Assorted Q (Spike Milligan) on BBC Four tonight

[Sydward Lartle]

Victor Lewis-Smith can fuck off out of it with his occasional ineffective swipes at Milligan as well. 'A tortured genius who hasn't been tortured enough' being one such ill-advised jibe. At least he didn't have hair like a busted settee or wear dark glasses indoors, Vic.

[Jake Thingray]

As rather a lot of cut and paste-ing has gone on on this forum for the past month, here's a review of the Humphrey Carpenter biography that chimes with my own views on why Milligan was an objectionable person and an annoying performer:

<<<<<
But seriously, folks...
Spike Milligan, as Humphrey Carpenter's biography shows, was a deeply unpleasant man. Why do so many still adore him?

Up front, a declaration of disinterest. Unlike many humorists I admire, from John Cleese and Richard Ingrams to Eddy Izard, I never found the Goons the slightest bit funny, least of all Spike Milligan. His reliance on silly voices and sillier names, the apparent source of his appeal to such quintessentially English figures as the Prince of Wales, simply left me cold. Maybe I'm just not English (or highbrow?) enough to crack up when someone says 'Eccles' or 'Bluebottle' while holding his nose.

Of Milligan's fellow Goons, we know from their later work that Peter Sellers was a versatile comic genius, Michael Bentine affably amusing, Harry Secombe an occasionally engaging buffoon. If all had their wayward streaks, especially Sellers, Milligan turned his into an art form; there was something so self-regarding about his relish in his own unruly sense of humour, and his impatience with those who did not share it, that for my money he lacked the fellow-feeling indispensable to great comic artistry.

That said, there is no doubt that Milligan was sui generis, capable of sporadically amusing ideas amid all the rampant egotism engendered by his pervasive mental illness. The attractive anarchy fuelling some of his later ideas certainly informed more consistently brilliant comedy, such as Monty Python and its successors. In Milligan's late-ish Q series for the BBC, for instance, John Wells was seen at Beachy Head introducing the 'Grandmother Hurling Contest', in which grannies were thrown out to sea and required to race each other back to shore. No wonder Cleese, amid copious tributes from other fellow-Pythons, is said to have called Milligan 'the great God of us all'.

So contagious is the Milligan madness that the normally measured Humphrey Carpenter, apparently undeterred by two previous biographies of this less than global celebrity, opens with a Goon Show script involving a sock full of jelly - 'the mere mention of which,' he feels moved to remind us, 'can still reduce our future monarch to helpless giggles'.

Carpenter promptly goes all Goonish himself, directly addressing the reader with wacky asides about the art of biography ('This book gets more exciting as it goes on, folks!'), calling his subject by his first name (always a mistake) and dealing with the family genealogy in a bored, numbered list of 10 succinct points. If this is a thinly disguised job application to be the next authorised Charles hagiographer, our Humphrey is going about it in quite the wrong way.

Thereafter, praise be, this experienced and genial biographer settles down into his familiar, businesslike style, unafraid of addressing the less savoury aspects of his subject. Indian-born Milligan, for starters, was a lifelong racist; to give but one example, he saw Sir Trevor McDonald as 'an ethnic mess... He speaks with an Etonian accent, he's jet black, and he's got a Scottish name.' If that was meant to be funny, it isn't; nor is it half-way adequate for Carpenter to indulge it with a cavalier: 'Well, considering he was in the fag end of the British Raj, what do you expect?'

Milligan was also an unashamed anti-semite, blithely offending many colleagues in showbiz and beyond. He was a lousy husband, thinking it amusing to send his wives telegrams demanding meals be brought to him upstairs. Professionally, he was a hard taskmaster, slow to share the credit for his work with a succession of co-writers, unpredictably roused to fearsome wrath, capable of abusing his nearest and dearest - as when interrupting a public paean from Prince Charles to call HRH a 'grovelling little bastard'. Deep down, Milligan was a lifelong misanthrope, without ever really knowing why. That was what made his kneejerk wit so heedlessly cruel.

Both the man and his scripts were fuelled by an anger whose roots Carpenter never quite pins down. Milligan's sporadic breakdowns, and regular retreats behind implacably closed doors, are variously discussed as the results of depression, schizophrenia, bipolar this, manic that. But here, too, there is confusion, for all the expert empathy of Milligan's psychiatrist friend, Anthony Clare, whom Carpenter interprets as finding his depressions 'not like other people's - chiefly a manifestation of anger rather than sadness, more like a schizophrenic's episodes of paranoid delusion than the low period of a cycle of manic depression.' So that clears that up - not that Clare himself ever said any such thing.

This was a lovable prankster who threatened to kill his colleagues Sellers and Graham Stark - no joke, this time, intended - and did actually shoot a youth who was vandalising his garden fence. Little doubt whose side he'd be on in the Tony Martin debate. But the 'holier-than-thou' Milligan, as The Observer's Lynn Barber had the perception (and courage) to call him, was also a would-be do-gooder, a famous champion of arguably worthy causes. When Clare mentioned that he had seven children, Milligan exploded into 'a tirade about over-population, global contamination, environmental pollution, despoliation of the planet'.

Typically, this was a man who himself had five children, including two outside his marriages only he then knew about, grudgingly acknowledged late in life. Carpenter's portrait of Milligan as a doting dad, through three turbulent marriages and countless affairs, is less than convincing. The two 'love-children' are left to the end of the book, as if to create a tabloid-ish climax to rival the indiscretions Carpenter wrung out of the late Robert Runcie. But the illegitimate Milligan offspring made headlines at the time, and Carpenter's over-long transcripts of his interviews with them merely add to the cumulative sadness of this story, for all the supposedly witty one-liners peppering its overwhelmingly bleak backdrop.

The biographer himself considers the Goons 'funnier than anything else in the history of comedy', but frets that he risks his subject's posthumous wrath by calling their scripts his best work. No need for the reader to lose much sleep over that. This one wound up worrying less about Milligan than Carpenter, for all his lousy taste in comedy. Time for the industrious biographer of Auden and Britten to return to subjects worthier of his considerable talents.>>>>

Alas, Carpenter died shortly afterwards. Norma Farnes' biog similarly had a clear-eyed view of its subject's unreasonable behaviour, the fact that she knew him better than most surely outweighs any minor factual inaccuracies. The one by Pauline Scudamore is far too forgiving and excusing, though does include a derogatory quote by him about "Benny Hills in the wilderness...they know the obvious, and what they think the audience want -- bums, knickers, tits...": none of which he ever indulged in himself, of course. Dominic Behan's 1988 effort was similarly far too sympathetic, calling Pete and Dud and Python "the bland leading the bland", and apart from constantly claiming him as Irish, referred to its subject as a "socialist and anti-racist". I strongly doubt either of those two appellations accurately described him, they certainly don't apply to certain of his fans.

[Sydward Lartle]

Spike Milligan, as Humphrey Carpenter's biography shows, was a deeply unpleasant man. Why do so many still adore him?

Because he was funny. Peter Sellers was an absolute fucking cunt, yet that didn't prevent him from becoming a Hollywood star and a universally admired comedy performer. Chuck Berry was a jailbird, tax dodger, pervert and suspected child molester, yet he was still one of the founding fathers of rock and roll and several of his songs are not only stone-cold classics, they're also key texts in the development of popular music. Kate Bush? Brilliant idiosyncratic composer, singer and performer, unfortunately also firmly on the side of Theresa May. Richard Wagner? Genius composer, thoroughly loathsome anti-Semitic cunt. Try to separate the art from the artist.

Plus, it's worth remembering that Milligan was effectively crippled by mental illness for most of his life following his active service in the Second World War. As if often stated, the Goon Show was his life. For Harry Secombe, Peter Sellers and (in the early days, at least) Michael Bentine, it was just a bit of fun on a Sunday afternoon, a nice break from the rigours of West End shows, film and television engagements, summer seasons and everything else. No such escapes for Milligan, who poured everything he had into creating one of the funniest shows ever heard on the radio, and paid a heavy price in terms of his own sanity and happiness.

There was something so self-regarding about his relish in his own unruly sense of humour, and his impatience with those who did not share it, that for my money he lacked the fellow-feeling indispensable to great comic artistry.

A paragraph that conveniently steps over the bleedin' obvious. By its very nature, the business of being a comedian requires a certain degree of arrogance. You're effectively standing up on stage in front of a room full of total strangers and saying 'This is what I think is funny'. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. You may be sharing the laughter, but as far as your audience is concerned, you're an annoying twat / a crank / about as funny as wanking with a fistful of angry wasps. When you've invested time and energy into creating a comedy routine and made it as strong as it can possibly be, then you see it shot down in flames by an uninterested audience who 'don't get it', it's a horrible experience, memorably described by Helen Lederer as a generalised feeling of "Why don't you like me?" Milligan's impatience with those who didn't share his vision wasn't something unique to him. I'd say every single comedian who's died on his or her arse has shared it at some point.

Similarly, I've seen interviews with Spike where he's been on blazing form, quips and wisecracks by the dozen, yet the cosy, complacent teatime talk show audiences have remained quiet as mice with their vocal cords surgically removed, causing him to mutter asides to the host along the lines of 'Jesus, it's a slow audience tonight'. Impatience? Maybe. But a joy for those who were attuned to his humour.

Indian-born Milligan, for starters, was a lifelong racist; to give but one example, he saw Sir Trevor McDonald as 'an ethnic mess... He speaks with an Etonian accent, he's jet black, and he's got a Scottish name.' If that was meant to be funny, it isn't; nor is it half-way adequate for Carpenter to indulge it with a cavalier: 'Well, considering he was in the fag end of the British Raj, what do you expect?'

I am so sick of this 'he was a racist!' accusation, usually flung around by what that other comedy website we're not allowed to mention describes as 'born-again liberals'. Peter Cook wrote a musical revue when he was still at college called Black and White Blues, which contained lines like "Hurrah for the female darkie!" In their first feature film, Pardon Us, Laurel and Hardy blacked up as cotton-picking slaves and conspicuously failed to be found out by the genuine black slaves, even when Stan addressed Ollie as 'sambo'. Several episodes of Steptoe and Son revealed that Albert was none too keen on 'wogs' or 'nig-nogs', and even Harold got 'right up their noses' by 'patronising them', but were Galton and Simpson racist? Were the Pythons racist, because they wrote lines like 'I think he's right about the coons, but then I'm a bit mental' and 'I don't like darkies'? Were the Goodies racist because they did the occasional dodgy blackface routine, most notably when a stir-crazy Bill daubed himself with boot polish and declared that he was a 'black Muslim'? Hardly. Not a single one of the above examples was even close to the fuck-witted, pleb-pleasing likes of Roy Chubby Brown and Jim Davidson's insistence on playing to the gallery with their poisonous 'they come over here, take our jobs' bullshit. Again, as that other website pointed out, Milligan was born in India, was a lifelong fluent speaker of Hindu, spent several of his army years posted to Africa and by all accounts got along just fine with the Goon Show's resident bandleader, the 'jet black' Ray Ellington, all of which denies you - and defies you - the right to call him a racist. So now then.

Milligan was also an unashamed anti-semite

Utter bollocks. He did have a preoccupation with Jewishness, but it was largely harmless. Two of his most trusted friends and colleagues, Peter Sellers and John Bluthal? k**es, yids, hebes, hooknoses, kosher Red sea pedestrians and proud of it.

did actually shoot a youth who was vandalising his garden fence

With an air rifle. The little scrote in question had also repeatedly stolen things from Milligan's garden and thought it was funny to drop his trousers and shit on the floor of his daughters' Wendy House. All of which was taken into account by the judge and jury, hence Spike being let off with a caution. Don't let stupid shit like that get in the way of your painfully right-on deconstruction, though.

The one by Pauline Scudamore is far too forgiving and excusing

Bull-fucking-shit. Try reading it. Not only will you emerge from the experience with a clearer understanding of the man, you might also find yourself with a previously absent degree of sympathy for him.

Jake, I know you don't like me. I get that. Believe me, I get that. Why else would you send me a private message telling me to kill myself? You've made your position quite clear. In short, this is getting as tedious as fuck. If you don't like Milligan, that's fine, nobody's forcing you to. There are countless discussions on this board devoted to people and things I can't stand, but I don't go barging into them calling the contributors arseholes and posting third-party screeds about the worthlessness of their devotions. Admittedly, I've acted like a dick on here in the past, but I've learned my lesson and moved on. I suggest you do the same.

Your little chum in comedy
Sydward Lartle xx

[Glebe]

This was a lovable prankster who threatened to kill his colleagues Sellers and Graham Stark - no joke, this time, intended - and did actually shoot a youth who was vandalising his garden fence.

He went for Sellers with a hammer, didn't he? That's weird about shooting the vandal, although Syward's follow-up post doesn't make it seem so bad. Probably just is well he didn't catch the little blighters who did this, though.

Typically, this was a man who himself had five children, including two outside his marriages only he then knew about, grudgingly acknowledged late in life. Carpenter's portrait of Milligan as a doting dad, through three turbulent marriages and countless affairs, is less than convincing. The two 'love-children' are left to the end of the book, as if to create a tabloid-ish climax to rival the indiscretions Carpenter wrung out of the late Robert Runcie. But the illegitimate Milligan offspring made headlines at the time, and Carpenter's over-long transcripts of his interviews with them merely add to the cumulative sadness of this story, for all the supposedly witty one-liners peppering its overwhelmingly bleak backdrop.

Crikey, didn't know about that stuff. Sound's a bit Dick Emery.

[Sydward Lartle]

He went for Sellers with a hammer, didn't he?

As explained later, Milligan felt his mental health beginning to buckle and decided that he needed to do something drastic to get himself the necessary treatment - which, in those days, meant being a sanitarium. So he attacked Sellers with a potato peeler. It did the trick.

Incidentally, you know the reams of mock-Scottish gibberish in this piece of music? Believe it or not, it was all written down by Milligan prior to going into the recording booth, and here it is...

Haghtraitagh t'nuk nakadeel
nuk mact nenoo
mac nenoo
mact eenoo
matissnac barnicar'tall
erac'nik atikatosh nilluoch.

Arteech nah ruch machtanoo
ere machaloo mich nach nic niatloh
ut nyeep us natnikunakaar nup nieesh nap unnyehler.

oohhhyip nepooohyep.
ohyep mare parshnee.
yere mar muck en nuchnee.
ohh evme art nuch nyee. oh!

Artneepesht nuk nukaneel,
ol maketrol
makarol
makatroleh

artnik bachdich nach bach ilor,
nich nach bachers lorr.

[Revelator]

I really hope SimplyMedia get the rights to There's A Lot Of It About. Spike's last substantial TV work (well, save for The Last Laugh Before TV-AM in 1985, that is) and a fantastic example of someone going out on a high. A wealth of brilliant sketches, some written by Marshall and Renwick.

I'd also like to see Milligan In...Autumn/Winter/Spring/Summer on DVD, along with Tales of Men's Shirts and whatever survives from Oh in Colour, A Show Called Fred, and The World of Beachcomber. I know at least one episode survives from each of the latter three shows, but it would be useful to know the exact survival rate of Milligan's TV work.

[Sydward Lartle]

A sprinkling of linking...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BnDdaemAAE8&t=44s
Blue Peter parody from Milligan in Autumn (1972)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XqP1AbKOyO0
There's A Lot of it About - episode four (1982)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dPVBSdVaKKc
There's A Lot it About - episode five (1982)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mprf0tKWgXU&t
The Melting Pot (pilot episode) (1975) Pt.1
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E4bOj4ViKaE Pt.2

[Jake Thingray]

As per the Kaleidoscope Guide, three editions of A Show Called Fred exist, its other two eps only being represented by clips, two episodes from The World Of Beachcomber and audio only recordings for eleven others, and all of Oh In Colour, though despite the title these are monochrome telerecordings, and three exist in negative form only.

[Sydward Lartle]

According to the Missing Episodes discussion board...

The World of Beachcomber - first series missing presumed wiped; second series, one B&W telerecording of episode five, one colour 35mm film sequence from episode two, and a brief PAL VT extract from an unknown episode.

Oh in Colour - original masters wiped, all seven episodes exist in the archives as 16mm B&W telerecordings.

Milligan in Autumn - junked but exists at the BBC as a 16mm B&W telerecording; Spring, Summer and Winter all exist on PAL VT (hence the extract of the 'bathroom' sketch on the One Man and his Ideas compilation).

Last Turkey in the Shop Show - exists in BBC archives.

The Melting Pot - pilot episode exists in BBC archives on U-Matic tape only, remaining six unbroadcast episodes presumed wiped, but iffy timecoded recordings appear to be 'out there'... good luck finding them though!

The Jewel in the Crown, Southall, Middx - unbroadcast pilot episode exists in full in the BBC archives, including a 90m raw tape of the studio sessions and two separate edits of the finished show.

Q5 - one full episode exists in colour in the BBC archives, two further episodes exist as B&W telerecordings, the remainder, all junked. As witnessed by the recent DVD releases, Q6, Q7, Q8, Q9 and (presumably) There's a Lot of it About all exist in their entirety.

[Revelator]

Thanks very much gentlemen--this confirms there's enough left to fill a boxset alongside There's a Lot of It About. It's heartening to see all of Oh in Colour survives, even if it's in lower quality black and white. The one episode I've seen of A Show Called Fred was underwhelming, but maybe I should give it another chance. I've listened to the soundtrack album of The World of Beachcomber, and it's convinced me that the near-total loss of show was especially unfortunate, since working around Beachcomber seems to have given Milligan a little more discipline than usual--I'd love to see the surviving complete episode. But perhaps I'm getting greedy--we're lucky to have Q on DVD in the first place, especially when the DVD market is in irreversible decline. I just hope the Q sets sold well.

[Sydward Lartle]

There's also the small question of Spike's 1985 one-off sketch show made by Ravel productions for Channel Four, the Last Laugh Before TV AM, which also featured Emil Wolk, Chris Langham and a young Mark Steel. Not really enough of it to warrant a stand-along DVD release, but it'd be a good extra for a more substantial effort. The only Milligan available through the BBC online store (where you pay to watch archive material) at the moment is an episode of Jackanory, sadly.

[FredNurke]

I'm slowly working my way through the Q5-7 set; did Q5 a few weeks ago, and watched Q6 in two bursts of three episodes each.

The first two (surviving) Q5 episodes were funny in parts, but felt rather 'bitty', but either the third was more consistent, or I was finally in the right frame of mind for it; the bit about seeing if people stand for the National Anthem was great, as was all the business with Harry Secombe inside the elephant. Q6 has been pretty consistently funny all the way through, especially the Cock-a-Knees documentary; special mention goes to the Good Samaritan police sermon and (because it's so totally silly) the Pakistani Dalek. The final sketch in the last episode, which was about the revival of World War 2 in a rush of nostalgia for the war when everything was so much better, had real bite, particularly in today's political climate.

Some of the 'playing with the form' works very well: I've enjoyed all the opening credits and the different odd things that happen in them. The business with the BBC costume department labels on everything, on the other hand, is a distraction more than anything else. Maybe it's me, but I've never found that funny at all. And the hit-you-over-the-head-with-everything approach to humour is something you have to be in the right frame of mind for. More seriously, I think a fair amount of harm ends up being done to the material by the deliberately laboured or 'big' performances, and this is the one area where I think they really should have found a way of reining Spike in. I wish he'd put more energy into many of his performances, rather than sticking with that laboured, flat, Lewisham delivery so often. On the whole, though, I've enjoyed this much more than I was expecting: I'd anticipated something more like longueurs punctuated by nuggets of inspired lunacy, whereas it's been much more consistently and appealingly daft than perhaps I'd been led to believe.

[Sydward Lartle]

I have to be ruthlessly honest and say that, out of the entire run, Q7 fares about the worst when it comes to repeated viewings. There are a lot of sketches that don't really go anywhere, and Spike owned up to that in an interview - "I've written a lot of shows that were funny on paper, but once they'd been through the television mill, they came out unfunny at the other end". I can see how that happened, to be honest. I read a lot of the scripts in the Q Annual and the Get in the Q Annual long before I'd even seen a single frame of Q, and some of the sketches which seemed fantastic in print were disappointing in execution. Still, that's what happens when you're willing to push the boat out as far as Spike and company often did. Q8 and Q9 don't take so many risks, but they're more consistent as a result.

[Move]

This sketch is an undoubted highlight of Spike's BBC work. It's from Q8 and it makes me laugh like a child every time I see it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a0dEc_EF30Y

To some people, it may seem like a self-referential, self-indulgent mess, but what a glorious mess it is. So much stuff going on. Bob Todd as the wine waiter is a highlight, as are the references to stuff happening behind the scenes - "It's his own suit, watch out". Parky having trouble holding it together. "Your arm's broken." "The bird with the boobs." "Keep that ten pee in place!" The willingness to labour a throwaway line so hard that it ends up being hilarious by virtue of repetition. The comic incongruity of Keith Smith in blackface. Love it to bits, even in the context of the One Man and His Ideas VHS.

thanx for this. I have never seen it before.

Excellent Spike!

[Sydward Lartle]

Milligan was an objectionable person and an annoying performer

I bet the past few days when Cook'd and Bomb'd has been out of action have been absolute hell for little Gavin. He's probably taken to wandering the streets of Oxford, collaring men in their fifties and lecturing them about why Spike Milligan was a right cunt, then if they dared to argue their case, he'd wander away spitting 'Oh, just kill yourself' before heading off to the nearest Wetherspoon's to stew in his self-loathing.

[Catalogue Trousers]

Leave it, Sydward, he's not worth it.

[Lisa Jesusandmarychain]

Yep, give it a rest, Syd ( I'll admit that Jake, who I quite like and think is a great bunch of lads has been way OTT in his treatment of Syd, also ).

[Sydward Lartle]

I nearly lost it when Spike's Idiot of the Year entrant was introduced as Póg Mo thóin.

[Ambient Sheep]

I have to be ruthlessly honest and say that, out of the entire run, Q7 fares about the worst when it comes to repeated viewings.

Interesting.  Me and my Dad watched Q6 when it first went out, and by and large we loved it.  When Q7 came along we found it pretty piss poor and didn't stick with it.

[Sydward Lartle]

I think Spike's wife had just died, or was certainly terminally ill, around the time Q7 was being made. That's bound to knock the wind out of your sails a bit.

[derek stitt]

I am just doing this for devilment but, Lartle and Thingray should just clear away the fug and just sodomise one another until they each suffer rectal prolapse. You can tell they love each other.

[Sydward Lartle]

No chance, mate. I've got piles so severe my shit's got an IQ of 180.

[derek stitt]

As thingray is pushing the piles back up you could tell him that Milligan suffered from piles throughout the war.

Christ I am getting the horn just thinking of this scenario

A paranoid schizophrenic once gave me a wonderful piece of advice about dealing with the demons when they come calling - " if in doubt fuck about" it really works, trust me on that one .

[FredNurke]

"I don't know who you are, sir, or where you come from, but you've done my pilesme a power of good!"

It's amazing what they got away with sometimes.

[Sydward Lartle]

***NEWSFLASH***

Received a reply from SimplyMedia...

We are currently investigating with the BBC whether it is possible for them to allow us to license There's A Lot Of It About for a DVD release. Fingers crossed our discussions go well, and we hope to have an update soon.

As I noted earlier, if anything's going to be snipped I think it's the brief clip of Laurel and Hardy's Swiss Miss that turns up during one of the Panorama spoofs. A clip of an old Nelson Eddy and Jeanette McDonald film had to be trimmed from one of the Q5 episodes for similar reasons. Still, it'll be nice to have them all in pristine quality.

***EDIT NEWS***
Peter Cook's brief cameo appearance (as a street beggar, albeit one in evening dress and cape) was trimmed from SimplyMedia's release of Q9 at the insistence of the BBC. According to Simply Media's Facebook page, "this cut had to be made due to clearance issues with the scene at the insistence of the BBC in order for us to release the series".

To quote Clive, "there's a load of cunts at the BBC and they all need sorting out."

[FredNurke]

I wonder if Lin Cook had anything to do with that? I know she died before that set came out, but presumably the clearance stuff would have had to be sorted out some time before. I was going to say 'maybe that means it'll turn up in a later production run', but there probably isn't much hope of there being one.

[Sydward Lartle]

If memory serves, Cook's on screen in the Q9 episode for about thirty seconds tops. It's a brief filmed preamble to a sketch about a piano drought, and following a fake newspaper headline which says (something like) 'Dudley Moore commits suicide by jumping from his piano stool - Peter Cook goes solo', you see Cook, in evening dress and a black cape, begging on the streets with a tin cup. He sings a bit of this (all his dialogue is sped up, and sounds a bit like the Chipmunks) and when Milligan pours tea into his tin cup, he says something like "you rotten old euphemism you, I liked you better in the olden days". If anything caused the rights complication leading to its removal, I'd say it's the song.

[Skip Bittman]

[Jake Thingray]

Hey everyone, Spike Milligan is on telly right now.

So what.

[Bad Ambassador]

So what.

You don't HAVE to spew your toxic bile everywhere you go, you know. You could try acting like a reasonable human being for once, rather than a miserable, bitter man-child.