Seriously.

Green Wing = Channel 4.

I BBC is channel 4, right?

Uh... no. Channel 4 is an entirely separate broadcaster, funded by advertising (which the BBC doesn't carry). It has its' own secondary digital channels, marked by the cunning linking device of a "4" in the title (More4, E4, Film4, 4music).

Your post is the equivalent of "NBC is FOX, right?"

Give it another six months.

Grrrr...

My apologies. I have very limited knowledge of English broadcasting. I was given to understand that in england the government owned the broadcast stations. I shall find the person that so misinformed me and flog them immediately.

I'm envisioning yarn and microlight cats claws with barbed tips.

Granted, this person is now approaching their 70's, but still...

England =/= Britain...

Now you've gone and done it Rickshaw.

At least you didn't call Scotland, "England." A million engineers looking to creatively rearrange your DNA, you don't want.

I suspect Green Wing is shown on BBC America though, yes? Like So Graham Norton and Spaced (I think), Channel 4 programmes often get shown on BBC America because of a deal they have with the BBC. Basically the BBC is funded by the licence fee and the goverment and so carries no advertising. ITV and Channel 5 (plus most of the satellite stations) are private companies that geta teeny amount from the licence fee but primarily are funded by advertising. Channel 4 is a slightly odd entity in that while it does raise revenue from advertising it also gets a fair amount of it's money from the licence fee and the government and a lot of it's prgrammes are either filmed at the BBC studios or have some BBC input. The same thing is true of S4C (the Welsh language version of Channel 4). So you'll often get shows on BBC America which aren't actually BBC programmes because they were made by Channel 4. Assuming that they're all made by the BBC isn't an ucommon mistake and pretty understandable really.

As for England/Britain... tut tut, very bad form old chap. It's like saying 'Texas' instead of 'USA'. Or, well, not really, but sort of.

And Green Wing.... absolute bloody genius. It's complete mayhem and incredibly silly but just some of the best TV for years. Channel 4 do seem to hit the mark more often than not with their comedy (Spaced, Father Ted, Green Wing, Black Books, The IT Crowd, Smack The Pony), possibly because the writers and cast are given mroe free reign to do what they like. Of course Green Wing also benefits hugely from the presence of the unutterably marvellous Tasmin Greig, who is one fo the finest actresses and comediennes we've ever produced to my mind. Everyone else is great too though, and they clearly had a huge amount of fun making it. A ot of it is improvised and if you w3atch carefully often the reason that they speed things up at the end of a scene is so that you can't see the cast laughing.

Well (said while cleaning fingernails with a pocketknife), I ain't got much learnin' when it comes ta places oudda tha US. After all, I went ta pubic high scool. We'uns din't get much lernin their.

Okay, all joking aside, i have heard it used interchangably over the years and honestly didn't know that it was seperated. I thought things like Scotland and Ireland were provinces, like states. Thats the beauty of Legion World, someone always ready to correct mistakes, lol.

My understanding is that the English think England and Britain are interchangeable, while the Scotch, Welsh, & Irish don't.

Wikipedia article Then click on the link "British Isles (terminology)"

And in the sense that technically the various states are sovereign in their own right, they are like England, Wales, Scotland, & Northern Ireland. But I think the people in Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland are more aware of their sovereignty than the people of the various US states.

The only part of the BBC which is funded by the government is the World Service (their radio station broadcast outside the UK).

1) It doesn't get money from the licence fee or the government at present (although that may change). The only support per se it gets is free spectrum for broadcasting.
2) Channel 4 doesn't make it's own programmes. ALL of it's programmes are made by "independent production companies" (including ITV!) and simply broadcast by it. Some of the programmes are made at BBC TV Centre, yes, but so are some ITV programmes these days - anyone willing to pay can do so.

"Scottish". "Scotch" refers only to whisky.

Even more confusingly, American "public schools" = "state schools" in Britain, while British "public schools" = "private schools" in the U.S.!

Jillikers! Plus, in London they have this dish where they take all the leftover vegetables from the day before and make a big mash out of them--and people love it! At first, I thought it was alien food!

Feh as the First Earl of Durham said of Canada (that other mess of a state the English created) the UK can be described as, "Nations Warring in the bosom of a single State".

And I don't believe that the US States are sovereign in the same way Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland or Quebec are. I believe y'all fought a war that determined that the States had surrendered their national sovereignty to an Indissoluable Union.

Scraps of OR have threatened to secede and join Western Canada. Typically, nobody has asked the Canadians whether or not they wish to be demeaned and cheapened in this fashion. To say nothing of having to share their discount pharma and fly a cheesy flag with a big conifer in the middle .

The constitutionality of that war was highly suspect, to say the least. One of the most unfortunate aspects of American history is that defending "States's Rights" became synonomous with defending institutionalized racism, which help to contribute to the gradual eroding of state power in favor of the federal government, which also had the effect of significantly weakening one of the most important balances of power in the Constitution, as originally conceived.

"I believe y'all fought a war that determined that the States had surrendered their national sovereignty to an Indissoluable Union. "

Yep, it was called the war of Northern Aggression.

By the way, i've heard all my life that the "english" are much more classy and witty than we are, that their shows are much more funny.

Gotta tell ya, from what i have seen, its just a matter of the grass being greener. Sometimes literally. Green Wing, while funny at times, and suprisingly tedious at times, is far from what i would believe to be "classy", and in fact, is about as filthy in some respects as it gets.

Coupling...funny, funny show, but not really classier than say Mary Tyler Moore.

Now, thats not a shot at our cousins from across the sea. Wouldn't want them to take it that way. Just trying to be honest here.

rickshaw1, it's the problem I've always had with British humor I guess. I saw the Green Wing and it did nothing for me. Mind you I've only seen one episode. I would have to give it more of a chance.

Monty Python is another one that doesn't do anything for me. I always thought that I was from a mostly spanish neighborhood here in Florida and never really Americanized all that much. Might be a translation thing for me. (and yes I am americanized I just never heard of some American terms, etc. Don't worry I'm not a stereotype. )

Billy Connolly on the other hand (and other british stand-up comics) I think are bleeping hilarious!

On a plaque in a cemetary near my house it is called "The Rebellion". The date of the plaque is 1919.

Every time this thread pops up, I misread the title as "BBC's Green Wine..."

I'm a little embarrassed about that, especially since I don't think that either England proper nor its sibs are exactly renowned for the stuff.

Heh, the whole 'classy' thing is an odd one. The image of what 'class' is I think is something that comes (in modern tersm anyway) almost from an American point of view as to what the English are. There's a perception that we have a classy accent and attitude at the expense of Americans themselves, despite the fact that it's not rerally true. In the same way while a lot of our comedy is much more based on witticisms so people think all our comedy should be classy too. In fact we have a fine tradition of absolutely filthy comedy in a way that you just don't get in America. We're oddly prudish about sex in some ways, but when it comes to comedy there's very few things that aren't open game.

I think though there's a lot of British comedy that is very much the kind of stuff that people either find hilarious or can't stand (or maybe just don't find funny). For every person you meet who loves the surreality and filth of Monty Python or Black Books you'll meet someone who just doesn't find it funny. I think that's a good thing though. In the UK there's space for almost every type of comedy (I hate The Office for example, but a huge number of people love it) whereas up until farely recently in America comedy was all very much of one type that didn't want to cause any offense or alienate any viewers (in the mainstream at least, and certainly not with regards to stand up where mericans are just as boundry pushing as any Brits). That's changed recently with a lot of fairly mainstream US comedies pushing the boundaries much more. In a world where we're told culture is all becoming homogenised and all the same I think the way that US comedy is broadening and playing with the idea of what's funny can be no bad thing.

Ogh, and thinking about it probably the 'classiest' comedy of all time is probably 'Frasier', which is one fo the most American sitcoms ever but still incredibly classy and clever and witty in a way that people think British comedy has the upper hand.

Hmmm... about Python... I find it to be much like my favorite U.S. comedy. In the sense that it's a superb mash-up of both highbrow and lowbrow comedy. My favorite comedians or comedy shows on either side of the pond are the ones where they get that balance juuuust right. It's that contrast, and that sense of something-for-everyone, that wins my dark little heart every time.

I just got mr_cleome to watch The Good Neighbors on Hulu with me. They ran that on PBS when I was a kid and I loved it. Still a funny show, and oddly ahead of its time, given all the trendy "urban agriculture" talk going on in my neck of the woods now.

Also a big fan of As Time Goes By. I want to hunt that one down again, one of these days.

I keep seeing the dvds for the good neighbors on netflix. I may get it just to see it on your recommendation.