SO, the head of comedy at the BBC has announced that if the Monty Python boys turned up in his office today, they would not be given a television show.

He reckons that the days when Oxford and Cambridge-educated white men ­produced all the comedy are over and that today, it must be diverse.

Harry Enfield and Paul Whitehouse are a prime example of great British comedians Credit: Rex Features

I wonder. Does he think that comedy produced by well-educated, well-spoken men will only be watched by well-educated, well-spoken men?

I only ask because my dad was the biggest Monty Python fan the world has ever seen, and he left school at 14 to become a butcher’s boy in a South Yorkshire mining village.

That brings me on to Jasper Carrott, who was educated at a large comprehensive school in Birmingham and went on to work in a department store.

He therefore has nothing in common with me but despite this, he is easily the funniest stand-up I’ve ever seen.

What would the BBC have done without great comedy from people like Alan Partridge?

Apart from maybe Rich Hall, who’s part Cherokee Indian.

Football managers don’t think: “Right. I’ve got three players who are white, three who are black and three who are gay. So now I need a woman and someone in a wheelchair.”

They just go out and buy the best footballers they can afford.

And that’s how it should be with comedy. Employ funny people. The end.

Funniness has nothing to do with colour or the contents of your underwear.

It has nothing to do with class or nationhood or any other modern-world, Guardian-based claptrap.

You have to be clever to be a successful comedy like Michael McIntyre Credit: PA:Press Association

Our man at the BBC says: “If we are going to assemble a team (of comedians) now, it’s going to be a diverse range of people who reflect the modern world.”

In other words, it’s going to look like breakfast time in Angelina Jolie’s house.

He says that to break new ground, he’s got an all-girl sketch show in the pipeline.

But what’s new about that?

Has he forgotten about French and Saunders? Or Ab Fab, which wasn’t a sketch show, I admit, but it was mostly done by women and it was bloody funny.

I wish him well with his plans and hope that he gives his new comedians good budgets so the sketches aren’t too long.

BBC puts it's foot in it over diversity issues, jokes Jeremy Clarkson

Most of all though, I hope he remembers something I’ve noticed over the years, something that Steve Coogan, Simon Pegg, David Mitchell, Harry Enfield, John Cleese, Dawn French, Paul Whitehouse, Jimmy Carr, Michael McIntyre, Jasper Carrott, Chris Morris, Armando Iannucci, Rob Brydon, Rich Hall, Bob Monkhouse, Michael Palin, Joan Rivers, Charlie Brooker and all the other great comedians have in common.

They’re all extremely clever.

So clever that many will have been to Oxford and Cambridge.

IT MUSK BE SOME MISTAKE SHORTLY after Tesla announced that it was cutting its workforce by nine per cent and still missing production targets for the new small car, boss Elon Musk announced that the company had been sabotaged. He said the person responsible was an individual who may well be working in league with the oil companies. Or maybe Wall Street. Or Volkswagen. Which he described as a big-bottomed gas company. Yes Elon, or maybe it was aliens or God or Russian spies. To counter this, Mr Musk said that only the paranoid survive. Which is probably true, but it’s difficult to get anything done if you’re hiding behind the sofa, imagining that axe-wielding zombies are living in your fridge, sabotaging your ice tray.

Let Vine be bike battler

THIS week, I saw a school-run mum cycling through the busy streets of Kensington in London with her two young children riding their little bikes in her wake.

Let Jeremy Vine be the one to front the bike fight Credit: The Mega Agency

Now, I’m sure that later in the day at the avocado and muesli bar, all her silly friends will have congratulated her for being so ecological and public spirited.

But the fact is that cycling in London is extremely dangerous and that one day, God forbid, it’s possible one of her children could be killed.

Yes, there’d be an outcry and the motorist who ran over the child would get some serious jail time.

But the child would still be dead.

So, if you’re reading this, love, and I know you’re not because you’re a Guardian type, but if you are, don’t use your kids as pawns in a battle Jeremy Vine is quite capable of fighting for himself.

Too scary to sink of AN elderly man walking home across marshland this week sank up to his armpits and was only rescued after being spotted by a police drone. I’d like to say I can’t imagine how frightening this must have been for the poor chap but actually, I can. Many years ago, I was having a few pints with mates in a London riverside pub when a man walking his dog along the river bed – it was low tide – started to sink. We laughed when he was up to his knees and were howling when he was up to his waist. But when the ooze went past his navel, we stopped giggling and called the fire brigade. By the time they had arrived he was up to his neck, and I’ve never heard screams like it. It was the sound of pure terror. To this day, the memory of that noise still brings me out in a cold sweat.

Abby deserves a Med-al

Abby Clancy stuns on the beach in a white bikini not long after giving birth Credit: The Mega Agency

I SPENT quite a long time this week looking at those pictures of Abbey Clancy emerging from the sea on to a beach in Majorca.

I found them rather puzzling, because whenever I’ve tried to do that, I almost always bash my toe on a boulder or stand on a sea urchin, which causes everyone to urinate on me.

Why didn’t that happen to her? And while I’m at it, how come she isn’t bright red and covered in mosquito bites?

Which is what happens to everyone else when they go on holiday to the Med.

OH SUGAR POOR old Lord Sugar. The man still hasn’t realised that today, Twitter decides what’s racist and what isn’t. And that everything is. Apart from the stuff that’s sexist, or homophobic.



Ref vid is Mex-rated

MANY people have wondered out loud what the Mexican video ref was watching when that Tunisian footballer wrestled Harry Kane to the ground during England’s opening World Cup match.

We can all imagine what the Mexican video the referee was watching during England's opening World Cup match Credit: AP:Associated Press

Well think about it. He’s a man and he’s on his own in a room that’s hooked up to the internet.

So what do you think he was watching?



The Fan-tax-stic NHS

WELL, Mrs May reared up from the Brexit issues this week and announced that the National Health Service is to be given an extra £20billion.

Theresa May finally announced more money for the NHS, although it won't touch the sides Credit: PA:Press Association

Well I’ve done some calculations, and it turns out that this is the exact figure that’s guaranteed to make absolutely no difference at all in the big scheme of things.

Still, at least it means our taxes will have to go up.