British sense of humour

[Reynard]

So ... brilliant, but unfunny? (or did you mean Jesus Christ? Or Clarkson? I haven't seen the latter's panto roles ...)

I just find him i.e. John Cleese irritating for the most part. I can't watch Fawlty Towers without wanting to throw a brick at the telly, but seeings that would be an expensive aftermath, I just don't watch it...

Brilliance and humour aren't quite the same thing. I'd have loved to have seen him more as a serious actor.

 

[Andy in Germany]

Sounds insightful at first blush, but it tries to establish a cause and effect link where there is none.

I doubt many Germans would have seen losing as a good thing in the immediate aftermath, and for however many decades they had to suffer a divided country and being viewed as international pariahs.

That Germany has recovered well from the war after close to 80 years is undeniable, but to say that's thanks to them losing is nonsense.

I wasn't talking about economics.

Losing the war forced Germany to make a complete reevaluation of its place in the world, and to throw away the social structures and attitudes that brought about the war in the first place. It had to start from scratch and build an entirely new constitution based on the rights and value of individuals and a new political system to make sure people were represented and there could be no regression into dictatorship.

Because of this, the founding fathers made a constitution that guarantees rights for individuals and families, which my family has directly benefited from.

The UK didn't have to go through this process so a lot of the values, attitudes and structures that caused the problems before the war remained in place.

 

[lazybloke]

I just find him i.e. John Cleese irritating for the most part. I can't watch Fawlty Towers without wanting to throw a brick at the telly, but seeings that would be an expensive aftermath, I just don't watch it...

Brilliance and humour aren't quite the same thing. I'd have loved to have seen him more as a serious actor.

Clockwise?

 

[Andy in Germany]

I doubt the masses of East German women raped by the Soviets before the entire population was put under the jackboot of Communist rule for 50 years thought losing the war was a good thing.

No, but as someone here said to me, an National Socialist Germany winning the war would have ultimately been worse for everyone

Imagine the Holocaust continuing because the camps were not liberated, decades of atrocities in Europe and gradual acceptance of antisemitism, which was present all over Europe. Ultimately the destruction of the Third Reich and Götterdammerung would have happened, maybe a generation later after many more millions of "undesirables" had been slaughtered, but it would have come; very few nations survive the fall of their empire.

(This is speculation, but a generation later and after decades of Faschism, would there have been men like Schumann and Brandt to work for forgiveness and reconciliation, or would a ruined Europe have been squabbling over the remains and easy pickings for a communist takeover?)

 

[mudsticks]

I just find him i.e. John Cleese irritating for the most part. I can't watch Fawlty Towers without wanting to throw a brick at the telly, but seeings that would be an expensive aftermath, I just don't watch it...

Brilliance and humour aren't quite the same thing. I'd have loved to have seen him more as a serious actor.

He is supposed to be irritating though right?

I remember watching it as a child, and cringing, at the whole thing as my parents chuckled.
.
I 'got it' later

The other day I had to explain to my German farm help, why, whenever one of us, is off to harvest some pungent Mediterranean herb, that we have to cry 'Basil' !!

In that special Sybyll Fawlty tone, at the top of our voices



I then went on to explain the whole Fawlty Towers sitcom scenario.

Turns out she had seen the 'Dont mention the War' episode.

And judged it droll.

 

[BoldonLad]

Anyone who thinks the Yanks don't do irony, clearly hasn't watched any episodes of M*A*S*H.




Thats how it works in reality though isn't it, that's how the toxic culture builds, and is excused..

If you don't go along with 'the in joke culture' however distasteful, you're ostracised.

Not being 'in the gang' doesn't bode so well for career progression.

It's all about 'face' right ??



All war is terrible, and usually starts from the lowest points of ego, greed, violence and inflated sense of superiority, whether of tribe race or nation.

But this, ridiculous hyper-mythologising of 'The Plucky Brits at War' that some people go in for, could do with binning.

As a nation at that time, alongside our allies, we exhibited courage, industry , ingenuity and forbearance.

Alongside all the other usual human traits of cowardice, greed, cruelty, and selfishness..

Germany has learnt from it.

It's very constitution guards against the possibility of the rise of such ideas from happening again.

Europe being set up to work together, with closer ties as a group, of nations, was also partly to do with preventing further wars..

It's worked so far.

Many Brits seem to have got stuck in a very unhelpful place of unfounded self glorification about the whole enterprise.

Oh that and 'Empire' as well.

Of course we were quicker than the Americans to get involved.

It was right on our doorstep ffs.

Self protection, is a great motivator, right ??..

We have always however been net benefisheries when it comes to piscine puns - their plaice is sacrosanct in our great British lexicon

Maybe I failed to pay attention at school, but, I thought we were taught that Britain (and France) declared war because of a treaty obligation with Poland. Presumably, USA had no such obligation?, and, we wouldn’t want them(USA) going to war at the drop of a hat, would we?

 

[mudsticks]

Maybe I failed to pay attention at school, but, I thought we were taught that Britain (and France) declared war because of a treaty obligation with Poland. Presumably, USA had no such obligation?, and, we wouldn’t want them(USA) going to war at the drop of a hat, would we?

No we jolly wouldn't.

And no presumably they didn't, have any such obligations.

Hence my comment about not getting so involved in something that wasn't on their doorstep .

I couldn't possibly comment on contemporary involvement of the USA in current wars.

That would be wayyyyyy too.political.

 

[purpan]

We should maybe remember, too, the extraordinary courage it took for people in occupied countries to resist the Nazis. Where I was working on Wednesday in Toulouse, the building next to me had a memorial room to honour a man who sheltered escaped intellectuals from the occupying Nazis. Where I live, there are plaques and street names for resistors executed by the Nazis. It takes a special type of bravery to fight a war when you have no security, anywhere, in which to take shelter. I think Britain should recognise that the thought process that asserts it was « us » who won the war is flawed.

 

[BoldonLad]

No we jolly wouldn't.

And no presumably they didn't, have any such obligations.

Hence my comment about not getting so involved in something that wasn't on their doorstep .

I couldn't possibly comment on contemporary involvement of the USA in current wars.

That would be wayyyyyy too.political.

Oops… almost blundered again… didn’t realise I was posting HERE and not THERE

 

[Drago]

The Russian sense of humour is dry to say the least.

"My dog has no nose."

"How does he smell?"

"I had him shot."

 

[Reynard]

Maybe I failed to pay attention at school, but, I thought we were taught that Britain (and France) declared war because of a treaty obligation with Poland. Presumably, USA had no such obligation?, and, we wouldn’t want them(USA) going to war at the drop of a hat, would we?

It was a then-fashionable mutual protection treaty that, quite frankly, neither the UK or France had any real intention of honouring. The logistics were nigh on impossible in any case.

The Molotov-Ribbentrop pact between Germany and Soviet Russia was near enough based on the fact that the UK and France were unlikely to lift a finger in Poland's defence. Hence the Phony War.

It's how my paternal grandfather ended up here. Umm, and one relative dying in Buchenwald, another in Dachau, and another being shot in the Katyn Massacre.

 

[Reynard]

He is supposed to be irritating though right?

I remember watching it as a child, and cringing, at the whole thing as my parents chuckled.
.
I 'got it' later

The other day I had to explain to my German farm help, why, whenever one of us, is off to harvest some pungent Mediterranean herb, that we have to cry 'Basil' !!

In that special Sybyll Fawlty tone, at the top of our voices



I then went on to explain the whole Fawlty Towers sitcom scenario.

Turns out she had seen the 'Dont mention the War' episode.

And judged it droll.

It just doesn't tickle my funny bone. Neither does Monty Python.

Red Dwarf, on the other hand...

 

[Drago]

My paternal grandfather ended up in Scotland, having fled Hungary with my gran at the eve of war. Probably just as well as I suspect that ifnthe nazzies didn't get him the police would.

His jokes werent very funny either.

 

[Ming the Merciless]

 

[matticus]

I just find him i.e. John Cleese irritating for the most part. I can't watch Fawlty Towers without wanting to throw a brick at the telly, but seeings that would be an expensive aftermath, I just don't watch it...

Brilliance and humour aren't quite the same thing. I'd have loved to have seen him more as a serious actor.

He is supposed to be irritating though right?

Well no, I don't believe so ... he's [Fawlty] an exasperated loser caricature type. I don't think the intention is to be irritating [which I think Gervais in the Office is!]. He's just not very likeable, I guess. Victor Meldrew probably continued the theme later on, maybe?

But these things are subjective - if @Reynard thinks he could have been a great serious actor, then clearly we are not on the same wavelength!!! :P

EDIT: i don't think it's very subjective to say that Fawlty Towers was VERY different to Python. The latter was 6 blokes writing, the former a bloke+woman combo; and the format was utterly different. (one had animation!) Anyway, a digression ...