is genuinely great. And the Young Ones is also quite inconsistent. Butterflies I don't really know.

I am in a tiny minority who liked the first series of blackadder the best . I like ridiculous characters and Brian blessed at king was it !

The first episode of the first series was one of the greater half hours of comedy ever.

Excellent summary in my view of the strategic implications of the Iran War mainly from a US perspective.

https://acoup.blog/2026/03/25/miscellanea-the-war-in-iran/

That's a good article. It's the sort of thing Trump could have done with reading before he started this debacle.

I've just reached this bit. We appear to be completely fucked now.

That's not really true on any time horizon longer than about nine months.

If they blockaded the Straits, then the Gulf States would find ways to get oil and gas out via pipelines. It would be expensive, sure, but then this is the energy industry and we're mostly talking about empty desert.

(Gas would be harder, of course, because you would need to build new liquification terminals on the Red Sea and West of the Straits. But it's not impossible.)

Hard to protect a 1k+ Km pipeline when you can't even defend your refineries,

Can the world economy survive 9 months without Hormuz? I’d have thought you’d get a brutal depression if this lasts that long.

Am I the only person on PB who thinks Mrs Browns Boys can be moderately amusing at times?

Yes

Early series very funny.

Gone on 5 or 6 years too long.

Many series go on too long. Even the last series of Dads Army was pretty much a dud.

Knowing when to stop is hard. Fawlty towers has so few episodes but is probably better for it.

Especially given the career temptations to go on a bit too long.

The Yes, Minister story ended at just the right time (as long as one ignores the unfortunate revival, which one clearly should)... what else managed the trick?

Father Ted, Derry Girls, IT Crowd, Black Books. I guess it helps if you have another good idea to move onto. Cleese did some good films after Fawlty Towers, I think.

Derry Girls is one of the greatest shows of all time, and with only three series is a perfect length.

And Sister Michael is one of the greatest TV characters of all time.

Am I the only person on PB who thinks Mrs Browns Boys can be moderately amusing at times?

Yes

Early series very funny.

Gone on 5 or 6 years too long.

Many series go on too long. Even the last series of Dads Army was pretty much a dud.

Knowing when to stop is hard. Fawlty towers has so few episodes but is probably better for it.

Especially given the career temptations to go on a bit too long.

The Yes, Minister story ended at just the right time (as long as one ignores the unfortunate revival, which one clearly should)... what else managed the trick?

Father Ted, Derry Girls, IT Crowd, Black Books. I guess it helps if you have another good idea to move onto. Cleese did some good films after Fawlty Towers, I think.