The idea that you have to be protected from any kind of uncomfortable emotion is what I absolutely do not subscribe to. - John Cleese

Gra was always mildly irritated by any display of decorum, or good taste, if he felt it was a direct challenge to his deepest beliefs. When I mentioned once that Connie and I had guests coming to dinner that evening who were a bit formal and stuck-up, he carefully cut out some very small pieces of paper, wrote an obscenity on each one, and then hid them round our flat in all the rooms our guests were likely to visit. Connie found one of these just ten minutes before they were due to arrive: a moment of pure panic that set off a frenzied paperchase, as we raced around the apartment trying to find them all before the doorbell rang. We missed one, which he had placed on the basin in the visitors’ loo. It simply read, ‘Anus’. I’ve always wondered whether our guests speculated why we might have put it there.

The problem was that I carried around with me a tendency to feel that other people’s respect for me would vanish if what I did was second rate. And while I accept that this “perfectionism” is likely to stimulate the production of better work, it doesn’t, unfortunately, go hand in hand with a relaxed and happy attitude to life.

Но докато вижданията спрямо псуването и вулгарността се изменят в една посока през последните 40г., друга ценностна система сякаш застрашава комедията, движейки се наобратно. Говоря за отричащата живота сила, наречена политическа коректност. Това може и да е започнало като добра помисъл, но скоро бе отвлечена и разбрана ad absurdum от няколко индивиди без чувство за мярка - което по определение означава, че нямат и никакво чувство за хумор.