2007 Happy Families

[Oscar]

You're approaching it all wrong Fry, just try to imagine that you've never known anyone gay, have a mind filled with bile and fury but very little imagination and for some reason you have been allowed to express your idiot opinions without ever questioning whether they make any sense or not.

If you can put yourself in that frame of mind you'll see that it's perfectly logical that gay women wouldn't allow their daughter to be straight.

[Clinton Morgan]

On the class thing. I have a friend who is proud upon proud to be working class and in the past has given me a bit of a ribbing, "No! People are stupid. Don't take offense but that's your middle class way of thinking."* He also quoted somebody as saying, "Working class people don't want to be middle class they just want to be rich." In the house he used to live in he referred to his neighbours in true I-don't-speak-to-them style as being "Working class scum". To him I'm a bit different from most middle class people. Presumably it's because my whole family is a giant conglomeration of different classes and (from my father's side) produced from the olden days via a Scottish Laird shagging a serving maid. 

At worst Reading and especially Friar Street can be a bit of a [banned troll] cartoon. For example when crossing the road from the Butt's Centre at half past four yesterday afternoon...

YOUNG BLACK MAN (Stopping in his tracks with his white mate): Wha...? Wha....?

PRESUMABLY HIS GIRLFRIEND (I DON'T KNOW ABOUT HER ETHNIC ORIGIN AS I DIDN'T SEE HER DUE TO THE FACT THAT ME AND MY BETTER HALF WAS WALKING IN THE MIDDLE OF THIS AND WANTED TO AVOID EYE CONTACT): FUCK YOU! FUCK YOUR MOTHER!

YOUNG BLACK MAN: YEAH? FUCK YOU!

PRESUMABLY: FUCK YOU!

YOUNG BLACK MAN: GO SUCK YOUR MOTHERS CUNT. FUCK YOU! SUCK YOUR MOTHER'S CUNT!

That's not all. Who should pass by the Xen Pan-Asian Restaurant in Friar Street but a quartet of beer bellies (one female) with the hilarious decision to make comedy wong-tong-ong-ying-yong voices through the door. A decade back on one of the buses but more amusing rather than depressing was the sound of a fourteen year old girl shouting, "YOU CAN SUCK MY TITS!"

There are working class arseholes but there are also middle class arseholes. Materialistic, putting their property over people, obsessed with how *well* their children are doing (as opposed to being concerned about their well-being), being subtly racist, thinking they have intelligent conversations at the dinner party when all they do is speak in cliches and recieved opinions, get pompous over the counter and insist that they do not need to have a signature at the back of the card because it is the law that all shops have chip and pin and they also are likely to make, "Tch! This country" comments without realising that perhaps they are part of the problem.

Nonetheless it is simplistic and wrong to tar a whole class of people with the same brush positive or negative. Salt of the Earth or scum of the Earth descriptions are as equally reductive.


* Years later we both had a rant about how people are stupid. Now I'm reluctant to make such judgements due to people saying things like, " There are a lot of stupid people about letting all these immigrants in to steal our jobs and claim human rights after blowing up train stations." I don't want to associate myself with such people by using the word 'stupid' to describe anybody who isn't me.

[waste of chops]

[SOTS]

Apparantely there was a webchat with Littlejohn last week. Gutted I missed that.

Looking at this though, I think it's safe to say that the Mail has become a complete parody of itself.

[John Self]

Nice work Mr. Chops. Though perhaps a bit overboard with the Nemi hate? It makes Littlejohn seem to come off comparatively lightly.

There are working class arseholes but there are also middle class arseholes.

Very well put.

The only people of consistent high quality are the upper class. And there's no point in getting jealous or angry about it- we just don't care.

[Catalogue Trousers]

To add to the fun, yesterday's Mail - in response to a perfectly reasonable statement from the Girl Guides association that they're thinking of creating a new "sex education" badge - chipped in with their depictions of such charming and unbigoted items as the Dealer Badge, the Binge-Drinker Badge, the Smoker Badge, and (natch) the Chav Badge. Real classy stuff.

[Ambient Sheep]

The second row down, in particular, has me frothing at the mouth.  It started off badly enough, but to finish with "...who doesn't need a male role model" and "...afraid to tell her parents she's straight"...well, words fail me.  It's fucking disgusting.  Can't they be had up for inciting homophobic hatred?

The Albanian thing is pretty nasty too.

[chand]

To add to the fun, yesterday's Mail - in response to a perfectly reasonable statement from the Girl Guides association that they're thinking of creating a new "sex education" badge - chipped in with their depictions of such charming and unbigoted items as the Dealer Badge, the Binge-Drinker Badge, the Smoker Badge, and (natch) the Chav Badge. Real classy stuff.

I love those kind of tabloid overreactions. My favourite happened a few weeks ago, and it was one of those moments where you realise that some of these papers have gone so far beyond parody I'm not even sure what to think. It was a Sunday Express article, a piece of fluff lamenting how new EU rules or something you're not even allowed to sexually harass barmaids anymore. Underneath this indignant piece was a text/phone-in poll, and this is literally, honestly, word-for-word what it said:

IS EVIL LABOUR DETERMINED TO BAN FUN?

Evil Labour? Banning fun? If I'd come up with that poll as a piece of satire you'd all think it was a bit clumsy and heavy-handed, right?

[George Oscar Bluth II]

It does seem like something Marcus Brigstocke would come up with, yes.

What a I love most about those kind of newspaper polls is that they always return 90% of the vote or more victories for the side that the newspaper is on. Which leads to a nice story that they can print the next day.

"95% of Express readers believe that evil Labour is trying to ban fun. The results, in a poll of almost 3,000 readers, are another blow to the Gordon Brown government..."

[The Widow of Brid]

The second row down, in particular, has me frothing at the mouth.  It started off badly enough, but to finish with "...who doesn't need a male role model" and "...afraid to tell her parents she's straight"...well, words fail me.  It's fucking disgusting.  Can't they be had up for inciting homophobic hatred?

The Albanian thing is pretty nasty too.

I couldn't get as wound up by the second row as by the Albanian thing though, largely I think because 'Master Jo' actually looks quite happy, and as if he really *is* doing quite well without a male role model. Which backfires on them a bit.

I've just noticed the fact that the Daily Mail still regards 'Ms' as something only butch radical lesbians call themselves.

Gods. The whole thing is just so fucking nasty and ridiculous at the same time.

[petula dusty]

To add to the fun, yesterday's Mail - in response to a perfectly reasonable statement from the Girl Guides association that they're thinking of creating a new "sex education" badge - chipped in with their depictions of such charming and unbigoted items as the Dealer Badge, the Binge-Drinker Badge, the Smoker Badge, and (natch) the Chav Badge. Real classy stuff.

That doesn't even work anyway. If it was a 'get pregnant by random men just to get council house and be a benefits scrounger' badge then it might work. Be a bugger to fit on the sleeve though.

[Famous Mortimer]

Made me laugh. I'd have published it in my comic, nae boather.

What the fuck do respectable people (for better or for worse, I'm including the insufferable Julie Burchill as a 'respectable person') have to gain by defending fucking chavs? Is it some kind of warped sense of social injustice or class-based guilt trip? I'm sure chavs sit around in their lager can-strewn living rooms, bellowing above Sky One and discussing how "the middle classes aren't all that bad actually, they're just misunderstood".

Fuck off, you poisonous piece of shit.

[TC Raymond]

Christ's sake, no wonder humour is on such a downward spiral with mingy little thought-police "can't say that, can't print that, unfair stereotype, poisonous class-hatred" buggerfucktwats like you lot about.

Don't you see? '2007 Happy Families' is meant as a JOKE. It's a bit of FUN. What the fuck next? Lengthy, unreadable diatribes against Monty Python because Eric Idle did blackface once and they used to dress up as loud, screechy, working class women, which is all the more unforgiveable because they were actually posh boys?

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

Noisy, obnoxious antisocial people who make you feel on edge as you can never relax around them.

The fallacy that the only 'groups' who contain these people are the working class and students is what gets me. Plenty of middle class parents have similar kids, but they think they don't.

The Daily Mail is the literary equivalent. It's like having a filthy swearing scoundrel walk right into your personal space and vomit over you.

[squinky]

Lengthy, unreadable diatribes against Monty Python because Eric Idle did blackface once and blah blah blah...

Wait, so you think that people shouldn't be criticised for performing in blackface?

Not that it surprises me or anything, I just wanted to check.


Incidentally, I like the part where Ms Butch's civil partner is listed as a 'miss'. Because everyone knows that civil unions aren't REAL marriage.

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

can't say that, can't print that

What? We of the paedophile-defending, 9/11 mocking liberal left? Standards standards.

[Baxter]

I do find some of those offensive. Granted the lesbian couple is simply slightly confusing, but it's no small thing to say it's from the daily mail it's what the readership finds funny and it sells papers. pouring scorn over it is as much a misunderstanding as what happened over the objections of the mail to Brass eye special. One of my personal heroes once said "There are no moral phenomena, only a moral interpretation of phenomena" perhaps I over quote him but it's in my view true, the cards are neither good or bad they're just a joke aimed at a particular section of society.

[Clinton Morgan]

The only people of consistent high quality are the upper class. And there's no point in getting jealous or angry about it- we just don't care.

Well put old bean (puts monocle back in place)...erm the port goes in this direction...Much obliged.

[Clinton Morgan]

I don't think anybody is saying "Can't say this" or "Can't print that". They're just saying they don't like it. Freedom of speech also includes the freedom to say "You're wrong", "That's offensive", "That's objectionable" and above all "That's bollocks". When certain people bang on about their freedom of speech (i.e. racists) what they are getting at is that they want to say something without being told off by those who object. Well, aren't they restricting somebody else's freedom with their desire not to get a bollocking?

There is a difference between this and the CRE wanting 'Tintin In The Congo' taken off the shelves. In any case those who are objecting are doing a form of comedy criticism which is what this forum is about. Surely you don't believe that a male child of lesbian parents is going to turn into a soft cissy. Middle class families aren't perfect and I should know. Mine are close knit but there are times when it feels like we're just held together by plaster and sticky tape. Nevertheless I'm not going to type any details as I'd like some privacy. In any case TC instead of typing cliches like "thought police" and the like why not argue your case by saying something like, "I know most of you don't like 'Meet The Arseholes' and my attitude towards X but what about 'The Upper Class Twit Of The Year'? That was a vitriolic piece towards a certain class of British society but I don't hear any objections to that. Why is acceptable to knock certain sectors of society but not others?"

[TC Raymond]

Most repeated opinion on internet forums has to be...

"The Daily Mail is a really unpleasant newspaper IMHO".

[Suttonpubcrawl]

I'm just going to agree with what everyone else has said. Those cartoons are seriously offensive, more than I really thought even the Daily Mail was capable of. I can't quite believe that they went ahead with printing them, a lot of that stuff seems like it should be just downright unacceptable in this day and age.

[John Self]

I'm just going to agree with everything SPC has said.

Most repeated opinion on internet forums has to be...

"The Daily Mail is a really unpleasant newspaper IMHO".

Are you saying that most internet forums are British?

Well put old bean (puts monocle back in place)...erm the port goes in this direction...Much obliged.

Heh, the pleasure's all mine  my dear chap. I take it the starboard goes in the other direction? Chin-chin!

EDIT:

In any case TC instead of typing cliches like "thought police" and the like why not argue your case by saying something like, "I know most of you don't like 'Meet The Arseholes' and my attitude towards X but what about 'The Upper Class Twit Of The Year'? That was a vitriolic piece towards a certain class of British society but I don't hear any objections to that. Why is acceptable to knock certain sectors of society but not others?"

You're asking TC why he doesn't use a reasonable and intelligent argument to argue his case? Bloody hell, you haven't been paying attention to his posts at all, have you?

And anyway, that 'The Upper Class Twit Of The Year' was a total whitewash of reportage, a prejudicial isolation of one small part of a much wider picture. As you yourself are no doubt aware Clinton, The Upper Class Olympics also features  'Sweetheart Of The Year', 'Loveable Buffoon Of The Year', 'Dude Of The Year', and the 100 metres sprint. But do the little people ever get to hear about these fine, worthy events? No, yet again they get overlooked, thanks to the bleeding-heart liberals of the so-called 'MPFC-Brigade'.

[El Unicornio, mang]

I must be getting desensitized because I didn't really find any of that shocking or offensive, except maybe the Albanian bit.

[Clinton Morgan]

Made me laugh. I'd have published it in my comic, nae boather.

I'm surprised. Aren't they just as one dimensional as the characters in 'Mind Your Language' a programme that you are vocal about in despising?

[rudi]

The number of genuinely intelligent, political, compassionate and humorous people I've met in my fucking life can just about be counted on ten fingers.

Perhaps because most intelligent, political, compassionate and humorous types recognise you as a tiresome berk and go find other people to share their oxygen with?

Those other ten people were probably pissed off the lift broke when it did.