Depressingly, whenever I mention British Humour (sic) to an American  I receive the stock response: “Benny Hill!” I used to fight back, arguing that Hill’s humour was cheap smut eventually only permitted for export (to America), while true British Humour was a cerebral affair of the utmost sophistication. Balderdash!  I was kidding myself. Benny Hill was a late 20th century take on the Bedroom Farce genre that had been highly popular since late Victorian times and reached its zenith in the 1960s in the person of Brian Rix and his famously dropping trousers. One of the main ingredients of a Bedroom Farce is that the acting is frenetic with the audience  not given time to think; all laughter is on impulse, à la Benny Hill.

The one and only time I attended a Farce was at the impressionable age of 14,  in August 1972.  All I can remember is that “The Man Most Likely To..”  staged that summer season at the end of Bournemouth Pier, involved lots of slamming bedroom doors and Henry McGee, Benny Hill’s long-suffering straight man, displaying his naked derrière to a guffawing audience. On leaving the theatre, apart from a roaring trade in beach balls and rock candy, there was an ample selection of Robert McGill’s saucy postcards featuring cartoon depictions of leering men and buxom ladies from a bygone era – quintessentially British smut. (If you are ever looking for a sure way to get an Englishman to snigger, just say the word “Bottom” in a suggestive tone – disappointed punters guaranteed their money back).

While Lord Rix’s 90th birthday next week would be reason enough to bring Bedroom Farces and Benny Hill to mind, I admit that the recollection  had more to do with the antics of the current hapless occupant of the Élysée Palace. It is apparent that President Wheredidiputmyshoes  has – Ooh La La! – been banging rather too many bedroom doors in the course of his career, and has lately been having acute difficulty  deciding where to wake up. This moral confusion must surely be taking its toll on his already abysmal record in running the country. Take, for example, his New Year speech in which he had an epiphany and all of a sudden said that everyone was paying too much tax. A noble line for any sane Frenchman but, lest we forget, he is actively clobbering high income earners this year with a 75% marginal tax rate (albeit levied on employers) that was finally approved by the Constitutional Court as they kissed goodbye to 2013. This ordinary man  never actually married so, technically free to wander, does not appear to have any guiding star. If France is not careful, he could lead the entire nation into the River Seine (the Left Bank of which God is unlikely to split for those Gitanes-smoking Parisian intelligentsia).

Across the pond, the Americans are having their own problems with their moral compass. On January 1, Colorado became the first State to permit recreational marijuana. I don’t know whether  weed is a good thing or not (I do really, but I don’t want you to think that I am a narrow-minded tax accountant). What is clear , however,  is that this thing has not been thought through. Because growing, processing and selling pot are still Federal offences, and despite Washington stating that the Feds will hold off – if you are a Coloradoan wanting to feed your habit with a little sideline in cultivation, you will not be able to open a bank account due to federal money laundering rules. If you cannot open a bank account, you will have difficulty running a kosher business in the stuff – meaning that you are unlikely to pay tax. And while we are on the subject of tax, Big Brother has to decide where pot should be classified in the  excise tax hit parade. Does the fact that alcohol leads some people to kill while marijuana leads others to float, mean that it should be taxed more lightly than alcohol, which for some (like me) is a little hard to swallow? At present the state tax on cannabis is much higher than on alcohol. And what about when comparing a joint to a publicly ostracized cigarette?

When I read about Western Government decisions these days – from muted reactions to Syria and Iran to juvenile brawling on Capitol Hill – I  picture the entire Western World on its back  floating calmly down a river late at night, reefer in mouth and girl at each side, not quite managing to focus on the shining stars in the clear night sky and blissfully unaware of the waterfall ahead. There must be a moral in there somewhere, or maybe not.