That Joke Isn't Funny Anymore

London Fields # 89
First published Inpress (Issue # 1160), Melbourne on 9 February 2011, and in Drum Media (Issue # 1046), Sydney on 8 February 2011
NB: Each column has a name, but these do not appear in print; printed versions may differ slightly to those displayed here

“We are live; please do not swear”. The axing of Big Brother may have seen this catchphrase pass into the annals of TV history, but it also seems as if taboos are shifting also. On three occasions recently BBC presenters have inadvertently dropped the c-bomb whilst taking about the current government. Meanwhile Channel 4 advertised their scrapping of the 10” broadcast delay for the 21^st British Comedy Awards, ensuing all the naughty words would be unable to be expurgated. The ceremony this year was fairly tame; Miranda Hart was the night’s big winner; and the most significant comedy story began when members of Top Gear made comments about the sexism row concerning Sky Sports presenters backstage.

In the following weeks Top Gear ended up in the news again after some questionable racial stereotype jibes aimed at Mexicans and their ambassador to the UK featured in a recent edition. Now Ambassador Eduardo Medina-Mora Icaza didn’t take too kindly to this; far from being indolent, he had put his life in peril leading a major campaign against drug gangs prior to his London posting. Last Saturday Jeremy Clarkson used his column in The Sun to apologise, claiming that offence is necessary in humour; the column ended with another ethnic joke about Mexico. So what are the taboos in comedy nowadays - terrorism, racism, political incorrectness, disability? Over the weekend, Steve Coogan, clearly incensed by the situation, wrote in The Guardian that “…you can get away with saying unsayable things if it's done with some sense of culpability”, believing that that comedy should have a “moral standpoint“ targeting “hypocrisy, human frailty, narrow-mindedness“.

A couple of weeks ago I was in the audience for the filming of four episodes of the second series of Stewart Lee’s Comedy Vehicle. By far the most edgy section was an appreciation of the IRA - “gentlemen bombers” with achievable aims, whose street art was a natural precursor to Banksy. Lee’s skilled in irony, but sailing so close to the wind makes misinterpretation ever more likely. His 2009 Edinburgh show If You Prefer A Milder Comedian Please Ask For One had a lengthy section on Top Gear, wishing all sorts of terrible calamities to befall their presenters, and their families. His get-out phrase there was the same one they use on Top Gear, that it’s “just a joke“. It may seem like a long time ago, but the repercussions of the phone messages Russell Brand and Jonathon Ross left on Andrew Sach’s answering machine are still being felt. Sachsgate was the 5th most complained about incident that broadcasting watchdog Ofcom have received in the last decade (with Lee‘s own Jerry Springer The Opera at #3), and the BBC has only just aired an episode of Never Mind The Buzzcocks filmed two years earlier as Brand had been a panellist in it. What you can do on stage, or on DVD ,is very different to what you can do as a state broadcaster, so it’ll be interesting to see if the BBC, still smarting from Sachsgate, allow all of Lee’s material to go to air.

Over on Channel 4, Frankie Boyle's Tramadol Nights also made headlines. After the initial fuss about a joke involving disability and incest had subsided, his use of the racist P-bomb and n-bomb in the fourth episode raised shackles again. In context the joke was a variation of “the ethnicities of the fatalities were, in order of importance…”, but here using evocative terminology for those at the bottom. Boyle displays a mean intelligence. Mean is a particularly apposite description; his comedy is a cross between the vitriolic rantings of a misanthrope and a carefully planned assault pushing the boundaries of what is acceptable. While sometimes very funny, it’s also spiteful and vindictive with a nastiness that can leave a distinctly unpleasant taste.

Speaking in Germany last Saturday, British Prime Minister David Cameron echoed the words spoken by German Chancellor Angela Merkel last October when he said that multiculturalism was an experiment that had failed. On the same day in Luton, the EDL mounted a massive demonstration against Islam. Meanwhile last Thursday, the BBC decided not to film a certain section of an upcoming Stephen Fry programme in Japan after the backlash over a section on QI where jokes were made about Tsutomu Yamaguchi, the only official survivor of both nuclear blasts in Japan in 1945. Taboos can be challenged, as Chris Morris did last year with Four Lions. But maybe it’s time for some to stop hiding behind the safety curtain of ‘political correctness gone mad’. and be seen for what they are - the classroom stirrer deliberately making provocative statements just to get attention.

© James McGalliard 2011

Inpress: Published on page 58
Drum: Published on page 54

Black & White TV

London Fields # 70
First published Inpress, Melbourne on 14 October 2009
NB: Each column has a name, but these do not appear in print; printed versions may differ slightly to those displayed here

Perhaps the most contentious section of comedian Richard Herring’s Edinburgh show Hitler Moustache began when he chose to use the term “Paki” to make a point. In the UK it is no mere abbreviation, but one of the most taboo terms of racist abuse, a derogatory catch-all for anyone from the Asian subcontinent. I felt myself catch my breath as he uttered it, for it’s dangerous territory to tread. Herring is not a racist by any stretch, but there’s a risk in being quoted out of context, such as the furore that surrounded his “maybe the racists have a point” comment from elsewhere in the show. His expansive conjecture was that an extreme racist’s ‘us and them’ mentality was only one step away from the truly enlightened state of seeing that we’re all the same; so those liberals who see hundreds of separate races on Earth were hundreds of steps further away from the ideal. He went on to illustrate that if people from India and Pakistan saw themselves as a racist sees them (the same), they’d be no conflict between the countries. Now this was never meant to be a serious proposition; the whole point of his show was to challenge perceptions and assumptions.

There’s been another recent TV race row playing out in the papers, where Strictly Come Dancing contestant Anton Du Beke saw the spray-on tan of his partner Laila Rouass and exclaimed “You look like a Paki”. The comment was made off air, and apologies were quickly made and accepted. Yet it’s still shocking that such a remark could be made, even in ‘jest’. ‘Only joshing’ was Carol Thatcher’s excuse earlier this year too, when she used the word “golliwog” to describe tennis player Jo-Wilfried Tsonga. It was also an off-air remark – the difference was that she refused to apologise (at least initially), saying there was nothing wrong with it. Rightfully, the BBC dismissed her, yet there are those who claim that the Beeb has not been even-handed in its handling of such incidents. Both the Celebrity Big Brother affair and Manuelgate are still fresh wounds in TV Land, and the BBC faces an uncertain future, particularly if there is a change in government at the next election.

Hence the BBC Trust’s latest broadcasting guidelines are reactionary, and the new restrictions on bad language feel like a visit from the ghost of Mary Whitehouse. Yet the modern world is one wherein you need to be more aware that certain, seemingly innocent words may carry a hidden weight. Only the other I week a responded to a ribald remark from a fellow employee with “cheeky monkey”, only to then freeze as I remembered that in England that word has nasty associations to anyone of black decent. And a few weeks earlier I was completely dumbfounded when a handyman at my flat started expressed some pretty hateful opinions, and used some racist expressions I’d never heard used in real life and hoped had been lost in the 1970s.

Yet the most shocking example of TV gone wrong recently wasn’t any of these, but the Jackson Jive act on Hey Hey It’s Saturday. It’s thirty years since Bert Newton wrongfooted Mohammed Ali with his infamous (yet genuinely innocent) “I like the boy” remark, and longer since The Black And White Minstrel Show was consigned to the cultural dustbin. So you’d have hoped that a true multicultural society might have become more attuned, yet the “Where’s Kamahl?” cartoon genuinely served to bundle all races of colour into the one basket that Richard Herring satirised. It isn’t about political correctness; it’s about being aware of a wider world - one in which the Lucky Country, with its detention camps and belated ‘Sorry’ is sometimes viewed as backward, homophobic and racist. Personally, I was simply embarrassed, and somewhat glad that this didn’t become a bigger story here, as it would have been impossible to defend my homeland. It’s not necessarily a question of racism, but it’s certainly one of sensitivity and awareness. Would they have been allowed to perform in blackface holding boomerangs, didgeridoos and a copy of the Mabo Treaty? To put it simply - “Wake Up Australia!”


© James McGalliard 2009

A Tale Of Two Cities

London Fields # 57

First published Inpress, Melbourne on 8 October 2008

NB: Each column has a name, but these do not appear in print; printed versions may differ slightly to those displayed here

So I’m sitting in a bar in Swan Street, Richmond, briefly back home in Melbourne, and I’m attempting to communicate over the noise and the alcohol some of the almost invisible differences between Melbourne and London life. When two societies are so close in so many ways, it’s the simple differences that can cause such misunderstanding and havoc. Even simple abbreviations can be treacherous, as a shortened version of Pakistani is an even more offensive racial slur in Britain than an abbreviation of Aboriginal is in Australia, yet the latter is a term which the Brits seems to use casually and without thought.

In the UK, a pedestrian has no right-of-way at a zebra crossing until they have walked onto the road, and even then you have to hope that that car will actually stop. But anyway, I’m trying to illustrate the unwritten rules which underlie social order in the British Isles. I explain that in a London pub it would be wrong in normal circumstances to strike up a conversation with a neighbouring table (subject to regional variations), hence the popularity of events like pub quiz nights, where these rules break down. Meanwhile, the effects of the smoking ban were more clearly visible in Melbourne both as evidenced by a chain of burning rubbish bins throughout the CBD from poorly-extinguished cigarettes and by the evenings spent huddled with the smokers in freezing beer gardens. In the UK, smokers duck outside for a few minutes, and then try to slip seamlessly back into the conversation.

I think I’m still fairly Australian, but when I use the expression ‘taken umbrage’, I am pulled up for being far too British. It’s a relief that the culture of fear than permeates London’s streets is fortunately yet to make major inroads in Melbourne. For in London you need to be very careful in offering assistance to strangers lest your motives are misinterpreted or taken advantage of. An offer of help can be seen as more than a threat than anything else, so the friendly Aussie soon learns to walk on by. But some things are not better in the Lucky Country. I was shocked at how expensive Australian groceries had become – the cost of a weekly shop is markedly higher than in the UK. And these rising prices seem to be leading to a new class divide – the haves and the have-nots, perhaps most easily distinguished by the home brands in their shopping trolleys. At least the recession is yet to hit, as the property market is buoyant compared to that in South East England.

While in Melbourne I caught The Wreckery play the first hometown show in twenty years. It was great to see them live again, and offered a chance to show that their legacy was a lot more vital and vibrant than reflected in the silly joke names that have dogged them for years. Even more refreshing was the fact that a large percentage of the audience were too young to have seen them the first time round, meaning that their sound, which has dated very little, has the potential to find a whole new listenership if they continue. Less than a fortnight later, I’m at the Royal Albert Hall to watch Echo & The Bunnymen, accompanied by an orchestra, celebrate their 30^th anniversary by playing the entire Ocean Rain album. The difference between the gigs was marked; the average Bunnymen fan was well over forty, and I didn’t see younger fans at all. Of course, that may in part have been due to the high ticket prices, but could it also be that younger Oz punters are more interested in what they missed? Sadly The Bunnymen were mostly underwhelming and lacking in the sense of occasion, which made the occasional moments of brilliance all the more frustrating, as it showed how great they can be still.

So it’s a few weeks later and I’m standing in a small venue in Hoxton watching a short but brilliant set from Frightened Rabbit. They finish with one of the best songs released by any band this year, Keep Yourself Warm, and I’m thinking that it’s a little like a modern take on Throw Your Arms Around Me. But “we may never meet again, so shed your skin and get started” has been replaced by “I’m drunk, and you’re probably on pills; if we’ve both got the same diseases it’s irrelevant girl”. So is this the change from 1984 to 2008, or is it Australia verses the UK? I’m not sure I know the answer to that.

Now I’m no anthropologist, so while some of the above may be a version of participant observation, I probably fail to maintain sufficient distance and become involved, making me prone to more than a little field blindness. But I think it is fair to say two things. Twelve days is barely enough time to find your feet again, let alone make value judgements. And that there is that risk in travelling – while trying to find a place that feels like home you may lose whatever one you thought you had in the first place.

© James McGalliard 2008

Man In The Mirror

London Fields # 35
First published Inpress, Melbourne on 24 January 2007
NB: Each column has a name, but these do not appear in print; printed versions may differ slightly to those displayed here

There’s nothing the British love more than a good old natter. And recent events on the fifth series of Celebrity Big Brother have provided fodder for countless conversations and debates, as well as thousands of column inches, both here in the UK and around the world. It has also thrown up a large mirror on some aspects of British society, and the picture isn’t pretty.

CBB5 has been all about humiliation as entertainment, and I’m not just referring to the behaviour of the housemates. On the third day Jade Goody, her boyfriend, and her harridan of a mother arrived in the house, and the "celebrities" were told to act as servants to them. Now Jade was ‘made’ by appearing in the third series of the UK version Big Brother back in 2002. Although she didn’t win, she was probably the most memorable housemate, becoming famous for her sheer ignorance and stupidity.

Which was why it was easy to understand why Towers Of London’s frontman Donny Tourette jumped the fence rather than kow-tow to the three newcomers. Next film director Ken Russell walked after a row with Jade (though perhaps it was also because no one in the house knew who he was anyway) and it was starting to look a bit desperate. Finally Leo Sayer went loco and smashed his way out of the house (because thought he didn’t have any clean underwear) and the future of the show was looking bleak.

Now Jade had been put there for her distinct lack of tact, and on her first day she asked Jermaine Jackson if his brother Michael’s pale skin was because he was mixed race like her. While her lack of propriety and complete misunderstanding of other cultures was guaranteed to cause conflicts, I don’t think anyone saw how far it would go. Jade was certainly the ringleader of the bullying, but in her case I think it was more to do with class than race. Class as in place in society, and in the way one purports oneself.

Was it racist though? There’s little you can say to defend Danielle Lloyd comment of Shilpa "She should fuck off home!". In an attempt at damage limitation, Lloyd’s family issued a statement which contains the following: 'F* off home' is a term frequently used sometimes as an insult and sometimes in a jovial fashion between young people today...’. Yeah, so that’s why Lloyd’s agent included this in her list of DON’Ts for her time in the house: "Don't be racist - show you're bigger than that. If you have a strong opinion about something give your reasons for it."

But the production company has to accept blame as well. Jade’s mum Jackiey was like a real-life Margery Dawes – the character in Little Britain who claims not be able to understand a world said by the Indian woman in her Fat Fighters group. Jackiey claimed that Bollywood star Shilpa Shetty’s name was too difficult, and just referred to her as "The Indian". But when she wasn’t challenged over this behaviour in her post-eviction interview.

The producers could also be accused of demeaning acts and bullying. Such as pumping out Michael Jackson’s Man In The Mirror as a wake-up song, coincidentally while Jermaine was styling his barnet. Or asking Jermaine to form a Jackson 5 tribute band, replete with afro wigs, and H to form a rival tribute act from his former life in Steps. It was like an experiment to see how much they could get their celebs to piss on their life’s achievements. This near envy was mirrored by Jade when she met someone who made her feel inadequate merely by her easy manner and grace.

So with Jade gone, did the bullying cease? No it just changed targets. The following day saw Kenny Everett sidekick Cleo Rocos relentlessly flirt with Dirk Benedict in a nasty way, for pay him back for a ribald conversation he had earlier in the day about pornography. And she wouldn’t stop, even when he told her on very clear terms that it wasn’t fun. No, her mission was to see if she could get him to ‘crack’.

Yes, there was some racism in the house, and maybe it indicates that under the guise of a more enlightened politically correct society, deeper divides are still in place. But it was more a battle of class, and Shilpa being one of the few to emerge with any. Yet this show is a sad reflection of modern Britain in another way - no one stood up and said, "Stop!". Not the housemates, not "Big Brother", not the producers. Not, that is, until complaints watchdog Ofcom received a record number of complaints. This is the Bystander Britain; you observe but don’t intervene for fear of being dragged in yourself. I suppose the only positive to come out of it all is that it has got people talking, and hopefully thinking about issues of race and bullying.

All except the TV stations it seems. How else could you explain the new series of Shipwrecked which commenced on Sunday, also on Channel 4? One of the castaways is a posh outspoken brat who believes in the British Empire and is all for the return of slavery… Your fifteen minutes awaits!

© James McGalliard 2007

The Battle Of Britain

London Fields # 18

First published Inpress, Melbourne on 21 September 2005

NB: Each column has a name, but these do not appear in print; printed versions may differ slightly to those displayed here

“Covering up the agony with mindless entertainment…”
ABC - United Kingdom

Over the past seven years, so-called reality shows have completely changed the landscape of modern television. Along with makeover projects, these are reasonably cheap to make, and have all but replaced the documentary. If their prevalence has made us all slightly more media savvy, just what has it done to those who participate?

In 1998, The Truman Show depicted the ultimate development is reality television. In the same year came the documentary 42 Up, looking at how a cross-section of British children, first interviewed at the age of 7 in 1964, were coping aged 42. This week ITV, as part of their 50th anniversary series of programmes, are halfway through showing the latest of the seven-year updates, 49 Up. The lives of the dozen or so participants have now probably outgrown pure documentary to evolve into the first reality TV stars. Yet in the time elapsed since the last instalment, the world of Big Brother and similar shows has not been without affect. A snowball that means that the director finds himself questioned about his motives in continuing to chase his subjects every seven years. Initially I thought filmmaker Michael Apted had lost his way when putting this together. It felt disconnected, as though he’d merely tacked an appendix onto his earlier work. But as time’s passed, I’ve realised there’s another reason for this change. The nation that he started to document some forty years ago no longer exists.

If starting a similar project now, would virtually all the children be white, and mostly male? There are different schisms now than class, which was seen as the major cultural divide back then. What’s worth noting is [in the first half at least] everyone has moved out of London. The reasons vary, but the most telling comes from Tony, the cabbie. He no longer feels that there are communities as there were when he was growing up, due to the influx of other cultures into Britain. His answer is to head to Spain, and set up his own Little Britain there. To go to another country and create an English enclave there – in other words to do exactly what he doesn’t like about the UK in the twenty-first century himself.

Reality television and documentary can meet and create something other than low brow fodder, as The Monastery showed. The concept for this was remarkably simple – take five men and put them in a Benedictine monastery for forty days and nights, living as the monks do, spending much time in silent thought, and to observe what happens. The resulting three one-hour episodes followed the challenges and revelations the men made as they come face-to-face with their inner selves. Made by the BBC religious unit, it was a compelling, and genuinely moving experience, and easily ranks as one of the television highlights of the year so far.

Last week there was a moment of national pride here, as the English enjoyed the feel-good factor, brought about by their victory in the Ashes series. This was a little odd. Cricket is not a grassroots game at all here – you don’t see kids playing it in the streets or the parks. The strongest following comes from the public schools, and the Asian communities [in the UK that means India, Pakistan and Bangladesh]. Football is the only real national sport here, but English successes there are even rarer than in the cricket. Sadly it seems unlikely that this fervour will have oxygen to fan the flames, as the draw at The Oval which gave the series victory to England was the last test match that you’ll be able to see on British TV without paying a subscription.

Having lost all three of its principal leads during the last series, the producers of Spooks had to find a pretty big bang to keep it all rolling. They came up with a two-parter about a series of bombs aimed at civilians in the capital. Yes, of course it was plotted, written and probably filmed before the events of July. Yet watching the scenes of dialogue-free devastation, you felt that someone had capitulated and rushed back to re-edit the original footage. The next episode concerned the election campaign of an ‘England for the English’ politician. A series that started as an enjoyable romp has descended into a dangerous mirror-reality, almost begging for copycat actions, so they can show how astute their observations are. If only leading light Rupert Penry-Jones had been given a second series of the sadly cancelled North Square instead.

Coincidentally, last weekend Trevor Phillips, the head of The Commission for Racial Equality, spoke of fears that Britain was in danger of becoming a ghetto nation. Yet all of this could be seen as the efforts of a new, changing nation struggling to find its own identity. If Apted decides to continue with his project, it’ll be interesting to see just what the Britain of 56 Up will be. And Gillian Armstrong – isn’t it about time that you showed us how the Australian women of Bingo, Bridesmaids & Braces are coping with their forties?

© James McGalliard 2005

Flying The Flag

London Fields # 2
First published Inpress, Melbourne on 16 June 2004
NB: Each column has a name, but these do not appear in print; printed versions may differ slightly to those displayed here

“Mixing pop and politics, they ask me what the use is”

Billy Bragg – Waiting for the Great Leap Forwards

It wasn’t until I’d been living here a while that I came to appreciate the differences between England and Britain. Yet the question of nationality has been fuelling debates for months, and couldn’t have been more apparent over the last few weeks. Is a political awakening of the masses behind this sea change? Partially. It’s a response to Iraq, the rise of the British National Party [BNP – think of a nastier One Nation] and the build up to the Euro 2004 Football Tournament.

More than ever, national identity has become a key issue in the UK today. In the lead up to Euro 2004, there are St George’s cross flags EVERYWHERE – pubs, fronts of houses, flying from cars. This ties into the debate over the call for official recognition of St George’s Day. But who was St George? No-one can be sure of any facts, but it appears England’s patron saint was born in Turkey in the third century, lived in Palestine and fought in the Roman army.

In a strange way the debate can be seen in recent events at XFM, where Breakfast DJ Christian O'Connell decided to put out his own football song, inspired by the rumour that the Football Association [FA] were going to have Blazing Squad record the official anthem. A competition ensued where listeners submitted songs for approval. The winner was ‘Born In England’, by The Wheatleys. Under the moniker of Twisted X, this was re-recorded featuring Bernard Butler, members of Delays, The Libertines and Supergrass, as well as 500 listeners of the Breakfast Show, with profits to go to the charity ‘Help a Local Child’.

XFM was hoping to get the FA’s official sanction for their song. The FA wouldn’t grant it, and released a new version of The Farm’s 'All Together Now'. So how does all this tie in? Well, personally, I think that the FA were wary of being seen to support a song that could be taken as a nationalist anthem at a time when the BNP are trying to make their presence felt. Now, I’m not for a second suggesting that ‘Born In England’ was guilty of any such thing; yet people are terrified of being misconstrued in a time of mistrust and doubt. It’s these very sentiments that feed the paranoia that are a part of the Little Britain mentality, and used by anti-European fearmongers.

It’s worth relating the story of the Unity Festival, part of the ongoing campaign by the Anti-Nazi League. Love Music Hate Racism was due to be a free event held in Finsbury Park two weeks ago, headlined by The Libertines. When Police then insisted that a fence be placed around the area; this made the event financially unfeasible, forcing it to be scaled down and moved indoors to the Hammersmith Apollo. To cover their new costs, they then needed a minimum donation of £5 per person to pay venue hire costs. Then, with Pete Doherty in rehab in France, the whole thing fell though, and had to be cancelled.

With events like this being buried, and then disappearing, most people I know did felt that they had to bother to vote this time around. With non-compulsory voting, the turn-up was around 36% - still this was amongst the best in Europe. The thing was that their votes were always against something; the majority of people I spoke to just wanted the BNP to be stomped on, but also to register their feelings over the continuing situation in Iraq.

In May, Morrissey returned to the charts singing

“I’ve been dreaming of a time when to be English is not to be baneful
To be standing by the flag not feeling shameful, racist or partial”

Then last weekend in Dublin he commented on the death of Ronald Reagan, saying that the wrong President had died. He may well find that the Americans are far less tolerant of criticism of their country, than is the case with the UK’s reaction to his mythical Little Britain sentiments that he writes of from his Hollywood home.

In case you’re wondering, here are the final scores:
Charts: “Born In England” at #9, “All Together Now” at # 5, “Come On England” at # 2
Euro 2004: France 2 England 1
Vote 2004: BNP 5%, UKIP 17.7 % {9 % gain}


© James McGalliard 2004