Dogwash

I find the John Terry trial increasingly surreal. This half-time report in the Telegraph leaves me even more confused than before I read it. Apparently Ferninand referred to Terry having s— Wayne Bridge's bird and Terry responded, or as the case may be, did not respond by calling Ferdinand a f— black c—. And there's a lot of stuff about people being fat and/or slags, as the respective briefs struggle personfully to establish a precise calculus of offensiveness in order to identify the line which Mr Terry crossed, or as it may be, did not cross.

All total nonsense. A complete waste of time and money. And if the process is intended to improve race relations, I would suggest that it does precisely the reverse. If Terry is acquitted, race hustlers up and down the country will be up in arms, parading their victimhood, demanding even harsher penalties for looking at a Darkie out of the wrong side of the mouth. And if he is convicted, ordinary decent White folks who'd as happily slaughter and eat a black pig as a pink one will wonder if it is possible to say anything to a person of colour without the danger of giving offence; taking one step closer to the obvious conclusion that it is safer to have absolutely nothing to do with Black and Brown people at all.

But at least there's some fun to be had in watching the media hacks squirm, trying to report the naughty language which is at the heart of the case and therefore cannot be avoided. The Torygraph daintily refers to s— rather than shagging. The Mail and the Telegraph insist on mangling the core phrase of the whole case into incomprehensibility as "f— black c—". On the steam wireless last night, one BBC lady reporteuse quoted the phrase as "f-word black c-word", in carefully enunciated RP tones which made it sound as if she were describing having to pick up a turd with bare hands.

At least the Guardian, Gawd bless it, has the b—s to report what was (allegedly) said: "fucking black cunt".

But they're all wrong, you know. They're missing the point. If Mr Terry had just used the words "fucking" and "cunt", none of this pantomime would have ensued. If you must bowdlerize the language to protect the eyes and ears of the genteel classes, then surely the correct representation would be

Fucking b— cunt.

It's all complete cullions, innit.

Sorry, complete c—.