1:30 when our dear minister pouts he's "going to be Transport Supremeo" and Nigel Hawthorne can barely hold it together, he's so tickled by Paul Eddington's performance is just a delight to watch. He covers it very well but he clearly broke and who could blame him? It's just a nice human moment between them both. So great.
I love Bernard, he's hilarious. It's a shame they weren't all Knighted, and together. The three of them were fantastic together and really created the show we all love.
Actually, Bernard was knighted and become head of the civil service later on. Jim, on the other hand, was kicked up stairs , after his time as prime minister. Interestingly enough, sir Humphrey spent his last days in an old people's home. If you are interested, read The Complete Yes Minister. It adds on to the show.
@@EmperorBlue Absolutely! Also 'The Complete Yes Prime Minister'. Sir Bernard Woolley in conversation with the editors and also comments inserted in parentheses by the editors are an added bonus.
Humphrey's quadruple take at Bernard rambling about Greek and Latin is the funniest part of this famous take. Humphrey of course, took a First in Greats at Oxford, so thus would have been common knowledge to him
Yes, he finally got more than a few seconds! And as a Latin and Greek teacher, I loved his (somewhat irrelevant) digression on Greek and Latin grammar.
@@graemebird2502 I am glad you exist, Graeme, and there should be more of you. I thought I had forgotten my very distant Latin lessons, but when I semi-retired to Italy, I found my school Latin insisted on speaking over my primitive Italiano. I received some odd looks. I blame my Latin and English teachers for making me into a Grammar Nazi, with a very low Party number.
One of the few occasions when Sir Humphrey looked truly abashed by Bernard’s erudition, not just aghast at him “letting the cat out of the bag”. Of course it mostly went way over the head of Jim Hacker 😉.
Bernard's bit did exactly what it supposed to, because by the time Bernard finished his little tidbit, Jim and Humphrey are distracted enough that they are no longer at each other's throat and instead trying to work it out.
Bernard - the ultimate (Honours degree in Classics (Oxon)) pedant! All 3 protagonists are now no longer with us and YM/YPM is the ultimate example of the quality of British comedy from that golden age.
Bernard: Uh, if you had look the trojan horse in the mouth minister, you would have found Greeks inside... but the point is it was the Greeks who gave the Trojan horse to the Trojans so technically it wasn't a Trojan horse at all, hence the tag Timio Danaos et dona ferentes. Which you recall is usually and somewhat innacurately translated as beware of Greeks bearing gifts or doubtless you would have recalled had you not attended the LEC. Minister: Yes, I'm sure Greek tags are all very well in their way but can we stick to the point. Bernard: Sorry, sorry, Greek tags? Minister: Beware of Greeks bearing gifts, I suppose the EEC equivalent would be beware of Greeks bearing an olive oil surplus Humphrey: Excellent, minister. Bernard: No, well the point is minister that just as the Trojan horse was infact Greek, just what you described as a Greek tag is in fact Latin. It's obvious really the Greeks would never suggest be wearing of themselves, if one can use such a participle, be wearing that is and it's clearly Latin, not because timio ends in o, because the Greek first person also ends in o. Though, actually there is a Greek word tim-ao meaning 'I honour' but the os ending is a nominative singular termination of the second declension in Greek and an accusative plural in Latin of course, though actually danios is not only the Greek for Greek it's also the Latin for Greek, it's vey interesting really. Minister: Yes, I take your point Humphrey
This program is amazing, thrilled that my aunt has bought me the dvd collection. All actors are truely amazing to watch togeather and the script is so sharp . Humphrey /hawthorne makes every scene special .
To be fair, it's actually Humphrey digging Hacker out of the big hole he got himself (under the guise of "for the good of the department"). Obviously Humphrey doesn't want the department saddled with such a job but he still doesn't have to go to such lengths to keep Hacker safe at the same time.
@@siredith8846 Bernard, (hyperventilating), to PM Hacker... *"YOU* take his key away from him. That is, I'm not sure I have the authority to take his key and besides, he's bigger than me...."
A masterful performance by all three, but Bernard (Derek Fowlds) is just amazing. To me, this is funniest bit of "Yes, Minister" ever. Indeed, I rate it as the funniest bit of British comedy ever, above Monty Python, Fawlty Towers even (God forgive me) The Black Adder. I love all these shows, but this piece of script, the performance and direction are just inimitable.
Goodness. I'd completely forgotten about this clip. I now realise it must be Bernard's Yes, Prime/Minister's crowning scene of all - the quantity of monologue and the chaps' focused reaction to it. Can anyone think of a better one? It'd be nice if there was.
Can't get as many Greeks in a bus. A wooden horse would be much bigger. Wouldn't go as fast, of course and only one would come along instead of two or three. Fares, please.
"...hadn't you attended the LSE". Priceless. Actually Benard's lecture on Latin and Greek is my favourite. It even excells his description of the readers of "The Sun".
The difference being that Bernards discourse was explaining the differences between Latin & Greek (among other things) and Sir Humphrey usually uses jargon and officialese to confuse and confound Hacker to avoid saying unpleasant truths.
One of Hacker's weaknesses is his ego. He always imagines he will one day achieve a Churchillian success, despite lacking any qualities which would make that likely.
Where do you find such a pristine digital upload? I have the DVD's boxset, and the visual transfer quality is terrible.. definitely looking like old TV of the time.
Of course not, they’re still facing these same problems. The only way you could get around all this is if you assigned it to someone or some group that is entirely unconcerned with being elected and was completely outside parliament and Whitehall. It’s the kind of thing the king would assign to a courtier back in the day.
I'm not quite sure about the transport policy in Britian, which I understand is a small planet somewhere near Alpha Centauri, but Britain has had the same single transport policy for the past half century and it can be explained very simply. What we do is wait until the transport situation becomes utterly intolerable, be it road, rail, sea or air transport, and then improve it marginally until the next time it becomes utterly intolerable. Then we do the same thing again.
'Formulating policy means making choices. Once you do that, you please the people that you favour but you infuriate everybody else. One vote gained, ten lost.' I think this speech from Humphrey was the final nail in the coffin of my belief in democracy. Nothing gets done because its just one big popularity contest and the easiest way to be popular is to never make the tough, unpopular but necessary decisions. So nothing ever changes and nothing ever changes in politics is the point this show hammers home at every opportunity.
@@Fedacking And nothing became of it. British transport remains a giant mess with rail companies lagging as much as ten years behind the rest of the developed world, British roads being famous for their poor condition and airport expansion caught in an endless battle with conservationists, NIMBYs and local politics.
@@DomWeasel I mean the rest of the developed world are democracies so it seems to me that democracies can have better transportation. It can be done it's just that English politicians are incompetent
@@Fedacking Go to different countries and they'll tell you their nations have been dealing with the same problems for decades with successive governments promising to tackle the issue but never actually doing anything. In France, it's agriculture. In Japan, overcrowding. Every American administration of the 20th century claimed they would 'clean up' the streets but it ended up being time and outside investment that turned around places like New York, once known as the 'Big Rotten Apple' and crime remains a severe issue in the US; particularly murder.
In my social life, I've often found myself in Bernard's shoes, rattling on about medieval history, or Latin or Greek grammar (the writing is all the more impressive when you know that everything that Bernard is saying is completely accurate, and you even recognize the line he quotes from the Aeneid). And I'm pretty used to getting the same sort of blank stare that Jim Hacker had from others all the time. Bit sad really. If only I had a Sir Humphrey Appleby in my own life!
This is so accurate it almost makes me want to cry. In my country we have a problem with the rail signal system. It fails every two terms, which is why any current government never see the point in upgrading it: It’s incredibly expensive, only the politicians two terms down the line will claim the benefits by finally having a rail signal system that doesn’t suck and everyone else will have forgotten what you did in the first place. It’s easier to just blame yesterday’s governments and focus on instant voter gratification.
This is exactly what happened to Indian Ministry of Surface Transport the Monolith Transport Ministry - now everybody is comfortable with the divisions - Road Rail and Shipping!
No, the Queen uses male titles for everything except the title of queen itself. Its quite antiquated but its something like as to avoid confusion as to who is in power
Strictly speaking, the Cabinet position referred to in the clip should be "Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster" the holder of which deals with the running of the Crown Estates in the said Duchy (rents, maintenance etc,). In fact it is more of a ceremonial post although the holder is a member of the Cabinet. It allows the Prime Minister to appoint a senior minister as "Minister without Portfolio" (no defined duties) who will act as troubleshooter, advisor etc
Bernard had an Honours degree in Classics, studying Latin, Greek, history, high art etc. If he couldn't conjugate Greek & Latin verbs, quote from Euclid, be conversant with Greek philosophers etc, he wouldn't have got an Honours degree...
London School of Economics, a university in London, as opposed to Oxford or Cambridge where most senior civil servants got their degrees. It's a constant theme of both Humphrey and Barnard rubbishing Hackers university as away of putting him down.
There was an episode where Sir Humphrey mentions the universities, "both of them." Of course Cambridge is looked down upon by Sir Humphrey. Indeed when someone slanders him, saying he is an agent for a hostile government, Sir Humphrey exclaims, "But I didn't go to Cambridge!" The most notorious traitors of the 20th century went to Cambridge were "the Cambridge Five:" Kim Philby, Guy Burgess, Donald Mclean, Anthony Blunt, and John Cairncross.
@TheRenaissanceman65 pointless and incorrect semantics. LSE awards its own degrees, making it a university in its own right. It is an independent, self-governing member institution of the UoL, which is a federal university. LSE is therefore not a college, not in the Doxbridge manner at least.
@TheRenaissanceman65 I don’t know when you graduated but LSE has offered degrees in its own name since 2008. Perhaps you should follow your own advice.
Or he could just compromise so none are happy, point out they are all out to get him when they all kick up a fuss, and look like the underdog, amd voters like the underdog. Only problem is, that makes too much sense.....
Galtieri initiated the Falklands war against UK, by which he gained a large boost right before re-election, but was soon removed from power after the loss of war. Margaret Thatcher gained a lot of popularity after winning the war as UK, whom is Hacker refering to.
