This is an old poem of Spike Milligan's. I can't remember the title but I think it was in the book 'The Little Pot Boiler'.
"The human face is something that
Hangs downwards from a thing called hat
And when the hat is raised, it's said
It shows a hairy thing called head
Now I would rather cover face
And strike it full on with a mace."
An incitement to violence? Of course not, it's just a joke. At the time, everyone knew it because in those days there was a thing called a 'sense of humour'. Nobody at all would have been shocked, nobody would have considered that Spike ever intended to actually smash someone's face in with a mace (he never met Russel Brand), nobody would have seen it as anything other than a humorous little rhyme.
He's lucky he's dead. So are all the other great comedians of the past because now, there is no sense of humour any more. People can't tell the difference between "Kill all of ze Jews mit gas und bullets!" and "Yeah, gingers should all be killed except Prince Harry, also people with bad toenails, and people who pay with tons of change at the checkouts..." To many people who have replaced 'sense of humour' with 'stupid' those two statements are identical. One is a joke, the other is deadly. Nobody can tell them apart now.
To be fair, it's more difficult to draw the distinction these days when 'kill smokers, drinkers, fat people, anyone eating meat or wearing fur, anyone who leaves the light on when they're out, anyone using salt or eating crisps' is pretty much Government policy. So when someone extends it into gingers and long toenails and old people, there are many, many people who simply assume the list has been officially extended. These days it is nearly impossible to not be in a hated group unless you are a perfect fit for the Aryan mould. And we all know the elderly are on the list anyway so it's not too surprising that the drones are confused.
One person who saw it said: “I haven’t a clue if it was meant or not.
They could have stopped at 'clue' and the sentence would be both grammatically and factually accurate.
“If it was a bit of a laugh, it should have been kept between whoever it was meant to be shared with rather than a public website.”
Because the rest of the population have forgotten how to laugh. Everything is deadly serious now.
Spike Milligan once did a skit on Pakistani Daleks which would have the Righteous anus puckered to the point of healing over if it were to be screened today. It was still on YouTube last time I looked. Monty Python's liver-donor sketch from 'The Meaning of Life' must surely be a blasphemy on the Church of NHS. Harpo Marx (who could talk) would now be lambasted for deriding the disabled and Les Dawson and Roy Barraclough's gossiping old ladies would definitely be branded sexist. As for the likes of Bernard Manning, well, all he's remembered for are the racist jokes, which were often bad, but he had an awful lot of other material too.
Whole countries now take offence at words. Sacha Baron Cohen managed to enrage all of Khazakhstan, a cartoonist in Denmark managed to send half a continent into a murderous frenzy and the Cameroid had to apologise to Pakistan for pointing out that we'd really prefer it if they'd stop training people to kill us. Russel Brand - oh, okay. There are people who can irritate the entire planet just by existing but they are few, and they are mostly called Russel Brand.
Make a joke and lose your job. On Twitter or Facebook or anywhere. I've never seen any of these people's pages because I am not trawling for things to be offended at. There's no need, just open the paper or turn on the news and you'll be offended within seconds. Look again at that comment:
“If it was a bit of a laugh, it should have been kept between whoever it was meant to be shared with rather than a public website.”
Yes, it's a public website but it has, oh, I don't know, probably dozens of people on it. At least. Nobody is obliged to read every entry on every page. It doesn't get broadcast into your home. You have to actively seek it out. That's no different from riding around on the bus all day trying to listen to other people's conversations. Yes, they are talking in public but you don't have to listen. You don't have to be offended by someone you don't know talking about someone else you don't know. You don't have to act like the thought police and actively seek out strangers to complain about.
It is, however, perfectly legal to do exactly that, thanks to the legacy of the Brown Gorgon and his nosegoblin cabal. The Great Repeal Swindle has done nothing about it so the busybody's charter remains in force. Along with all the rest of it.
The Cleggeron Coagulation won't change it because they love to apologise for the actions of the dead and for telling the truth, and they think we're all as soft and simpering as they are. Apologise for slavery? I've never enslaved anyone, so no. Apologise for offending anyone, anywhere, on any subject whatsoever? No. Well, unless I lost my temper and said things I didn't mean but that's rare. Not the losing the temper part, the other bit.
A refusal to apologise used to mean that you'd meant what you said and you were sticking to your guns. Not any more. Now it's a crime to not be a grovelling two-faced little toad. You can be arrested, lose your job, face a court, get fined, just for saying what you mean. Unless you beg forgiveness from those who like to imagine themselves your masters. The irony of these people ordering others to apologise for slavery on pain of punishment has totally escaped them.
That's what the hand-wringers really hated about Bernard Manning. He would not apologise for his racism. When asked directly 'Are you a racist?' he responded 'Yes.' So he was a racist but at least he was honest about it. You knew where you stood if you talked to him. He would have celled me 'Eyetie' and told me to go home on the spaghetti boat. So I would have avoided him but at least I didn't have to wonder what he was thinking.
It doesn't sound pleasant, but to me it's better than the patronising, sneering attitudes of the Righteous who claim to want to 'help' while despising your very existence. I'd rather have honest enemies than false friends. The sort who can say 'I am racist' and get away with it because they are the allowable sort of racist ie not as bad as they think you are.
Frankie Boyle can be funny. Sometimes he goes too far even for a sick and twisted bugger like me, but when I see his smug, leering arse (or face, it's hard to tell) on my screen, I know what to expect. I can watch or not watch because I have an off-switch on the TV, which I make extensive use of. I am not going to watch him just to find some feeble reason to write to the BBC as 'Enraged of Tonbridge Wells' and then get my photo in the Daily Mail with a suitably grim expression on my face and a caption saying "I was so upset I didn't even notice I'd deep-fried the budgie until his little beak floated to the top and then a bubble popped and the words 'Who's a pretty boy' floated out. No amount of compensation can bring little Joey back but I'll take what I can get".
The same people who are so upset at the nurse's suggestion to euthanase gingers would happily lynch Frankie Boyle. Yet all I have to do is press 'off' and he's gone. Likewise with anything on anyone's Facebook page, all I have to do is not go there. Even if it has CCTV of me sitting on the toilet, I'll never be troubled by it because I won't know it's there.
Jo Brand, poster girl for anti-botox, was once offended because Thatch Minor said something about 'golliwog hair'. So offended was she that her face straightened out for a second but not long enough to be sure whether it was Lord Lucan or not. 'Golliwog hair' refers to a once-popular doll with a ring of wool for hair in a sort of sideways Mohican. I doubt anyone really has hair like that, I guess the Thatch was referring to the 'afro' style (which is brilliant on a thin white ginger bloke because he looks like a match) and was trying for a similar image. Was she being racist, or was she, as the story suggested, trying to describe someone whose name she had forgotten?
It didn't matter. She said 'golliwog' and that was enough to offend the most offensive woman on the planet. There was Outrage! Outrage, I tell you. The spawn of that Thatcher woman said it so she can only have had evil intent. It was, incidentally, fine for Jo Brand to repeat it over and over to show how shocked she was. Really, you'd think she'd have better things to do, such as shopping for a skin that fits or pegging back the flaps over her eyes. She hurls insults everywhere in her act with the smug self-satisfaction that only a rich Socialist can muster but when it comes to Tories, well they aren't allowed to say anything because everything they say is racist.
When that Christian couple decided they didn't want gay sex in their boarding house, they were dragged through the courts and subsequently received a barrage of phone calls from the pinkly enraged who were trying for a dose of the compo too. If they'd thrown me out for smoking or drinking they would have been hailed as heros but free choice on private premises only applies when you make the approved choices. Once more there was Outrage! How dare they have a rule that says no botty-prodding in their house. No, they did not have a 'no poofters' sign. They had a rule, based on their religion, that people of the same sex should not share a room.
Then there was the pub that preferred not to have a gay couple kissing in the bar. They also did not have a 'no poofters' sign, but they had a 'show a bit of decorum if you don't mind' rule. Again, there was Outrage! The publican must eject a smoker at once but he cannot choose whether to allow public displays of face-sucking unless it's heterosexual. Stonewall reacted as if this had happened in Saudi Arabia, where the couple would have been dangling from cranes the next day. Funny, they don't seem too perturbed about that. Must be a Lefty thing. They planned a protest snog-in at the pub. I don't know if it happened but if I was that publican I would have been glad of the extra business. Just warn the regulars to take the day off and make sure the till is well oiled.
You can be offended if you're gay and told to vacate the premises but not if you're straight. You can be offended at perceived racism whether it's racist or not and whether it's aimed at you or not and even if you're white and the racism - if it was intended as such - is directed at another race. You cannot be offended by racism against whites because if you could, Lenny Henry would be joining Jim Davidson on tour.
If you insult a woman you are sexist. Jo Brand's entire act is based on insulting men and that's not sexist. If you insult another culture you are racist unless it's a non-approved culture. If you are Muslim you are allowed to be offended at anything, any time, which is just as well because that's pretty much the default position for any Muslim other than the ones with actual lives to lead. Christians are not allowed to be offended and have done an overall pretty good job of turning the other cheek and look where that's got them.
There are equalisers in the Big Society. If you smoke, it no longer matters what colour, gender, sexual or politicial preference or religion you define yourself as. You are scum. Likewise if you are seen buying booze or salt or fat-laden foods, none of the other stuff matters. You are scum. Welcome to Scum Club where we float around being scummy and generally having a good time while the rest of the planet goes 'tut' at us and revels in their imagined superiority. I like being scummy. It's fun. I like being regarded as filthy. It keeps people like this out.
Note to the Cameroid: The main reason your Big Society is failing is that you have deliberately excluded most people from it. You idiot. I hope Orrible Bin Liner's followers fly planes into your towering head. Might knock a bit of sense into you.
The whole 'I am offended' issue is childish. It's the primary school 'Sir, he said a bad word' game extended into what used to be adulthood but we don't seem to be allowed that any more. Now people drink from coffee cups that look like toddler training cups and from water bottles that appear to have dummies on the top and they all go 'Waaa!' when someone calls them names.
If there is a message to the nation from this incoherent and whisky-fuelled rant, it could be summed up in very few words.
Grow the hell up.
18 comments:
Nice article - and all so sadly true.
Your finest rant yet Leggy! Brilliant!
Never a truer word etc.
a tour de force!
"Grow the hell up!"
Brilliant!
"pay with large amounts of small change". I'd say that's a not bad (for an amateur) attempt at humour. Sadly the woman will probably lose her livelihood.
Black man agrees -
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uWJMpDWGSR8&NR=1&feature=fvwp
Spot on!
Note to the Cameroid: The main reason your Big Society is failing is that you have deliberately excluded most people from it.
Ace.
I think we've reached the "tipping point", beyond which is the end of civilisation as we know it.
(And most of those you mention will not be able to work out if this is ironic or not.)
Well put, LI! All these bums are offended at every little tiny thing. You don't even have to SPEAK to some jerks, they think you look at them cross-eyed, and they want your head on a platter.
I don't give a flying fig who I offend, if they don't like it they can fuck the fuck off.
Those who are looking for offense will surely find it.
This is all the cause of the PC crap designed to stifle free speech and individual action and liberty. It really sucks, and so do all the PC bastards who caused it and allowing it to continue.
Thought crimes will be next, no doubt.
Pakistani daleks.
:)
"Now people drink from coffee cups that look like toddler training cups"
:)
ps: word verification = agallin
Quite
Am I still allowed to say that men are obviously superior to women, as men would never have been daft enough to let themselves look totally ridiculous by wearing flared trousers again?
When I was in primary school many years ago, we had the dunces cap and the 'tail'.If pupild weren't paying attention or gave a wrong and answers nor no showed an improvment in their homework; off they went to the corner with dunaces cap.
If we had pupils telling tails on other pupils, the samething applied but with a silly looking tail pinned to the back of their trousers. Only happedned to me once and never again
These things were rarely used. AFAIK, most certainly wouldn't be used/allowed in schools today.
And if you were out of control, ADHA(sp?) or whatever excuse, a caning at top of the clase sorted that out.
Damo
i agree with you one hundred percent on this, leg-iron, old man - in fact, it's my belief that multi-culturalism and political correctness have destroyed this country, and, dare i say, fragmented it...and, as it's only hours since a suicidal japanese professor has created a cyber-storm of outrage by flying head-first into the glowering twin-peaks of black african beauty, i think it's a good day to bury mad news...and, indeed, to unveil my new definition of britishness...now let me explain: you see, the majority of our citizens (of whichever colour or creed) are moderate sort of people, who basically go along with whatever crap we politicians pile on them, and that's fine...but there remains a very tiny fraction of our society wherein we have conflict, because it has become radicalized and extreme...and, as a progressive conservative prime minister, i believe it is our extremities which we must keep satisfied...and happy...even though this may mean making some very hard decisions...you see, i was pondering this question the other night, and i realized that the main source of current cultural friction in our traditionally tolerant nation, is between one small group of fanatics, who go to sleep at night night dreaming of an all-white britain...and between another very small group of idealists, who nod-off fantasizing about a fundamentally islamic britain...and then it came to me...in a flush of perspiration...and low-and-behold, a blinding vision of our country's future was revealed unto me, possibly by god himself...the solution to all our problems is compromise, pure and simple - yes, of course, what we require here in great britain is an all-white islamic state...fair enough...so it would mean many muslims having to emigrate, but they would do so happy in the knowledge that islam had converted britain (a highly meaningful spiritual achievement to the truly religious)...and, furthermore, i am confident we could swing it with the remaining white britons, on the multiple-wife ticket alone...obviously the black christians might feel a bit hard done-by...but, don't worry, i've got it all worked-out: the afro-caribbean christians would be given leave to settle in northern ireland, where, with their irish brothers and sisters, they would be free to share both their love of the christian faith and special export nigerian guinness - however, immediately thereafter, our government would relinquish all claims to northern ireland, and would then promptly turn it over to the united nations, who in turn would oversee internal elections which would subsequently decide the six counties transition to either a self-standing state or an integral part of a united ireland. then naturally there are the non-white buddhists...but i trust they will be philosophical about the whole thing...and the indians and chinese may be somewhat peeved, so reparations could well be in order, thus entailing a substantial flow of cash from west to east, but hey, what's new...and to be on the safe-side, in order to ensure absolute racial purity, the aussies and yanks can hop it too...together with the krauts, frogs, italians and spanish who can bugger orff back where they belong (europe). of course, our menfolk would be compelled to forswear the imbibition of alcoholic beverage, and our women would have to submit to polygamy, surrender their driving licences, attend the family home at the behest of their husbands, and wear a burka whenever out in public...but i feel, in-the-scheme-of-things, that this is a small sacrifice to make in the ultimate quest for world peace and to prevent the break-up of the united kingdom...
...and lo, i will see what i have done, and it will be very good. time for a cup of tea.
yep, one of the problems is that some prejudiced people often like to misconstrue what others are saying - for their own twisted purposes. for example, a critical comment on the internet which is directed against a government that rains unspeakable evil on certain oppressed groups is frequently taken as an attack against those very oppressed minorities themselves - when, conversely, the satire is a full-face embarrassment of the authorities, who are the ones really silently squirming in their seats. i can only surmise that the wilful misreaders are:
a) extremely ignorant
b) self-obsessed in believing that everything written and said is a personal sleight of their own character and culture
c) government cocksuckers
If it was a bit of a laugh, it should have been kept between whoever it was meant to be shared with rather than a public website.
in fact, the offended are so fanatical that they are well-known to conduct telephonic and computer eavesdropping, together with intimate video surveillance in order to expose others' conversations - these characters want to be offended, and what's more they profit from their snooping endeavours (or otherwise get paid-off for them)...which obviously puts them in a very precarious ethical position...not that they'd give a flying shit about that minor consideration, of course...
Christians are not allowed to be offended and have done an overall pretty good job of turning the other cheek and look where that's got them.
can't agree there mate - christians don't get offended, they throw the book at you, except, when directed at muslims, it's usually encased in a cruise missile. but better not go there...we're not allowed to rag old obama, of course, because someone somewhere decided that he's untouchable. but that's democracy for you...we elect bullying intellectual-fraudsters, whilst true philosophers like steve biko are suffocated and their enlightened volumes left to gather dust (and no, i would never presume to count myself in that tall wise man's category and class, although some wittering wag seems to delight in putting rumours around to that effect...but hey, we all have to ride the odd cheap joke). actually, what we've elected is a schizophrenic gun-toting cowboy, who, like his predecessors, has hijacked the chuffing christian steam-train, manically stoking it with bucketfuls of ripped-off oil, chanting out peace-and-love to all men, whilst steering straight for a head-on collison with the incensed islamic express. somehow, it's deemed by our western establishment to be perfectly politic to abduct and execute an opponent...together with members of his family...insult him...and then cynically steal his agenda of revolutionary freedom - yet if al qaeda jihadists had stormed the white house, kidnapped and killed the president, before interring him in a sand-dune in the middle of the sahara desert, duly marking the spot with two sticks lashed-together in the form of a crude cross, and they had subsequently claimed in all seriousness to have observed a proper christian burial, the offence expressed by american citizens would have been of an absolutely downright deafening degree, although, ironically, such an intervention would probably have succeeded in uniting black and white citizens of the states emotionally, in a manner and style which no other event in that land's long and turbulent history had hitherto ever been known to.
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