Reports today that Borisozo's new column hasn't been cleared with the Acoba panel on ex-politicians and civil servants.
It might cover the period up to September 2024, which would be amusing if the Mail is hoping to revive the Boris faction's fortunes by then.
Surely that's not remotely what the Acoba panel is supposed to pronounce on. An elected politician doing things to maintain a public profile is completely normal.
Comedy doesn't always age terribly well. I thought the Two Ronnies was funny in the 80s, but watching reruns it doesn't really work as well. No criticism of them - they are both funny men - but the material we find funny changes. I don't know why that should be so, but it does. It's not even that different generations find different things funny: things which are funny then are often just not funny now. Nothing to do with woke - just our collective tastes change. I guess something to do with humour being a defying of expectations; if you know the sort of thing to expect, maybe that takes away some of the humour. I still find them enjoyably clever sometimes, though (which is almost, but not quite, the same thing), like the Mastermind 'answering the previous question' specialist subject. And I find Ronnie Corbett's monologues funnier now than I did then. Monty Python, OTOH, I think has aged very well indeed and is almost as good now as it was back then.
Dad’s Army is still good. (I think, I haven’t seen an episode in about 20 years).
I saw an episode of It Ain’t Half Hot Mum about ten years ago and I thought it was actually pretty good, all things considered.
Sitcoms date OK, the good ones anyway.
Thinking about it, you're right - some sitcoms date rather better. I can confirm that Dad's Army is still good (indeed, weirdly, I'd say it's better now than it was 30 years ago. Perhaps the humour has passed through being slightly dated, if it ever was, and come through as antique.) I would also add Whatever Happened To The Likely Lads (though it's predecessor, from the 60s 'The Likely Lads' has aged terribly - it feels like the writers were terrified of letting 20 seconds go by without a joke, with the result that none of them are any good; there is no space whatsoever in the script). Also Porridge. Also Allo Allo, I think. There are a lot which have aged terribly mind (or perhaps weren't very good in the first place).
Even when sitcoms aren't uproariously funny any more, they provide a fascinating bit of social history. I got quite absorbed a year or two back by 'I Didn't Know You Cared' - a fascinating picture of 1970s Sheffield; not for the bits you were necessarily expected to laugh at, but at the background situations you were expected to take as read. Similarly, 'Chance in a Million' from the 80s (which is also genuinely still funny).
The first couple of seasons of HI-de-Hi with Simon Cadell are also massively underrated (the later seasons are total trash). I think Allo Allo follows the same pattern.
Allo Allo just went on too long. Interesting comment in the Blackadder programme last night about why there was no fifth series - it was too avoid just going through the motions. I think its clear that Allo Allo traded on that after the first few series. Its good to have catchphrases, but just catchphrases ain't enough...
The first few series of Allo Allo are some of the funniest telly I’ve seen. Absolutely brilliant. But yes, it doesn’t half fall off a cliff after that.
It is now looking like a mirror image of the 1997 by election when Labour had an even bigger poll lead and expected to win the seat off the Tories in the July 1997 Uxbridge by election easily.
Yet they rather complacently picked the Leader of Hammersmith council (now Hammersmith MP) Andrew Slaughter as they have now picked a Camden councillor to fight next month's by election. The Conservatives however picked a local furniture store owner who knew the area well and was Chairman of the Conservative Association, John Randall and Randall held the seat against the odds.
Last night the Tories picked a local Hillingdon councillor who was born and raised in the area and still lives in the Uxbridge and South Ruislip area and who will push opposition to the ULEZ expansion hard. Rishi will also appeal to the large Uxbridge Hindu vote.
Selby I think will be a narrow Tory hold but with a swing to Labour about the national average. Mid Beds seems to be postponed as Dorries has not resigned her seat yet
How do you think the Hindu vote will come into play in Uxbridge, HYUFD?
As Uxbridge is almost 10% Hindu, while the UK is only 1.6% Hindu
India is 80% Hindu. Only 37% of Indians voted BJP in 2019!
Comedy doesn't always age terribly well. I thought the Two Ronnies was funny in the 80s, but watching reruns it doesn't really work as well. No criticism of them - they are both funny men - but the material we find funny changes. I don't know why that should be so, but it does. It's not even that different generations find different things funny: things which are funny then are often just not funny now. Nothing to do with woke - just our collective tastes change. I guess something to do with humour being a defying of expectations; if you know the sort of thing to expect, maybe that takes away some of the humour. I still find them enjoyably clever sometimes, though (which is almost, but not quite, the same thing), like the Mastermind 'answering the previous question' specialist subject. And I find Ronnie Corbett's monologues funnier now than I did then. Monty Python, OTOH, I think has aged very well indeed and is almost as good now as it was back then.
I think that they both have the same flaws. Some truly brilliant sketches and a lot of very forgettable dross. Pretty much all humour is like this. The better series just have a better ratio. I thought Not the Nine o’clock news was better than most.
Maybe it's a problem with the sketch show format requiring too much material. Early French and Saunders was very good, but ran out of steam around the 3rd or 4th series.
Comedy doesn't always age terribly well. I thought the Two Ronnies was funny in the 80s, but watching reruns it doesn't really work as well. No criticism of them - they are both funny men - but the material we find funny changes. I don't know why that should be so, but it does. It's not even that different generations find different things funny: things which are funny then are often just not funny now. Nothing to do with woke - just our collective tastes change. I guess something to do with humour being a defying of expectations; if you know the sort of thing to expect, maybe that takes away some of the humour. I still find them enjoyably clever sometimes, though (which is almost, but not quite, the same thing), like the Mastermind 'answering the previous question' specialist subject. And I find Ronnie Corbett's monologues funnier now than I did then. Monty Python, OTOH, I think has aged very well indeed and is almost as good now as it was back then.
Dad’s Army is still good. (I think, I haven’t seen an episode in about 20 years).
I saw an episode of It Ain’t Half Hot Mum about ten years ago and I thought it was actually pretty good, all things considered.
Sitcoms date OK, the good ones anyway.
Thinking about it, you're right - some sitcoms date rather better. I can confirm that Dad's Army is still good (indeed, weirdly, I'd say it's better now than it was 30 years ago. Perhaps the humour has passed through being slightly dated, if it ever was, and come through as antique.) I would also add Whatever Happened To The Likely Lads (though it's predecessor, from the 60s 'The Likely Lads' has aged terribly - it feels like the writers were terrified of letting 20 seconds go by without a joke, with the result that none of them are any good; there is no space whatsoever in the script). Also Porridge. Also Allo Allo, I think. There are a lot which have aged terribly mind (or perhaps weren't very good in the first place).
Even when sitcoms aren't uproariously funny any more, they provide a fascinating bit of social history. I got quite absorbed a year or two back by 'I Didn't Know You Cared' - a fascinating picture of 1970s Sheffield; not for the bits you were necessarily expected to laugh at, but at the background situations you were expected to take as read. Similarly, 'Chance in a Million' from the 80s (which is also genuinely still funny).
The first couple of seasons of HI-de-Hi with Simon Cadell are also massively underrated (the later seasons are total trash). I think Allo Allo follows the same pattern.
Allo' Allo' just went on too long. Interesting comment in the Blackadder programme last night about why there was no fitf
Why was Blackadder series 1 rubbish compared to all the others?
Great question. It suffers from what came after, with the characters set up (Blackadder caustic wit, sardonic, embattled, Balrdick - utterly stupid but happy with his lot, Percy - also stupid and happy enough with his lot), external idiots who have power over Blackadder. In isolation the first series is actually ok, but its probably too ambitious (too many in the cast etc) The best sit coms are claustrophobic. (Literally so in the Blackadder 4, and in Porridge) but also by the lead being trapped in the situation (obvious, I know) such as Victor Meldrew, unemployed but too old to get a new job, or at least one that doesn't drive him mad, Fawlty running a hotel when he hates guests.
It also didn't have Ben Elton on the writing team. That may be significant.
I look forward to Boris Johnson doing for the Daily Mail what he did for the Conservative Party
You will likely be disappointed. A newspaper columnist is where he excels. Not too fussed about the facts, or details, or repercussions of what he does (it will no doubt all be checked by lawyers and even if they are sued for something he writes it's great publicity) and he can certainly write and write entertainingly.
A bit like Jeremy Clarkson who people adore in print (and now in real life, thanks to Clarkson's Farm).
Boris really does have the world at his feet right now.
In time he will become, in his own eyes and perhaps the history books too, the PM who got Britain out of the EU in the face of fierce opposition, and guided the country through the pandemic. Albeit hugely flawed but then which great man isn't flawed?
Yes yes, he's a great man. Now take your chlorpromazine.
He is certainly a great man. One manifestly unfit to run the country but great nevertheless. I'm not unhappy with that description.
"Chlorpromazine is an antipsychotic medication that can be used to treat anxiety, mania, psychosis and schizophrenia." - I have none of those conditions, although I suppose I would say that if I had any or all of them.
He's a sexually incontinent pest who has lied and bullshitted his way through organisations and innocent lives, wreaking destruction and real personal misery everywhere he's gone. E-V-E-R-Y-W-H-E-R-E. He entertains then seduces then shits on the floor. As Eddie Mair so memorably said he's a nasty piece of work.
As a blagger and a schemer, he's clearly very skilled indeed. You don't get where he's gotten without some objectively verifiable ability. But being a political conman doesn't make you a "great man". It just makes you a political conman.
"political conman" is a nonsense term.
Like all politicians he is voted in by the public (and by the people who the public voted in) and then makes as good a fist of it all as he can or wants. He was useless at actually governing as you and I foretold but that doesn't mean he didn't appeal to people for perfectly legitimate reasons and some will never condemn him because of some of the things he did. Such is politics.
He was also PM during two epochally important events and for better or worse was the one in charge making decisions. That I believe qualifies him as great.
As for being a nasty piece of work I couldn't care less.
"Do you have 'How to resign with grace and dignity' by Nadine Dorries?"
The cultural longevity of that ad is astonishing. Maybe the most memorable UK TV advertisement of all time?
I think the Hovis ad is the one that regularly tops the polls. Interesting in what it says about the nation's cultural psyche, harking back to a bygone era, romanticised nostalgia for a simpler past... villages, thatched roof cottages etc.
I always assumed it was in Yorkshire for some reason. Its also an artful con - the views from almost anywhere else on that hill are nothing like!
The cobbled main street through Haworth is not entirely dissimilar.
I look forward to Boris Johnson doing for the Daily Mail what he did for the Conservative Party
You will likely be disappointed. A newspaper columnist is where he excels. Not too fussed about the facts, or details, or repercussions of what he does (it will no doubt all be checked by lawyers and even if they are sued for something he writes it's great publicity) and he can certainly write and write entertainingly.
A bit like Jeremy Clarkson who people adore in print (and now in real life, thanks to Clarkson's Farm).
Boris really does have the world at his feet right now.
In time he will become, in his own eyes and perhaps the history books too, the PM who got Britain out of the EU in the face of fierce opposition, and guided the country through the pandemic. Albeit hugely flawed but then which great man isn't flawed?
Yes yes, he's a great man. Now take your chlorpromazine.
He is certainly a great man. One manifestly unfit to run the country but great nevertheless. I'm not unhappy with that description.
"Chlorpromazine is an antipsychotic medication that can be used to treat anxiety, mania, psychosis and schizophrenia." - I have none of those conditions, although I suppose I would say that if I had any or all of them.
Although we tend to limit 'great' to people who albeit flawed (which just means human) use their talents for something other than self-promotion.
If we're talking very funny, and underrated sitcoms then Superstore is one of the funniest and also one of the most underrated. Schitt's Creek is a slow burner but turns up the heat and is fantastic especially from S2-3 onwards, while Modern Family starts off brilliantly and by S7-8 the cast is phoning it in.
Comedy doesn't always age terribly well. I thought the Two Ronnies was funny in the 80s, but watching reruns it doesn't really work as well. No criticism of them - they are both funny men - but the material we find funny changes. I don't know why that should be so, but it does. It's not even that different generations find different things funny: things which are funny then are often just not funny now. Nothing to do with woke - just our collective tastes change. I guess something to do with humour being a defying of expectations; if you know the sort of thing to expect, maybe that takes away some of the humour. I still find them enjoyably clever sometimes, though (which is almost, but not quite, the same thing), like the Mastermind 'answering the previous question' specialist subject. And I find Ronnie Corbett's monologues funnier now than I did then. Monty Python, OTOH, I think has aged very well indeed and is almost as good now as it was back then.
Dad’s Army is still good. (I think, I haven’t seen an episode in about 20 years).
I saw an episode of It Ain’t Half Hot Mum about ten years ago and I thought it was actually pretty good, all things considered.
Sitcoms date OK, the good ones anyway.
It's just as well since they don't seem to be making them any more.
One of the best ever, Curb Your Enthusiasm, still gets made. So does The Simpsons.
The first ten seasons or so of The Simpsons are great. Afterwards it's becomes terrible.
Although it took a good three series to get going.
That still leaves seven series when it was possibly funnier than anything else on telly. That's pretty remarkable, even if there was subsequently quite a long tail.
I know it is now seen as unwoke for many legitimate reasons but I think Friends was consistently funny for its entire 10 season run. Fantastic writing and not a few poignant narrative arcs. I happen to disagree with @BartholomewRoberts about the lesbian element as yes it was a gag at times but they were shown throughout as the smart, sensible ones in the face of Ross' mania.
I agree with you there.
My point about it being dated is more how things have changed, you wouldn't see it being such a gag nowadays. Its wasn't cruel, so its stood up well.
Where it was more cruel and has dated less well is with the treatment of Chandler's dad. Although that's a much smaller storyline and by the time they introduce him physically they handle it better.
Comedy doesn't always age terribly well. I thought the Two Ronnies was funny in the 80s, but watching reruns it doesn't really work as well. No criticism of them - they are both funny men - but the material we find funny changes. I don't know why that should be so, but it does. It's not even that different generations find different things funny: things which are funny then are often just not funny now. Nothing to do with woke - just our collective tastes change. I guess something to do with humour being a defying of expectations; if you know the sort of thing to expect, maybe that takes away some of the humour. I still find them enjoyably clever sometimes, though (which is almost, but not quite, the same thing), like the Mastermind 'answering the previous question' specialist subject. And I find Ronnie Corbett's monologues funnier now than I did then. Monty Python, OTOH, I think has aged very well indeed and is almost as good now as it was back then.
Dad’s Army is still good. (I think, I haven’t seen an episode in about 20 years).
I saw an episode of It Ain’t Half Hot Mum about ten years ago and I thought it was actually pretty good, all things considered.
Sitcoms date OK, the good ones anyway.
It's just as well since they don't seem to be making them any more.
One of the best ever, Curb Your Enthusiasm, still gets made. So does The Simpsons.
The first ten seasons or so of The Simpsons are great. Afterwards it's becomes terrible.
Although it took a good three series to get going.
That still leaves seven series when it was possibly funnier than anything else on telly. That's pretty remarkable, even if there was subsequently quite a long tail.
I know it is now seen as unwoke for many legitimate reasons but I think Friends was consistently funny for its entire 10 season run. Fantastic writing and not a few poignant narrative arcs. I happen to disagree with @BartholomewRoberts about the lesbian element as yes it was a gag at times but they were shown throughout as the smart, sensible ones in the face of Ross' mania.
I would laugh at Friends, but it was the laughter of an irritated man. It was very American - shiny characters living implausibly shiny lives. Which is different to Father Ted*, rather than wrong per se, but still set me up to resent it. And I always saw it as something of a girls' sitcom. Again, not wrong to have girls' sitcoms, but didn't put me in the mood to enjoy it. And of the six main characters, three were highly irritating (the female ones). I know they were meant to be, but it didn't predispose you to spend 30 minutes with them. And yet - if despite all of that I found myself in front of it, I would have to concede it was very funny. The writing was consistently excellent. Just about every joke landed. The acting was excellent. It was very good indeed. It's very strange that it should be seen as unwoke, because in its day it felt very modern in content and tone (which probably also predisposed me to be irritated by it).
*Father Ted! Why hasn't this been mentioned. My nomination for the funniest sitcom ever. I wonder, if Dermot Morgan had lived, whether the writers would have brought it to a satisfying narrative conclusion in the way that some other classics managed?
Last time Labour was below 40% in the polls was a 39% by Kantar Public with polling from 22-26 September 2022 - just before the effects of the September Fiscal Event were felt.
That Kantar poll had the Conservatives on 35%. The only time since then the Conservatives have been higher than 32% is 35% with Deltapoll with polling 17-20 March - a clear statistical outlier.
The Lib Dems have not been higher than 13% since September 2022 apart from 16% with Deltapoll with polling on 7 May just after the locals and again likely to be a statistical outlier.
Polling after the May local elections Conservatives are in the range 24-31, Labour 41-51, Lib Dems 9-13 (16).
No Tory poll leads for 18 months and 10 days (6th December 2021, Redfield).
I look forward to Boris Johnson doing for the Daily Mail what he did for the Conservative Party
You will likely be disappointed. A newspaper columnist is where he excels. Not too fussed about the facts, or details, or repercussions of what he does (it will no doubt all be checked by lawyers and even if they are sued for something he writes it's great publicity) and he can certainly write and write entertainingly.
A bit like Jeremy Clarkson who people adore in print (and now in real life, thanks to Clarkson's Farm).
Boris really does have the world at his feet right now.
In time he will become, in his own eyes and perhaps the history books too, the PM who got Britain out of the EU in the face of fierce opposition, and guided the country through the pandemic. Albeit hugely flawed but then which great man isn't flawed?
Yes yes, he's a great man. Now take your chlorpromazine.
He is certainly a great man. One manifestly unfit to run the country but great nevertheless. I'm not unhappy with that description.
"Chlorpromazine is an antipsychotic medication that can be used to treat anxiety, mania, psychosis and schizophrenia." - I have none of those conditions, although I suppose I would say that if I had any or all of them.
Although we tend to limit 'great' to people who albeit flawed (which just means human) use their talents for something other than self-promotion.
I have been debating with myself (oh, and @Farooq). He got Brexit done. And was in charge during the pandemic where he probably, like Mao, got seven things right for every three wrong.
Now he did all this having become PM as a result of naked self-interest, ambition and solipsism, undoubtedly. And he was manifestly unfit to be PM but then people also adored him, precisely for being PM.
So if you put all that in a pot and stir it does that = great? I think it probably does.
Davey wants to bail out both people who can't afford their mortgages and renters.
Apart from the obvious question of where will the money come from, the Guardian hits the nail on the head with its two questions:
"But this would be regressive – people who don’t own homes shouldn’t support those who do? It would heat up demand, when the Bank of England is trying to cool it, and aren’t there better uses of public money? Plus, lax monetary policy has helped people who own assets…"
"You’re proposing spending £3bn to help people who borrowed to buy homes, when many people can’t afford to, and younger people are looking forward to a housing crash so they can get onto the housing latter. What does that say about your priorities?"
Davey really is absolutely shameless - literally just trying to buy votes by offering to hand money out to people.
Surely we've handed enough money out to enough people in the last few years. Let's get a grip and return to reality - and if we do it will actually be in everyone's interests.
Sitcoms I liked were Steptoe and Son, Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads, Blackadder, Fawlty Towers, Rising Damp, It Ain't Half Hot Mum, Dad's Army, Porridge, Outside Edge, Ever Decreasing Circles, One Foot in the Grave, and League of Gentlemen.
I think Outnumbered is underrated as a Sitcom. Friends and early Simpsons are nostalgic favourites.
Outnumbered was good until the kids got too old.
A lot of sitcoms with kids have that problem, Two and a Half Men was quite similar. Started off great, went rather weak by the time the half man was becoming fully grown and finished bizarrely without either the star or the child who had both left.
Off topic, but these persistent errors of prediction may interest you, as they do me: "In May, once again, the U.S. economy trounced Wall Street forecasts. The nation’s employers added 339,000 jobs, much higher than predicted. This marks 13 out of the past 14 months that the U.S. job market has beaten expectations." source$: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/06/02/jobs-boom-immigrants-women/
(For the record: I am not a Wall Street analyst, but this jobs record has surprised me, too. I was expecting a slowdown even before the Fed started raising interest rates.)
Comedy doesn't always age terribly well. I thought the Two Ronnies was funny in the 80s, but watching reruns it doesn't really work as well. No criticism of them - they are both funny men - but the material we find funny changes. I don't know why that should be so, but it does. It's not even that different generations find different things funny: things which are funny then are often just not funny now. Nothing to do with woke - just our collective tastes change. I guess something to do with humour being a defying of expectations; if you know the sort of thing to expect, maybe that takes away some of the humour. I still find them enjoyably clever sometimes, though (which is almost, but not quite, the same thing), like the Mastermind 'answering the previous question' specialist subject. And I find Ronnie Corbett's monologues funnier now than I did then. Monty Python, OTOH, I think has aged very well indeed and is almost as good now as it was back then.
I think that they both have the same flaws. Some truly brilliant sketches and a lot of very forgettable dross. Pretty much all humour is like this. The better series just have a better ratio. I thought Not the Nine o’clock news was better than most.
Maybe it's a problem with the sketch show format requiring too much material. Early French and Saunders was very good, but ran out of steam around the 3rd or 4th series.
My favourite sketch show was the ITV(!) sketch show 'The Sketch Show' with Lee Mack, Tim Vine, possibly Ronnie Ancona and/or Karen Taylor and maybe one or two others. That was consistently brilliant. But, I think, only ran for two series - not enough time to run out of material.
"Do you have 'How to resign with grace and dignity' by Nadine Dorries?"
The cultural longevity of that ad is astonishing. Maybe the most memorable UK TV advertisement of all time?
I think the Hovis ad is the one that regularly tops the polls. Interesting in what it says about the nation's cultural psyche, harking back to a bygone era, romanticised nostalgia for a simpler past... villages, thatched roof cottages etc.
I always assumed it was in Yorkshire for some reason. Its also an artful con - the views from almost anywhere else on that hill are nothing like!
The cobbled main street through Haworth is not entirely dissimilar.
If I was asked, until I read this thread I would've said it was filmed in Haworth.
Comedy doesn't always age terribly well. I thought the Two Ronnies was funny in the 80s, but watching reruns it doesn't really work as well. No criticism of them - they are both funny men - but the material we find funny changes. I don't know why that should be so, but it does. It's not even that different generations find different things funny: things which are funny then are often just not funny now. Nothing to do with woke - just our collective tastes change. I guess something to do with humour being a defying of expectations; if you know the sort of thing to expect, maybe that takes away some of the humour. I still find them enjoyably clever sometimes, though (which is almost, but not quite, the same thing), like the Mastermind 'answering the previous question' specialist subject. And I find Ronnie Corbett's monologues funnier now than I did then. Monty Python, OTOH, I think has aged very well indeed and is almost as good now as it was back then.
Dad’s Army is still good. (I think, I haven’t seen an episode in about 20 years).
I saw an episode of It Ain’t Half Hot Mum about ten years ago and I thought it was actually pretty good, all things considered.
Sitcoms date OK, the good ones anyway.
It Ain't Half Hot Mum isn't as bad as Curry & Chips. My god that was...something else
Sitcoms set in history hold up very well. Dad's Army is gentle humour, with affection for all of the cast. In real life you should hate the spiv, but here he's likeable. Mainwaring is a figure of fun, pompous, just assumes he should be in charge, but utterly brave and wants to do his duty. I have no doubt he would have given his life if required.
In recent times Upstart Crow has mined the same period as Blackadder 2, but in a very different way. Blackadder could be a lot more cruel, whereas Upstart Crow rarely is. And Upstart Crow has had pathos too, with the death of the son.
Oh thanks - introduce a new TV series that we should watch then kill it dead by giving us spoilers.
In my defence the series started in 2016 and the son died oi 2020, so there is a point at which spoilers are fair game...
No they aren't if you are putting forward the series as a good one to watch. I'd never heard of it before.
Meanwhile, he walks in, sees her dead so poisons himself. She then wakes up, sees him dead and stabs herself to death.
So now we're even.
Bit grim for a sitcom. Maybe there's more to Mrs Brown's Boys than I thought ?
Comedy doesn't always age terribly well. I thought the Two Ronnies was funny in the 80s, but watching reruns it doesn't really work as well. No criticism of them - they are both funny men - but the material we find funny changes. I don't know why that should be so, but it does. It's not even that different generations find different things funny: things which are funny then are often just not funny now. Nothing to do with woke - just our collective tastes change. I guess something to do with humour being a defying of expectations; if you know the sort of thing to expect, maybe that takes away some of the humour. I still find them enjoyably clever sometimes, though (which is almost, but not quite, the same thing), like the Mastermind 'answering the previous question' specialist subject. And I find Ronnie Corbett's monologues funnier now than I did then. Monty Python, OTOH, I think has aged very well indeed and is almost as good now as it was back then.
Dad’s Army is still good. (I think, I haven’t seen an episode in about 20 years).
I saw an episode of It Ain’t Half Hot Mum about ten years ago and I thought it was actually pretty good, all things considered.
Sitcoms date OK, the good ones anyway.
Thinking about it, you're right - some sitcoms date rather better. I can confirm that Dad's Army is still good (indeed, weirdly, I'd say it's better now than it was 30 years ago. Perhaps the humour has passed through being slightly dated, if it ever was, and come through as antique.) I would also add Whatever Happened To The Likely Lads (though it's predecessor, from the 60s 'The Likely Lads' has aged terribly - it feels like the writers were terrified of letting 20 seconds go by without a joke, with the result that none of them are any good; there is no space whatsoever in the script). Also Porridge. Also Allo Allo, I think. There are a lot which have aged terribly mind (or perhaps weren't very good in the first place).
Even when sitcoms aren't uproariously funny any more, they provide a fascinating bit of social history. I got quite absorbed a year or two back by 'I Didn't Know You Cared' - a fascinating picture of 1970s Sheffield; not for the bits you were necessarily expected to laugh at, but at the background situations you were expected to take as read. Similarly, 'Chance in a Million' from the 80s (which is also genuinely still funny).
Comedy doesn't always age terribly well. I thought the Two Ronnies was funny in the 80s, but watching reruns it doesn't really work as well. No criticism of them - they are both funny men - but the material we find funny changes. I don't know why that should be so, but it does. It's not even that different generations find different things funny: things which are funny then are often just not funny now. Nothing to do with woke - just our collective tastes change. I guess something to do with humour being a defying of expectations; if you know the sort of thing to expect, maybe that takes away some of the humour. I still find them enjoyably clever sometimes, though (which is almost, but not quite, the same thing), like the Mastermind 'answering the previous question' specialist subject. And I find Ronnie Corbett's monologues funnier now than I did then. Monty Python, OTOH, I think has aged very well indeed and is almost as good now as it was back then.
Dad’s Army is still good. (I think, I haven’t seen an episode in about 20 years).
I saw an episode of It Ain’t Half Hot Mum about ten years ago and I thought it was actually pretty good, all things considered.
Sitcoms date OK, the good ones anyway.
Thinking about it, you're right - some sitcoms date rather better. I can confirm that Dad's Army is still good (indeed, weirdly, I'd say it's better now than it was 30 years ago. Perhaps the humour has passed through being slightly dated, if it ever was, and come through as antique.) I would also add Whatever Happened To The Likely Lads (though it's predecessor, from the 60s 'The Likely Lads' has aged terribly - it feels like the writers were terrified of letting 20 seconds go by without a joke, with the result that none of them are any good; there is no space whatsoever in the script). Also Porridge. Also Allo Allo, I think. There are a lot which have aged terribly mind (or perhaps weren't very good in the first place).
Even when sitcoms aren't uproariously funny any more, they provide a fascinating bit of social history. I got quite absorbed a year or two back by 'I Didn't Know You Cared' - a fascinating picture of 1970s Sheffield; not for the bits you were necessarily expected to laugh at, but at the background situations you were expected to take as read. Similarly, 'Chance in a Million' from the 80s (which is also genuinely still funny).
Butterflies with Wendy Craig. There was more to that than first met the eye.
I find it almost too bitter sweet to bear. But then I often left the room when Basil was in full flow because I was just embarrassed for him. Geoffrey Palmer was immense.
The 4 leads were all great in it. It's was an edgy show pretending to be banal. The opposite is far more common.
I think Outnumbered is underrated as a Sitcom. Friends and early Simpsons are nostalgic favourites.
Outnumbered was good until the kids got too old.
A lot of sitcoms with kids have that problem, Two and a Half Men was quite similar. Started off great, went rather weak by the time the half man was becoming fully grown and finished bizarrely without either the star or the child who had both left.
Wasn't it that first off with Outnumbered they had someone off-screen saying the words which the children would repeat immediately and which gave it that ingenuous charm. I think as they grew older and began to "act" it got less funny.
Davey wants to bail out both people who can't afford their mortgages and renters.
Apart from the obvious question of where will the money come from, the Guardian hits the nail on the head with its two questions:
"But this would be regressive – people who don’t own homes shouldn’t support those who do? It would heat up demand, when the Bank of England is trying to cool it, and aren’t there better uses of public money? Plus, lax monetary policy has helped people who own assets…"
"You’re proposing spending £3bn to help people who borrowed to buy homes, when many people can’t afford to, and younger people are looking forward to a housing crash so they can get onto the housing latter. What does that say about your priorities?"
Davey really is absolutely shameless - literally just trying to buy votes by offering to hand money out to people.
Surely we've handed enough money out to enough people in the last few years. Let's get a grip and return to reality - and if we do it will actually be in everyone's interests.
Davey isn't in government and knows the key to winning Tory bluewall seats is middle aged mortgage holders switching from Tory to LD even if outright ownership pensioners stay Tory
On the topic of sitcoms can I give a dishonourable mention to Hey Dad!
Not sure if that took off in the UK? It was massive downunder when I lived there, like many shows had the issue of kids ageing out of the story. It finished incredibly bizarrely by everyone getting presumed killed by an exploding VCR bomb. But more disturbing was that it later turned out that the eponymous dad of the show was portrayed by a paedophile who was abusing his on-screen daughters while the show was being filmed.
Can't imagine that show ever getting repeated on air anywhere anymore, no matter how it may have aged.
Does the reader care about that though? All the reader wants is to be entertained. And Boris columns are mostly entertaining.
It's silly to deny otherwise.
I am going to be very silly in that case, his writing is really not very good. I used to partake of the Telegraph when Johnson did the motoring reviews. The story goes that whether it was a Ford Focus or a Lamborghini Murcielago the mileages remained the same on both delivery and collection. So he didn't drive the vehicles he was reviewing, but then his narrative was nonsensical rubbish too.
Johnson the great writer must be something only poshos and white van men understand. I think the dreadful analogies, the spattering of foreign languages and the florid sentences are just tiresome.
Why was Blackadder series 1 rubbish compared to all the others?
It looks like the first series wasn't written by Ben Elton, only being Atkinson and Curtis. That might have something to do with it.
John Lloyd was saying yesterday about season one being cancelled after half the series “they said it looked a million dollars but it cost a million pounds and as the exchange rate was $2 to £1 it wasn’t a compliment.” It seems they tried to be too ambitious with extras, outdoor shoots and special effects so got Ben Elton in and changed it to be a studio comedy and much tighter plot and dialogue.
Why was Blackadder series 1 rubbish compared to all the others?
Second time around, I found Season 1 rather good, although the others are better.
The first episode of the first season is superb:
I don't even know where he was killed...I was completely on the opposite side of the field...I was nowhere near the cottage...not that there was a cottage...
Comedy doesn't always age terribly well. I thought the Two Ronnies was funny in the 80s, but watching reruns it doesn't really work as well. No criticism of them - they are both funny men - but the material we find funny changes. I don't know why that should be so, but it does. It's not even that different generations find different things funny: things which are funny then are often just not funny now. Nothing to do with woke - just our collective tastes change. I guess something to do with humour being a defying of expectations; if you know the sort of thing to expect, maybe that takes away some of the humour. I still find them enjoyably clever sometimes, though (which is almost, but not quite, the same thing), like the Mastermind 'answering the previous question' specialist subject. And I find Ronnie Corbett's monologues funnier now than I did then. Monty Python, OTOH, I think has aged very well indeed and is almost as good now as it was back then.
Dad’s Army is still good. (I think, I haven’t seen an episode in about 20 years).
I saw an episode of It Ain’t Half Hot Mum about ten years ago and I thought it was actually pretty good, all things considered.
Sitcoms date OK, the good ones anyway.
It's just as well since they don't seem to be making them any more.
One of the best ever, Curb Your Enthusiasm, still gets made. So does The Simpsons.
The first ten seasons or so of The Simpsons are great. Afterwards it's becomes terrible.
Although it took a good three series to get going.
That still leaves seven series when it was possibly funnier than anything else on telly. That's pretty remarkable, even if there was subsequently quite a long tail.
I know it is now seen as unwoke for many legitimate reasons but I think Friends was consistently funny for its entire 10 season run. Fantastic writing and not a few poignant narrative arcs. I happen to disagree with @BartholomewRoberts about the lesbian element as yes it was a gag at times but they were shown throughout as the smart, sensible ones in the face of Ross' mania.
I agree with you there.
My point about it being dated is more how things have changed, you wouldn't see it being such a gag nowadays. Its wasn't cruel, so its stood up well.
Where it was more cruel and has dated less well is with the treatment of Chandler's dad. Although that's a much smaller storyline and by the time they introduce him physically they handle it better.
The fatshaming is problematical to a contemporary mindset.
Mrs. Brown's Boys emerged from the anus of the devil.
Still most popular sitcom in Ireland and made its lead star very rich
I quite like Mrs. Brown's Boys in principle. Everyone seems to be having a tremendously good time, cast and audience alike. It is feelgood telly. I just don't get the humour. It's not even that I don't find the jokes funny - I can't even spot them. Character A will say something, character B will say something, character A will - oh, wait, everyone's laughing - why? I find it baffling.
Their Mastermind sketch is one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen.
I saw that one too, didn't laugh once, sorry!
Humour can be very subjective. Humour can also age well or badly. I watched the Lost Blackadder Pilot last night, and some of the other episodes recently. The word play, timing etc in series 2,3 and 4 are timeless. Still as funny as on first watch (indeed probably with the joy of repitition, funnier). Undoubtedly some or a lot of the two Ronnies stuff is not going to have aged well, but I challenge anyone not to find the Four Candles sketch funny, or the Mastermind (answering the question before) one.
I watched both this morning, afraid you won't like my answer.
Fair enough. What do you find funny?
Harry and Paul, The Inbetweeners etc
Friday night dinner? Plebs?
Friday Night Dinner I loved until the last two series where it went downhill, haven't seen Plebs
I think Jim the neighbour posts on PB.
I have narrowed that poster down to just one of six as we speak.
@tomorrowsmps 🔴 SELBY & AINSTY: How strange! I could have sworn that a few days ago Labour candidate Keir Mather had the Oxford Union as one of his 'likes' on Facebook. Now it seems to have gone.
This is surely the biggest scandal since Watergategate
Is Britain unique in sending elites from London to “represent” provincial seats?
No, remember Hillary was accused of being a 'carpetbagger' when she ran for New York Senate in 2000, especially in rural upstate New York but through hard work managed to win the narrowly win the state.
Comedy doesn't always age terribly well. I thought the Two Ronnies was funny in the 80s, but watching reruns it doesn't really work as well. No criticism of them - they are both funny men - but the material we find funny changes. I don't know why that should be so, but it does. It's not even that different generations find different things funny: things which are funny then are often just not funny now. Nothing to do with woke - just our collective tastes change. I guess something to do with humour being a defying of expectations; if you know the sort of thing to expect, maybe that takes away some of the humour. I still find them enjoyably clever sometimes, though (which is almost, but not quite, the same thing), like the Mastermind 'answering the previous question' specialist subject. And I find Ronnie Corbett's monologues funnier now than I did then. Monty Python, OTOH, I think has aged very well indeed and is almost as good now as it was back then.
Dad’s Army is still good. (I think, I haven’t seen an episode in about 20 years).
I saw an episode of It Ain’t Half Hot Mum about ten years ago and I thought it was actually pretty good, all things considered.
Sitcoms date OK, the good ones anyway.
It Ain't Half Hot Mum isn't as bad as Curry & Chips. My god that was...something else
Sitcoms set in history hold up very well. Dad's Army is gentle humour, with affection for all of the cast. In real life you should hate the spiv, but here he's likeable. Mainwaring is a figure of fun, pompous, just assumes he should be in charge, but utterly brave and wants to do his duty. I have no doubt he would have given his life if required.
In recent times Upstart Crow has mined the same period as Blackadder 2, but in a very different way. Blackadder could be a lot more cruel, whereas Upstart Crow rarely is. And Upstart Crow has had pathos too, with the death of the son.
Oh thanks - introduce a new TV series that we should watch then kill it dead by giving us spoilers.
In my defence the series started in 2016 and the son died oi 2020, so there is a point at which spoilers are fair game...
No they aren't if you are putting forward the series as a good one to watch. I'd never heard of it before.
Meanwhile, he walks in, sees her dead so poisons himself. She then wakes up, sees him dead and stabs herself to death.
So now we're even.
Which is this the plot of "Romeo and Juliet", I think?
Oh, and while we're doing spoilers, Anakin Skywalker is Clark Kent. Sorry to spoil Star Trek for you...
Comedy doesn't always age terribly well. I thought the Two Ronnies was funny in the 80s, but watching reruns it doesn't really work as well. No criticism of them - they are both funny men - but the material we find funny changes. I don't know why that should be so, but it does. It's not even that different generations find different things funny: things which are funny then are often just not funny now. Nothing to do with woke - just our collective tastes change. I guess something to do with humour being a defying of expectations; if you know the sort of thing to expect, maybe that takes away some of the humour. I still find them enjoyably clever sometimes, though (which is almost, but not quite, the same thing), like the Mastermind 'answering the previous question' specialist subject. And I find Ronnie Corbett's monologues funnier now than I did then. Monty Python, OTOH, I think has aged very well indeed and is almost as good now as it was back then.
Monty Python suffers a bit from the Benny Hill esque shoe-horning of topless blondes into sketches for no good reason.
Sitcoms I liked were Steptoe and Son, Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads, Blackadder, Fawlty Towers, Rising Damp, It Ain't Half Hot Mum, Dad's Army, Porridge, Outside Edge, Ever Decreasing Circles, One Foot in the Grave, and League of Gentlemen.
Rising Damp has possibly not aged well (I've not watched it since it was first broadcast), but it had a fantastically good cast.
He’s not considering standing. It’s a bullshit story, designed to keep his name in the news and his pathetic followers something to hold on to.
I am not sure that either HY or Johnson have twigged just how unpopular with voters Johnson is. Even those with a previous soft spot for BigDog seem less enthusiastic than they were last weekend.
I think the Gordon Brittas analogy hasn’t passed the test of time.
We seem to have settled on “Sir Keith Donkey” which for some reason really works.
That analogy never worked for me in the first place.
Never saw the show, so didn't get the reference anyway, and any time anyone shows a picture of Chris Barrie like that the only thing I can think is "Rimmer".
Speaking of which, why has nobody suggested Red Dwarf in the sitcoms conversation? That was a great one too.
He’s not considering standing. It’s a bullshit story, designed to keep his name in the news and his pathetic followers something to hold on to.
I think he might, Boris is the only Tory who has proved he can win a London Mayoral race. Khan has already done 2 terms and his ULEZ extension is very unpopular in the suburbs which is where Boris beat Livingstone.
Rishi's approved Tory candidates meanwhile have zero name recognition so the vast majority of London Tories would likely vote for Boris instead as an Independent rather than the official Tory candidate. If Boris won it would also be a win for him and a humiliation for Khan, Sunak and Starmer, all his enemies now.
If Corbyn as is likely stands as an Independent in Islington North next year too, we could have the unprecedented scenario where the 2 main party leaders at the last election end up out of their parties but Independent candidates before the next general election
Their Mastermind sketch is one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen.
I saw that one too, didn't laugh once, sorry!
Humour can be very subjective. Humour can also age well or badly. I watched the Lost Blackadder Pilot last night, and some of the other episodes recently. The word play, timing etc in series 2,3 and 4 are timeless. Still as funny as on first watch (indeed probably with the joy of repitition, funnier). Undoubtedly some or a lot of the two Ronnies stuff is not going to have aged well, but I challenge anyone not to find the Four Candles sketch funny, or the Mastermind (answering the question before) one.
I watched both this morning, afraid you won't like my answer.
Just rewatched Four Candles. It's not funny like it was,* but the peas bit is still good, because, like much great comedy it tees up the joke, but then it turns out that's not the joke at all (Barker has got his 'O's for 'Mon Repose' and is clearly about to ask for another letter after Corbett puts the letters back; he duly asks for 'P's; Corbett is mighty pissed off, but fetches the 'P's only to discover Barker really wants peas). Your average writer would have made the joke of failing to mention the need for 'P's. Your great writer puts that joke in the watcher's mind, but springs another - more plausible - one. Afterall, the Barker would be an arsehole to let Corbett put the letters back knowing he wants other letters, but he doesn't want other letters and is, in fact, perfectly reasonable throughout, even though he's driving Corbett insane.
*Maybe because the setting seems so unreal now - I grew up with such a shop down the street, but it looks artifical now. It could probably be transported into a more modern setting - warehouse or similar, with different items/or a phone call to a supplier and be funnier.
He’s not considering standing. It’s a bullshit story, designed to keep his name in the news and his pathetic followers something to hold on to.
I think he might, Boris is the only Tory who has proved he can win a London Mayoral race. Khan has already done 2 terms and his ULEZ is very unpopular in the suburbs which is where Boris beat Livingstone.
Rishi's approved Tory candidates meanwhile have zero name recognition so the vast majority of London Tories would likely vote for Boris instead as an Independent rather than the official Tory candidate. If Boris won it would also be a win for him and a humiliation for Khan, Sunak and Starmer, all his enemies now.
If Corbyn as is likely stands as an Independent in Islington North next year too, we could have the unprecedented scenario where the 2 main party leaders at the last election end up out of their parties but Independent candidates before the next general election
Come on HY, you are making this stuff up on the hoof. Citation, citation and thrice citation please.
I look forward to Boris Johnson doing for the Daily Mail what he did for the Conservative Party
You will likely be disappointed. A newspaper columnist is where he excels. Not too fussed about the facts, or details, or repercussions of what he does (it will no doubt all be checked by lawyers and even if they are sued for something he writes it's great publicity) and he can certainly write and write entertainingly.
A bit like Jeremy Clarkson who people adore in print (and now in real life, thanks to Clarkson's Farm).
Boris really does have the world at his feet right now.
In time he will become, in his own eyes and perhaps the history books too, the PM who got Britain out of the EU in the face of fierce opposition, and guided the country through the pandemic. Albeit hugely flawed but then which great man isn't flawed?
Yes yes, he's a great man. Now take your chlorpromazine.
He is certainly a great man. One manifestly unfit to run the country but great nevertheless. I'm not unhappy with that description.
"Chlorpromazine is an antipsychotic medication that can be used to treat anxiety, mania, psychosis and schizophrenia." - I have none of those conditions, although I suppose I would say that if I had any or all of them.
Although we tend to limit 'great' to people who albeit flawed (which just means human) use their talents for something other than self-promotion.
I have been debating with myself (oh, and @Farooq). He got Brexit done. And was in charge during the pandemic where he probably, like Mao, got seven things right for every three wrong.
Now he did all this having become PM as a result of naked self-interest, ambition and solipsism, undoubtedly. And he was manifestly unfit to be PM but then people also adored him, precisely for being PM.
So if you put all that in a pot and stir it does that = great? I think it probably does.
Not for me. A shallow sordid man with almost no redeeming features cannot have 'great' as a descriptor. I'll allow 'remarkable'.
Why was Blackadder series 1 rubbish compared to all the others?
No Ben Elton and Rowan Atkinson much preferring to gurn rather than to play it straight-ish
In fact Baldric was the "clever" one in the first season. Then they swapped round the "cunningness" of Blackadder and Baldric in season two and the rest, as they say, is history.
Comedy doesn't always age terribly well. I thought the Two Ronnies was funny in the 80s, but watching reruns it doesn't really work as well. No criticism of them - they are both funny men - but the material we find funny changes. I don't know why that should be so, but it does. It's not even that different generations find different things funny: things which are funny then are often just not funny now. Nothing to do with woke - just our collective tastes change. I guess something to do with humour being a defying of expectations; if you know the sort of thing to expect, maybe that takes away some of the humour. I still find them enjoyably clever sometimes, though (which is almost, but not quite, the same thing), like the Mastermind 'answering the previous question' specialist subject. And I find Ronnie Corbett's monologues funnier now than I did then. Monty Python, OTOH, I think has aged very well indeed and is almost as good now as it was back then.
Monty Python suffers a bit from the Benny Hill esque shoe-horning of topless blondes into sketches for no good reason.
The first Blackadder is somewhat strange and creepy, like a medieval comedy horror, with some aspects of Monty Python's Holy Grail mixed with something a bit more adventurous. A lot of violence, as I remember, like also in the Monty Python.
1. I forecast there be no by election in mid Beds, Nadine will stay till the General Eelection 2. All the evidence from the weekly local evidence is that Labour is NOT making much headway most of the change appears to go to the Lib Dems and Greens, whether we are looking at Surrey or Yorkshire. I would bet on a three way marginal which anyone could win. What are the Lib Dem odds, particularly after the South Derbyshire and Sunderland results yesterday. They could be worth a punt.
He’s not considering standing. It’s a bullshit story, designed to keep his name in the news and his pathetic followers something to hold on to.
I think he might, Boris is the only Tory who has proved he can win a London Mayoral race. Khan has already done 2 terms and his ULEZ extension is very unpopular in the suburbs which is where Boris beat Livingstone.
Rishi's approved Tory candidates meanwhile have zero name recognition so the vast majority of London Tories would likely vote for Boris instead as an Independent rather than the official Tory candidate. If Boris won it would also be a win for him and a humiliation for Khan, Sunak and Starmer, all his enemies now.
If Corbyn as is likely stands as an Independent in Islington North next year too, we could have the unprecedented scenario where the 2 main party leaders at the last election end up out of their parties but Independent candidates before the next general election
He’s not considering standing. It’s a bullshit story, designed to keep his name in the news and his pathetic followers something to hold on to.
I think he might, Boris is the only Tory who has proved he can win a London Mayoral race. Khan has already done 2 terms and his ULEZ is very unpopular in the suburbs which is where Boris beat Livingstone.
Rishi's approved Tory candidates meanwhile have zero name recognition so the vast majority of London Tories would likely vote for Boris instead as an Independent rather than the official Tory candidate. If Boris won it would also be a win for him and a humiliation for Khan, Sunak and Starmer, all his enemies now.
If Corbyn as is likely stands as an Independent in Islington North next year too, we could have the unprecedented scenario where the 2 main party leaders at the last election end up out of their parties but Independent candidates before the next general election
Come on HY, you are making this stuff up on the hoof. Citation, citation and thrice citation please.
'A defiant Jeremy Corbyn has told Labour members in his Islington North branch he wants to carry on as their MP, after a motion by the local party supporting him was passed almost unanimously.
The former Labour leader, who has been barred from standing for the party again at the next election and faces a choice about whether to run as an independent, gave no sign of wanting to give up his job as an MP.
A motion thanking Corbyn for his “commitment and service to the people” and saying it was members’ “democratic right to select our MP” was passed by 98% of attenders at the local party’s monthly general meeting on Wednesday. There were 60 members who backed the motion, one abstention and no votes against, according to a spokesperson for Corbyn.
The motion read: “This CLP would like to thank our sitting MP J Corbyn for his commitment and service to the people, and want to express that it should be our democratic right to select our MP.”
Corbyn continues to sit as an independent in parliament after Labour’s national executive committee in March backed a proposal from Keir Starmer not to endorse him as a candidate at the next election.
The statement about his desire to continue as an MP will fuel speculation he could still seek to contest the seat he has held for 40 years.
"Brittas is also extremely petty and pedantic, insisting on over-complicated forms at reception, and ridiculous rules on what not to wear in the centre, only serving to frustrate potential customers and centre staff. In the last series, Brittas rigs up a computer system to control every aspect of the centre, which over-complicates even the simple task of distributing floats by the swimming pools, and results in someone drowning."
"Brittas is also extremely petty and pedantic, insisting on over-complicated forms at reception, and ridiculous rules on what not to wear in the centre, only serving to frustrate potential customers and centre staff. In the last series, Brittas rigs up a computer system to control every aspect of the centre, which over-complicates even the simple task of distributing floats by the swimming pools, and results in someone drowning."
Why was Blackadder series 1 rubbish compared to all the others?
No Ben Elton and Rowan Atkinson much preferring to gurn rather than to play it straight-ish
Yes in the first season Black Adder is much more like Baldrick in later seasons than he is Black Adder as we know him.
By the second season they had the characters right.
But still the first season is funny in its own right, its just not great.
I still love the few seconds of Peter Cook doing the Richard III line of "A horse, a horse! My kingdom for a horse!" in such a marvellous way. https://youtu.be/2m1SjCazzHE?t=20
On the topic of sitcoms can I give a dishonourable mention to Hey Dad!
Not sure if that took off in the UK? It was massive downunder when I lived there, like many shows had the issue of kids ageing out of the story. It finished incredibly bizarrely by everyone getting presumed killed by an exploding VCR bomb. But more disturbing was that it later turned out that the eponymous dad of the show was portrayed by a paedophile who was abusing his on-screen daughters while the show was being filmed.
Can't imagine that show ever getting repeated on air anywhere anymore, no matter how it may have aged.
Spaced and 'Two Pints of Lager' were excellent early-noughties sitcoms.
The latter especially, as friends used to refer to myself and Mrs J as 'Gaz and Donna', as we both looked a little like them. And (ahem), acted like them at times...
I think the Gordon Brittas analogy hasn’t passed the test of time.
We seem to have settled on “Sir Keith Donkey” which for some reason really works.
That analogy never worked for me in the first place.
Never saw the show, so didn't get the reference anyway, and any time anyone shows a picture of Chris Barrie like that the only thing I can think is "Rimmer".
Speaking of which, why has nobody suggested Red Dwarf in the sitcoms conversation? That was a great one too.
I found the first fifteen minutes of Red Dwarf funnier than anything I had ever seen up to that point. The first two series were very good. A long and gradual decline thereafter. A good premise (same as Porridge, Father Ted, etc: characters stuck together where they do not want to be; often in this format they sleep in the same room too: this is just an accepted trope) but there was only so much you can do with it.
Boris Johnson has confirmed he is joining the Daily Mail as a columnist, but the UK government's anti-corruption watchdog said he had not applied for clearance
He’s not considering standing. It’s a bullshit story, designed to keep his name in the news and his pathetic followers something to hold on to.
I think he might, Boris is the only Tory who has proved he can win a London Mayoral race. Khan has already done 2 terms and his ULEZ is very unpopular in the suburbs which is where Boris beat Livingstone.
Rishi's approved Tory candidates meanwhile have zero name recognition so the vast majority of London Tories would likely vote for Boris instead as an Independent rather than the official Tory candidate. If Boris won it would also be a win for him and a humiliation for Khan, Sunak and Starmer, all his enemies now.
If Corbyn as is likely stands as an Independent in Islington North next year too, we could have the unprecedented scenario where the 2 main party leaders at the last election end up out of their parties but Independent candidates before the next general election
Come on HY, you are making this stuff up on the hoof. Citation, citation and thrice citation please.
'A defiant Jeremy Corbyn has told Labour members in his Islington North branch he wants to carry on as their MP, after a motion by the local party supporting him was passed almost unanimously.
The former Labour leader, who has been barred from standing for the party again at the next election and faces a choice about whether to run as an independent, gave no sign of wanting to give up his job as an MP.
A motion thanking Corbyn for his “commitment and service to the people” and saying it was members’ “democratic right to select our MP” was passed by 98% of attenders at the local party’s monthly general meeting on Wednesday. There were 60 members who backed the motion, one abstention and no votes against, according to a spokesperson for Corbyn.
The motion read: “This CLP would like to thank our sitting MP J Corbyn for his commitment and service to the people, and want to express that it should be our democratic right to select our MP.”
Corbyn continues to sit as an independent in parliament after Labour’s national executive committee in March backed a proposal from Keir Starmer not to endorse him as a candidate at the next election.
The statement about his desire to continue as an MP will fuel speculation he could still seek to contest the seat he has held for 40 years.
Has anyone come across any piccies of the Kakhovka Dam in the last few days, now that the waters have receded? It'd be interesting to see the damage. My Google-fu as failed as all the pictures seem to be of it whilst it is still draining.
On the topic of sitcoms can I give a dishonourable mention to Hey Dad!
Not sure if that took off in the UK? It was massive downunder when I lived there, like many shows had the issue of kids ageing out of the story. It finished incredibly bizarrely by everyone getting presumed killed by an exploding VCR bomb. But more disturbing was that it later turned out that the eponymous dad of the show was portrayed by a paedophile who was abusing his on-screen daughters while the show was being filmed.
Can't imagine that show ever getting repeated on air anywhere anymore, no matter how it may have aged.
Spaced and 'Two Pints of Lager' were excellent early-noughties sitcoms.
The latter especially, as friends used to refer to myself and Mrs J as 'Gaz and Donna', as we both looked a little like them. And (ahem), acted like them at times...
I rather liked TPOLAAPOC, but I've not come across anyone else before now who did. It was quite north-western humour and I'm not sure it necessarily travelled well.
Boris Johnson has confirmed he is joining the Daily Mail as a columnist, but the UK government's anti-corruption watchdog said he had not applied for clearance
Do you think that a former Prime Minster ought to need 'clearance' before writing for a newspaper? I thought you were opposed to authoritarian politics?
On the topic of sitcoms can I give a dishonourable mention to Hey Dad!
Not sure if that took off in the UK? It was massive downunder when I lived there, like many shows had the issue of kids ageing out of the story. It finished incredibly bizarrely by everyone getting presumed killed by an exploding VCR bomb. But more disturbing was that it later turned out that the eponymous dad of the show was portrayed by a paedophile who was abusing his on-screen daughters while the show was being filmed.
Can't imagine that show ever getting repeated on air anywhere anymore, no matter how it may have aged.
Spaced and 'Two Pints of Lager' were excellent early-noughties sitcoms.
The latter especially, as friends used to refer to myself and Mrs J as 'Gaz and Donna', as we both looked a little like them. And (ahem), acted like them at times...
I rather liked TPOLAAPOC, but I've not come across anyone else before now who did. It was quite north-western humour and I'm not sure it necessarily travelled well.
His popularity is strongest in the Midlands, so if he were thinking of that route back into frontline politics, going for Andy Street's job might be a better option.
On the topic of sitcoms can I give a dishonourable mention to Hey Dad!
Not sure if that took off in the UK? It was massive downunder when I lived there, like many shows had the issue of kids ageing out of the story. It finished incredibly bizarrely by everyone getting presumed killed by an exploding VCR bomb. But more disturbing was that it later turned out that the eponymous dad of the show was portrayed by a paedophile who was abusing his on-screen daughters while the show was being filmed.
Can't imagine that show ever getting repeated on air anywhere anymore, no matter how it may have aged.
Spaced and 'Two Pints of Lager' were excellent early-noughties sitcoms.
The latter especially, as friends used to refer to myself and Mrs J as 'Gaz and Donna', as we both looked a little like them. And (ahem), acted like them at times...
Boris Johnson has confirmed he is joining the Daily Mail as a columnist, but the UK government's anti-corruption watchdog said he had not applied for clearance
Comedy doesn't always age terribly well. I thought the Two Ronnies was funny in the 80s, but watching reruns it doesn't really work as well. No criticism of them - they are both funny men - but the material we find funny changes. I don't know why that should be so, but it does. It's not even that different generations find different things funny: things which are funny then are often just not funny now. Nothing to do with woke - just our collective tastes change. I guess something to do with humour being a defying of expectations; if you know the sort of thing to expect, maybe that takes away some of the humour. I still find them enjoyably clever sometimes, though (which is almost, but not quite, the same thing), like the Mastermind 'answering the previous question' specialist subject. And I find Ronnie Corbett's monologues funnier now than I did then. Monty Python, OTOH, I think has aged very well indeed and is almost as good now as it was back then.
Dad’s Army is still good. (I think, I haven’t seen an episode in about 20 years).
I saw an episode of It Ain’t Half Hot Mum about ten years ago and I thought it was actually pretty good, all things considered.
Sitcoms date OK, the good ones anyway.
It Ain't Half Hot Mum isn't as bad as Curry & Chips. My god that was...something else
Sitcoms set in history hold up very well. Dad's Army is gentle humour, with affection for all of the cast. In real life you should hate the spiv, but here he's likeable. Mainwaring is a figure of fun, pompous, just assumes he should be in charge, but utterly brave and wants to do his duty. I have no doubt he would have given his life if required.
In recent times Upstart Crow has mined the same period as Blackadder 2, but in a very different way. Blackadder could be a lot more cruel, whereas Upstart Crow rarely is. And Upstart Crow has had pathos too, with the death of the son.
There was one episode, wasn't there, when the platoon believes the Germans have invaded and the platoon shoots at them from a couple of cottages (the joke being that Mainwaring and Wilson's sections are firing at each other) where Mainwaring, asking for volunteers to hold up the German army, says something like "it will mean the end for us, of course" or am I horribly misremembering?
Or the film, when the platoon retakes the church hall? Of course, the whole set-up was that most of the Home Guard were veterans of earlier wars. Some of the actors too.
Comments
It also didn't have Ben Elton on the writing team. That may be significant.
Like all politicians he is voted in by the public (and by the people who the public voted in) and then makes as good a fist of it all as he can or wants. He was useless at actually governing as you and I foretold but that doesn't mean he didn't appeal to people for perfectly legitimate reasons and some will never condemn him because of some of the things he did. Such is politics.
He was also PM during two epochally important events and for better or worse was the one in charge making decisions. That I believe qualifies him as great.
As for being a nasty piece of work I couldn't care less.
My point about it being dated is more how things have changed, you wouldn't see it being such a gag nowadays. Its wasn't cruel, so its stood up well.
Where it was more cruel and has dated less well is with the treatment of Chandler's dad. Although that's a much smaller storyline and by the time they introduce him physically they handle it better.
It was very American - shiny characters living implausibly shiny lives. Which is different to Father Ted*, rather than wrong per se, but still set me up to resent it.
And I always saw it as something of a girls' sitcom. Again, not wrong to have girls' sitcoms, but didn't put me in the mood to enjoy it.
And of the six main characters, three were highly irritating (the female ones). I know they were meant to be, but it didn't predispose you to spend 30 minutes with them.
And yet - if despite all of that I found myself in front of it, I would have to concede it was very funny. The writing was consistently excellent. Just about every joke landed. The acting was excellent. It was very good indeed.
It's very strange that it should be seen as unwoke, because in its day it felt very modern in content and tone (which probably also predisposed me to be irritated by it).
*Father Ted! Why hasn't this been mentioned. My nomination for the funniest sitcom ever. I wonder, if Dermot Morgan had lived, whether the writers would have brought it to a satisfying narrative conclusion in the way that some other classics managed?
Mrs. Brown's Boys emerged from the anus of the devil.
Now he did all this having become PM as a result of naked self-interest, ambition and solipsism, undoubtedly. And he was manifestly unfit to be PM but then people also adored him, precisely for being PM.
So if you put all that in a pot and stir it does that = great? I think it probably does.
Apart from the obvious question of where will the money come from, the Guardian hits the nail on the head with its two questions:
"But this would be regressive – people who don’t own homes shouldn’t support those who do? It would heat up demand, when the Bank of England is trying to cool it, and aren’t there better uses of public money? Plus, lax monetary policy has helped people who own assets…"
"You’re proposing spending £3bn to help people who borrowed to buy homes, when many people can’t afford to, and younger people are looking forward to a housing crash so they can get onto the housing latter. What does that say about your priorities?"
Davey really is absolutely shameless - literally just trying to buy votes by offering to hand money out to people.
Surely we've handed enough money out to enough people in the last few years. Let's get a grip and return to reality - and if we do it will actually be in everyone's interests.
https://www.theguardian.com/business/live/2023/jun/16/mortgage-rates-uk-government-urged-to-provide-emergency-help-costs-rising-nationwide-liberal-democrats-business-live#top-of-blog
"In May, once again, the U.S. economy trounced Wall Street forecasts. The nation’s employers added 339,000 jobs, much higher than predicted. This marks 13 out of the past 14 months that the U.S. job market has beaten expectations."
source$: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/06/02/jobs-boom-immigrants-women/
(For the record: I am not a Wall Street analyst, but this jobs record has surprised me, too. I was expecting a slowdown even before the Fed started raising interest rates.)
Not sure if that took off in the UK? It was massive downunder when I lived there, like many shows had the issue of kids ageing out of the story. It finished incredibly bizarrely by everyone getting presumed killed by an exploding VCR bomb. But more disturbing was that it later turned out that the eponymous dad of the show was portrayed by a paedophile who was abusing his on-screen daughters while the show was being filmed.
Can't imagine that show ever getting repeated on air anywhere anymore, no matter how it may have aged.
Johnson the great writer must be something only poshos and white van men understand. I think the dreadful analogies, the spattering of foreign languages and the florid sentences are just tiresome.
I don't even know where he was killed...I was completely on the opposite side of the field...I was nowhere near the cottage...not that there was a cottage...
Given none of the Tory candidates are well known even in Tory circles and Khan's ULEZ is deeply unpopular in outer London and it is FPTP who knows what might happen
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/boris-johnson-london-mayor-sadiq-khan-b2358873.html
He would be utterly humiliated. So not a chance he'd stand. 😂😂😂🤣🤣🤣
I just don't get the humour. It's not even that I don't find the jokes funny - I can't even spot them. Character A will say something, character B will say something, character A will - oh, wait, everyone's laughing - why? I find it baffling.
I have narrowed that poster down to just one of six as we speak.
We seem to have settled on “Sir Keith Donkey” which for some reason really works.
It’s a bullshit story, designed to keep his name in the news and his pathetic followers something to hold on to.
Oh, and while we're doing spoilers, Anakin Skywalker is Clark Kent. Sorry to spoil Star Trek for you...
I thought it had been blocked by the blob...
Never saw the show, so didn't get the reference anyway, and any time anyone shows a picture of Chris Barrie like that the only thing I can think is "Rimmer".
Speaking of which, why has nobody suggested Red Dwarf in the sitcoms conversation? That was a great one too.
Rishi's approved Tory candidates meanwhile have zero name recognition so the vast majority of London Tories would likely vote for Boris instead as an Independent rather than the official Tory candidate. If Boris won it would also be a win for him and a humiliation for Khan, Sunak and Starmer, all his enemies now.
If Corbyn as is likely stands as an Independent in Islington North next year too, we could have the unprecedented scenario where the 2 main party leaders at the last election end up out of their parties but Independent candidates before the next general election
*Maybe because the setting seems so unreal now - I grew up with such a shop down the street, but it looks artifical now. It could probably be transported into a more modern setting - warehouse or similar, with different items/or a phone call to a supplier and be funnier.
By the second season they had the characters right.
But still the first season is funny in its own right, its just not great.
It really did hit its stride in the second.
2. All the evidence from the weekly local evidence is that Labour is NOT making much headway most of the change appears to go to the Lib Dems and Greens, whether we are looking at Surrey or Yorkshire. I would bet on a three way marginal which anyone could win. What are the Lib Dem odds, particularly after the South Derbyshire and Sunderland results yesterday. They could be worth a punt.
The former Labour leader, who has been barred from standing for the party again at the next election and faces a choice about whether to run as an independent, gave no sign of wanting to give up his job as an MP.
A motion thanking Corbyn for his “commitment and service to the people” and saying it was members’ “democratic right to select our MP” was passed by 98% of attenders at the local party’s monthly general meeting on Wednesday.
There were 60 members who backed the motion, one abstention and no votes against, according to a spokesperson for Corbyn.
The motion read: “This CLP would like to thank our sitting MP J Corbyn for his commitment and service to the people, and want to express that it should be our democratic right to select our MP.”
Corbyn continues to sit as an independent in parliament after Labour’s national executive committee in March backed a proposal from Keir Starmer not to endorse him as a candidate at the next election.
The statement about his desire to continue as an MP will fuel speculation he could still seek to contest the seat he has held for 40 years.
However, running as an independent would most likely result in Corbyn being expelled from Labour.'
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/may/18/jeremy-corbyn-tells-local-labour-party-he-wants-to-carry-on-as-their-mp
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_The_Brittas_Empire_characters#Gordon_Brittas
Something to do with OFSTED ?
The latter especially, as friends used to refer to myself and Mrs J as 'Gaz and Donna', as we both looked a little like them. And (ahem), acted like them at times...
👀 Boris Johnson is mulling over running as an independent for the London mayoralty next year, hears @CamCavendish
Johnson’s spox declines to comment, so not ruling out…
@jamesjohnson252
11m
Views of Boris Johnson amongst Londoners - @JLPartnersPolls
Positive: 15%
Negative: 67%
Net score -52 (compared to -45 nationally)
@robfordmancs
The first two series were very good.
A long and gradual decline thereafter. A good premise (same as Porridge, Father Ted, etc: characters stuck together where they do not want to be; often in this format they sleep in the same room too: this is just an accepted trope) but there was only so much you can do with it.
Boris Johnson has confirmed he is joining the Daily Mail as a columnist, but the UK government's anti-corruption watchdog said he had not applied for clearance
https://twitter.com/bpolitics/status/1669696171885883392
He'd be better off trying to get back to Henley, or somewhere similarly congenial to him.
You also suggested uber-popular Boris Johnson will run for Mayor.
A relative of mine deals with a lot of comedy figures and reckons Chris Barrie by some way the nicest he has dealt with.
Has anyone come across any piccies of the Kakhovka Dam in the last few days, now that the waters have receded? It'd be interesting to see the damage. My Google-fu as failed as all the pictures seem to be of it whilst it is still draining.
That was unlucky.
It is a good job that England bat deep. <- We are here.
This would require him to likely relocate to the east/north east of England however so I think we can file that one under “too much effort”.
Again North-Western.
Any idea what happened to them?
A welcome distraction between meetings…
First day of an Ashes series is always a bit special.
Exciting first session - good luck to @benstokes38 and the team for this afternoon 🏏
https://twitter.com/SkyCricket/status/1669700005412601856
Or the film, when the platoon retakes the church hall? Of course, the whole set-up was that most of the Home Guard were veterans of earlier wars. Some of the actors too.