05 February, 2009
Gollygate
It's the mind-curdling predictable triviality of it that depresses.
Yesterday, the Today programme did its best, with Humphrys half-heartedly interviewing a couple of rent-a-voices and trying to instill a bit of outrage into the proceedings. The Black rent-a-voice, whose name escapes me, struggled really hard to be offended but his heart wasn't in it.
This morning's prog did a little better, with Jay Hunt, Controller BBC1, wheeled out to deliver a rousing condemnation of the recusante Mistress Thatcher in strident lesbo-feminist tones I haven't heard since my dim and distant days of (mild) trade union activism: think of the booming prosody of Clare Short delivered with RP vowels. Well done that woman: cheered me up no end.
This will do no good. Mr Average White Man will forgather in the temples of St Tim, sip his cheapo pint and reflect on the increasing detachment of the BBC from reality and the lessening advisability of having anything to do with those ungrateful yet untouchable darkies. The more reflective Mr AWM might go on to reflect on the licence-fee value of a show whose only redeeming feature seems to be the opportunity for a quick perve at the Brummie Geezer's rather tasty co-presenteuse. Does wonders for race relations, all this stuff.
The excellent Miss Thatcher can look and is looking after herself. The person I feel sorry for is the Black chap I saw walking down the Charing Cross Road yesterday. With a huge "Afro" and very dark in skin colour, he might almost have walked straight off the cover of Natty Dread. He looked so much like a real-life golliwog it was hard not to laugh. No wonder he was looking nervous. Now if that malevolent bag Jo Brand and Adrian "Brummie Geezer" Chiles had kept their traps shut and not precipitated this storm in a marmalade spoon, he would have been spared that embarrassment. See what you've done.
Yesterday, the Today programme did its best, with Humphrys half-heartedly interviewing a couple of rent-a-voices and trying to instill a bit of outrage into the proceedings. The Black rent-a-voice, whose name escapes me, struggled really hard to be offended but his heart wasn't in it.
This morning's prog did a little better, with Jay Hunt, Controller BBC1, wheeled out to deliver a rousing condemnation of the recusante Mistress Thatcher in strident lesbo-feminist tones I haven't heard since my dim and distant days of (mild) trade union activism: think of the booming prosody of Clare Short delivered with RP vowels. Well done that woman: cheered me up no end.
This will do no good. Mr Average White Man will forgather in the temples of St Tim, sip his cheapo pint and reflect on the increasing detachment of the BBC from reality and the lessening advisability of having anything to do with those ungrateful yet untouchable darkies. The more reflective Mr AWM might go on to reflect on the licence-fee value of a show whose only redeeming feature seems to be the opportunity for a quick perve at the Brummie Geezer's rather tasty co-presenteuse. Does wonders for race relations, all this stuff.
The excellent Miss Thatcher can look and is looking after herself. The person I feel sorry for is the Black chap I saw walking down the Charing Cross Road yesterday. With a huge "Afro" and very dark in skin colour, he might almost have walked straight off the cover of Natty Dread. He looked so much like a real-life golliwog it was hard not to laugh. No wonder he was looking nervous. Now if that malevolent bag Jo Brand and Adrian "Brummie Geezer" Chiles had kept their traps shut and not precipitated this storm in a marmalade spoon, he would have been spared that embarrassment. See what you've done.
# posted by Edwin Greenwood @ 10:18 
