Apparently the BBC have apologised to MiniRon. That's Ronnie Corbett, who was a third of the Two Ronnies and a man who has made a career out of completely inoffensive comedy.
It seems someone I've never heard of, called Doug Carnegie, sent an Email in which he referred to MiniRon as 'Little ****'
Little fourstar? He called MiniRon 'a small amount of petrol?' Well, that's pretty insulting. Almost as bad as calling him a Diesel Van although I think there's an actor by that name.
Of course, the word hidden under that four stars is one of those familiar to readers of Obo and others and starts with a 'c'. It also has a 'u', 'n' and 't' in it and it's not 'Cnut'.
It has to be that one because the Mail have their panties all knotted over it and are calling it a 'grossly offensive word' and 'shit' and 'fuck' wouldn't cut it here. The BBC let those words on air.
It's just an insult. Only one word is insulting because nobody could argue with the 'little'. MiniRon has made no comment. The Email was not sent to him. It was sent in response to MiniRon's agent cancelling an appearance - which would have annoyed anyone setting up a show. It smacks of short temper and does not reflect well on the sender but it's just an insult that would be best ignored. It's not even an imaginative insult. For the amount this lot get through the licence fee I expect far better.
Carnegie's Email was then forwarded to the entire production team. One of them sent it to the Daily Mail who saw fit to put it in the public domain.
Why? They were not the ones it was aimed at. There's nothing to suggest MiniRon knew anything about it so could not possibly have been upset. This is 'offense by proxy' and the only way MiniRon could have been at all affected is if some overzealous professionally-offended git decided to hold it up and shout 'See what the bad man wrote'.
The BBC have apologised. They should not have. They should have pointed out that there was no need for this matter to go any further than the Email communicants themselves, that since MiniRon has not complained, there is nothing to apologise for and that all involved in being mortally offended on behalf of someone who did not even know they were being insulted should just grow the hell up.
In saying nothing, the diminutive MiniRon proves himself a bigger man than any of them.
By the way, it's worth scrolling down that article for a glimpse of 'Lumpy-legs Chiles' but only if you haven't recently eaten.
9 comments:
"...member of the team passed it on to the Daily Mail in disgust".
For a laugh more likely or just plain simple mischief making.
It's a manufactured story. If the Daily Mail hadn't blown it up it would never have come to anyone's attention at all.
You'd think there was enough news out there without papers having to invent some. Even the Mail.
That's modern 'journalism' for you! Well, got to do something with all those meejah graduates after all...
A.S.H Australia is up to it's usual tricks:
http://www.smh.com.au/national/health-department-bans-staff-smoke-breaks-20100111-m2si.html
Claims from A.S.H Australia as shown on the (Credulous) news claim that on average, smokers take 15 minutes 5 times a day, and calculate this out to the equivalent of 5 weeks not working per year (!). Thus, all smokers "should" have their annual holidays cut by one week a year.
http://preview.tinyurl.com/ydzho6n
I'm throwing this link your way, Leg-Iron, not because I want to drive your blood pressure through the roof, but to wonder if this is a step further than UK apparatchiks have gone, or is this sort of stuff old news in the UK?
I suppose a c*** is a 'short arse' if you think about it... or is it the other way around?
Anyway, until fairly recently, we didn't need to have fag breaks at work. You smoked while you worked, even doctors did it. About the only places it wasn't allowed was down coal mines or on oil rigs... presumingly so you didn't set fire to an important national resource?
vw: nobeedia
how does it know?
Aus-Autarch - there haven't yet been open moves to do this although there have been mutterings for years about 'smokers getting extra breaks'. Those mutterings only started after we were ejected from every building in the country. When we didn't have to go outside, there was no problem.
It'll come, though. They just keep pushing.
I still think these people take far too much interest in 'the children' than is healthy. Something is a bit suspect there.
Well I'm "glad" to hear that our local do-gooders are in front of the curve on this one - it means that they have stuck their own necks out without the figleaf of "x does it too". This means that when they get their noses chopped off, they'll have no-one to blame but themselves.
I've got to admit though, that it is *obvious* a highly strategised move. They've gone after the smokers again, but they've tried to set the rest of Australia again them by playing on the "fair-go" meme. "Why should they get more time off than you? The bastards aren't doing their fair share!". Which is an obvious but effective ploy.
The coordinating of this push with various media programs is fairly disturibing - it is definitely stage managed, and an ominous sign of exactly how determined the "righteous" are to force their moral and cultural changes on the rest of the population.
As a non-smoker myself, it seems to be obvious that if a particular worker is less productive than the boss expects, regardless of the reason, the boss should be having a chat. Targetting a particular group for persecution based on a legal behaviour is immoral. This is the thin end of the wedge in behaviour control by the health stasi. (They're just starting a ban on alcohol on Australia Day!)
As to the "It's for the Children" issue, clearly another figleaf - but in full play in Australia - it is now illegal to smoke in a (private) vehicle if their a person under the age of 18 - to be enforced by the police with demerit points on a driver's license...
The funny thing is, I don't know where the mandate/authority for these decisions was granted to these QUA(N)GOs - or more importantly, how to put them back in their damn box...
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