The US/UK reality gap

Bremner, Bird and Fortune - genius at work

http://www.channel4.com/news/2003/special_reports/images/1autocue.ram

sorry, some of you won't get all of the UK references...

Especially those of us who refuse to run Real player.

Yeah, sorry about that. Not my choice either.

OMFG! That is absolutely the funniest thing that I've seen in months! My 2 year old son is wondering why 'Daddy' is rolling around on the floor laughing hysterically, and wondering whether it's a cue to do the same...

I miss British TV

There is a whole bunch more of them here:

http://www.channel4.com/news/2003/special_reports/bremnerbirdfortune.html

All in Real though I'm afraid.

...and if you want to know what us Brits were doing in Iraq back in 1917 and 1941 then this page is informative:

http://www.channel4.com/news/2003/special_reports/iraq_hard_place.html

...turns out we would have been the first to gas the Kurds, if we could have got our bombs to work.

JOHN FORTUNE:
What is it about Kurds? They were still giving trouble to Saddam in the eighties. He gassed them. Where could he have got that idea?

CAPTION: SECRET 29 MARCH 1919

JOHN BIRD
Secret. Dated 29th of March 1919. “Gas bombs are required by the 31st Wing for use against recalcitrant Arabs, the suggestion being concurred in by General Staff Baghdad.

RORY:
At the Air Ministry Lieutenant Colonel Gossage worried about the effects of gas on the innocent. But those qualms were not shared by the then Secretary of State for War and Air, the future Colonial Secretary, Prime Minister and Greatest Briton of All Time.

CHURCHILL:
“I do not understand this squeamishness about the use of gas. I am strongly in favour of using poison gas against uncivilised tribes”.

JOHN FORTUNE:
Churchill felt that what was required was to arouse in the local population, what he called, “a lively terror”. Which is a neat phrase, bearing in mind that we’re now busily fighting a war against terror. But there were still worries at the Air Ministry.

JOHN BIRD:
“I understand that the Secretary of State has approved the general policy of using poisonous gas on uncivilised tribes. So far although considerable time and trouble was expended on research during the war, we have not yet evolved suitable and practical gas bombs for use from aircraft”.

JOHN FORTUNE:
So there we are, another good idea goes down the tube. Not because we didn’t have the heart, but because we didn’t have the technology.

It's a crazy world.

Nothing particularly wrong with Real -- at least it works on more than one platform, unlike other pieces of repugnant refuse..

And bloody hilarious that sketch was!