How old are you?

I'm 60, and first saw YM when I was in my 20's. I was instantly addicted, and soon had my parents addicted as well, even though we're Canadians. Some things are just universal, and the workings of the little grey men in the back corridors is an endless goldmine of comedy, perhaps even farce. Hacker is wonderfully dim....his wife is far more savvy than he is. Sir Humphrey is so much fun when he goes into his verbal tap dance, designed to make sure his minister knows as little as possible and can do nothing to change the orderly running of his ministry. As he so correctly points out to the poor assistant who must try to keep them both happy, ministers come and go but civil servants are forever. The situation that sticks in my mind is the hospital that wins an award for its cleanliness...because it's empty. It's been built, but there's no money to staff it. In most episodes sir Humphrey's "Yes, minister" at the end end was smug and satisfied as he succeeded in keeping Hacker confused and impotent. But there was one episode where that last line was a wry acknowledgement that Hacker, with the help of the assistant, had finally out-maneuvered him on one issue at least, and it was Hacker who did the verbal tap dance. At that time we had a lot of british shows available to us...YM, Fawlty Towers, Butterflies, and shows like Spender, The Professionals, Minder, Cracker, Prime Suspect, Rumpole...all of them head and shoulders above our network programming. I miss those days.