@mwfp1987 "can shoot down" yea, and WW2 era AA cannon also can shoot down stuff but i would not bet on that just like i would not bet that S400 can be effective against balistic missles that are moving more than twice as fast as S400 top speed...
He actually said "masterly inactivity". I know it's difficult for some people, but do at least try to pay attention to detail - it is rather an important life-skill, after all. 🙄
@@MKRM27 Memorizing lines. Whether it's for a 5 minute scene or a 30 minutes episode, it still take effort, hence all of the takes and retakes actors have to do. Personally, I once created a mere 5 minute PowerPoint slideshow for class presentation. Spent 1 hour memorizing all of the lines I needed to say for each slide (had to be talking for 5 minutes straight without pause for the presentation), just because the professor was going to dock points off if I needed to read off the slides or use notecards. We were being graded on our presentation as a whole, not just for talking off something we wrote. My respects to any actors who can nail facial expression, emotional tone of voice, body language and their lines all at the same time.
It's a well known fact that (Sir) Nigel Hawthorn used to do his tongue twisting speeches in one take. A most marvellous actor who always knew his lines perfectly, no matter how complex they may have been.
The clip cuts off before the equally brilliant exchange in which Sir Humphrey is trying to convince the PM about the virtues of Trident, calling Polaris "a ramshackle old system" while arguing that Britain deserves the best, that Trident is "the nuclear missile Harrod's would sell you" which has to be the single most hilarious line about nuclear weapons ever.
And for just a moment they brush up against the real reason for nuclear weapons. They haven't been used since the 40s, and though there was a chance of using them against Vietnam in the 50s and Cuba in the 60s, they haven't come that close to being used. You know what they have been repeatedly? Bought. The purpose of almost any weapon NATO countries use isn't to use them in battle, it's to buy them from defense contractors. The Manhattan Project was the most expensive thing in WWII and nothing costs more than Nukes, their systems, and where to house them.
@@Mourtzouphlos240 Nuclear weapons are used as a deterrent. The whole idea is for them NOT to be used in war (since they can only be used once for very obvious reasons) by making potential enemies afraid to try anything that would lead to their use. At that task, they have proven most effective. There hasn't been a general global superpowers war or even a major regional powers war for the last 75 years. Nobody wants to risk touching off the Big Firework. Also, nuclear weapons are not purchased from defence contractors. There is no "market" for them. They are produced either directly by the governments of the nuclear states or by public non-profit corporations set up specifically for the purpose of building nuclear weapons, such as Sandia Labs, which have no other function and only one client, which means effectively it's still the state that's manufacturing the bombs. You also evidently missed the point of the previous scene at the nuclear command centre. The General argues that the UK government haven't put money into the conventional forces because they're too expensive to equip and maintain at presumably World War II troop strength levels for the indefinite future, to which Sir Humphrey observes that the nukes are a lot less expensive on balance: "Much cheaper just to press a button" as he says so dryly.
@@Mourtzouphlos240 Indeed. And given they have *prevented* conventional war between NATO and others from Warsaw Pact to Russia, *excellent* *value* they have been. But as logic seems not quite your forte, you can have that set to music by listening to Groundhogs 'Thank Christ for the Bomb' ~ One of the most anti-trend, utterly rational pop songs of all time.
@@babboon5764 excellent value, my arse. The thing that prevented open conventional war between the two blocs of the Cold War has always been the absolute certainty that any such war would lead to the mutualy assured destruction of both blocs even without nukes. Because the loser of that war would be eradicated and the winner would be bankrupted by the expense. Nukes have only ever been a posturing tool.
I submit that you have overqualified that statement. I would suggest that it was the greatest sitcom of all time from any country, and one of the greatest shows of all time, from any genre.
@@redrackham6812 Good luck advancing any sort of logical contention with Johnny Boy You may as well try and staple fog as try and reason with a poseur of such irrationality..
only shows that human nature seems to never truly change. it just takes on new clothes. the faces might be different, the flags are not the same and there are new voices to be heard.. yet in the end, it all feels so familiar
A rare 2-hander of complex lines. Not just Humphrey but Hacker in there too, perfectly delivered with a rhythm that you can feel. 2 actors working their socks off. Timeless brilliance from both Eddington and Hawthorne.
Beyond awesome -- and lines delivered straight-faced, at a lightning pace and without breaking character in the tiniest degree. I wonder whether the cheering audience reaction might indicate that this was about the sixth take, after numerous others went wrong. This is pure speculation, but such things have been known to happen.
The entire point of the series is how resistant to change the permanent bureaucracy is. That makes this series relevant in the 1980s, today, going forward into the 2080s as well as back in the 1880s, 1780s, etc.
This was so close to the reality of how the government back then and even now work it is scary. If anyone needs to see how devious our governments are just watch a season of these fantastic comedies. Great actors and great convincing acting.
The writers had anonymous sources who often let them in on "secret" information regarding the inner workings of the government, which became the storylines of many episodes.
Back when the series first air David Cameron who was then just a university student criticised the show heavily for being unrealistic and demonised the government too much. Only after he join politics and eventually claw his way to become prime minister he realised how painfully realistic the show is.
"Yes, but even then they probably certainly know that you probably wouldn't, they don't certainly know that although you probably wouldn't there's no probability that you certainly would!"
@@Farweasel That is a fairly condescending comment indeed. It is the delivery of "what?" by Eddington that made it comically poignant. The script-writer had simply written the word "what?" and it was up to the actor as to how he decided to deliver it. And he did it superbly. Notice how he acts with his entire face first and then his entire body, with his glance darting here and there, to let the confusion manifest in his person. He could have simply sat there and said "what?". People would have still laughed perhaps. But it would have hardly been the same. Your bicycle metaphor does not fit here simply because I do not see Eddington's delivery's success being entirely dependent on Hawthorne's earlier speech. Hawthorne, in my opinoin, did poorly in this anyway. He looks way too animated - eyes bulging, body moving awkwardly - which takes away the realism altogether. I do not mind the realism being absent altogether as it can still be quite funny. The only problem is that then it would be inconsistent because in other places Appleby is very realistic and serious.
@@meusha846 I concur as to Paul Eddington's brilliance, but the degree of payoff came from Nigel Hawthorne's setup. A comic dialogue is a dance of partners, and in the best ones the partners make each other better.
@@Farweasel I have cats, so I've watched plenty of videos of squirrels and birds. I've also watched The Lion King, The Land Before Time, Ice Age, and Happy Feet. This beats any of them.
I just love it when Jim Hacker reacts with a confused WHAT after Sir Humphrey has intellectually and verbosely rambled on and on. He just defeats that purpose altogether.
Paul Eddington is a legend, the guy doesn't even have to say anything that funny and he still makes you laugh, he makes you chuckle just thinking of him. May he rest in peace.
"Yes, but even though they probably certainly know that you probably wouldn't, they don't certainly know that, although you probably wouldn't, there's no probability that you certainly would!"........"What?" - brilliant! 🤣
2:28 - "Yes, but that's about all!!" Humphrey's mask slips to reveal that he is actually quite mad. A facet that Hawthorne brought rather brilliantly to the character.
Well, with MAD Doctrine - mutually assured destruction - 5 nuclear weapons is utterly laughable as a deterrent, especially against a state that spans a continent like the USSR, as the response - that being the entire Soviet arsenal - would have utterly glassed all of the UK, while the soviets by comparison had at worst a flesh wound. So in this context, Humphrey is s indeed correct. You are either in the nuclear game, or you aren't. Hacker is wanting it both ways, which won't work.
to be fair destroying a few cities is nothing compared to destroying most cities. conventional bombs during WW2 probably did far far more damage to Germany than 5 nukes would have.
@@AFGuidesHD Perhaps. But that also took at the very best months to achieve. And that was assuming that the bombs hit anywhere close to their intended targets. An 'on target's bomb during WWII would still likely land as much as 500 feet from where it should have. Hence one of the reasons bombing raids required hundreds of planes dropping thousands of bombs, to make sure enough of them hit their mark. Put simply, WWII Bombing campaigns were an exercise in "throw enough shit at the wall and some of it is going to stick." In a nuclear exchange, the 'fighting' is over and done with Ina few hours, and the area of effect means you only need to go off inside the city limits to take out the whole city. Then the radioactive fallout denies the enemy access to the location for years after before they can rebuild.
@@K9TheFirst1 The reality is that most Bomber Command raids in World War II were area raids as the average bomb aimer would be lucky to be within 100 to 300 yards when some bomber crews bombed the wrong city. They relied on using large bombs such as the 12,000 lb blast bomb to dehouse and also increased the number of incendiary devices carried on the raids to start large fires that would overwhelm the local fire services. Yet for all of the waste involved in that campaign, the cost and the number of lives lost the Allied bombing campaign against Germany consumed some 1,415,745 tons of bombs and if you take into account the divison of bombing and assume a roughly 85% average share for the RAF that accounts to 1,203,383 tonnes of bombs. yet explosive power is not related to bomb weight as the casing has to be taken into account so if you are generous and take a factor of 90% explosive content which is dreadfully inaccurate for the early bombs like the 500lb bomb and closer to the 12,000 lb blast bomb then you are left with a figure of just over 1.08 million tonnes of explosive dropped. Against which you have to quantify bombs that did not explode due to fuse failure, were disarmed by the Germans or which entered the ground too deeply to detonate so takinge a 10% failure rate off of that and you are sub 1 million tonnes of effective explosive power. Little Boy detonated at a figure of around 16 kilotonnes of TNT which suggests that terms of nuclear bombing a saturated bombing campaign using conventional weapons was more suitable in terms of a visible and permanent result as Little Boy achieved an efficiency that was a very low 1.7% of the fissionable material contained within the bomb, had the bomb reached around 20% efficiency then the yield could have reached a figure closer to 34 kilotonnes of TNT. Although Little Boy exploded with the energy equivalent of 16,000 tons of TNT, the Strategic Bombing Survey estimated that the same blast and fire effect could have been caused by 2,100 tons of conventional bombs: "220 B-29s carrying 1,200 tons of incendiary bombs, 400 tons of high-explosive bombs, and 500 tons of anti-personnel fragmentation bombs." The bottom line is that to have reached the amount of TNT equivalent dropped on Germany you would have needed 61 atomic devices the size of Little Boy and that would have irradiated most of Western Europe in the process.
@@dclark142002 Minister, one must always assume the deadline shall be broken. But you have to always ensure said deadline be before the end of one's term, less you do not make it in the relection.
@@MightyJosh1985 Ukraine cannot win the war and the longer the nazi clown comedian puppet actor is in power, the west will prolong it for the causalities to maximize and to buy more time for the later acts. If you believe what you see on news, you've been fooled.
The S systems are non-nuclear anti-aircraft missiles. The hypersonics are still in development, and the US has been developing their own version as well as counter-measures. Putin's hypersonics are a load of sonic-hype, intended to frighten the western public in the hopes that it will help him get his way with Ukraine as well as the other former Soviet republics. Maybe not entirely bluff, but certainly 100% bluster.
"How about masterly inactivity?" Interestingly it was British India's Afghan policy after the debacle of 1st Anglo-Afghan War in 19th century. Make one wonder what would south Asian security situation look like, if the west had continued that policy, while the current Afghan debacle still unfolding.🤔
How on Earth did they learn these lines? In the same way that people ask what was the good of the moon landings, i used to ask what is the good of puting on Shakespears plays - but now i see.
This classic shares the "Comedy Great" mantle with Citizen Khan, according to this RU-vid channel. It'd take more than a whole ministry of Sir Humphreys to convince me of that.
'enough to obliterate Moscow Leningrad Minsk' not sure if the writers were aware but the actual discussions about targeting were similar. The UK had a so called 'Moscow criterion' at the time ie at a minimum Moscow had to go. In fact talks constantly revised the proposed target list '10,20, 30, options with or without Moscow'. There was also a lot of discussion about megadeaths. It was generally agreed a minimum of 20 million ie Moscow Leningrad Minsk might just about cover it or close enough.
The writers had secret contacts inside government. Information provided through the back channels anchored the show in reality. That is one of the reasons it works so well.
I have got movie DVDS of Paul Uddingston with Christopher Lee and Charles Gray in The Devil Rides Out and Nigel Hawthorn with Clint Eastwood and Freddy Jones in Firefox as I am dedicating this movie DVDS to my old school friends who are both sisters as I hope to see them again very soon to Chris and Hester from Billyxxxxx
Poseidon isn't an interceptor of Polaris though; for that there's the A-135 (around since 1995), the S-400 (possibly), the upcoming S-500 and A-235 Nudol.
This was the vastly superior predecessor to "The Thick of It" which looks like it was written by morons by comparison as great works often do when other try to imitate them.
this is from an era when our culture still had intellectual values and cherished the integrity of being intelligent and educated. whereas in modern day, it's nearly as if everything is just lowbrow and trashy. quick and primal stimulations through the internet, social media and shortform content (tiktok, etc), perfectly thoughtless for quick sensory triggers and easy consumption. like the rats in Olds-Milner chamber waisting their lives compulsively pressing that lever over, and over, and over again for those quick serotonin releases. comedy is a spectrum, on one end you have the clowns, on the other end intelligent and elegant satire. yet, in this day and age itseems as most of entertainment media has gone full pedal into the circus
@@merlith4650 ....this show aired the same years that the US soap opera Dallas was the most watched tv show in the UK and the biggest broadcast was reshowing Live and Let Live. Very intellectual, not low brow at all. The Rick and Morty of intellectual consumerism of its day.
