Matt with an 18 certificate!

I find it quite interesting that over the last few years what has become acceptable in the media.. Look at what we can get away with on telly now, even before the Watershed. By the way can anybody give me a serious answer to the question why we call the “Watershed” the “Watershed”. What is or was it and how does it have any relevance to things happening at a given time?

Lets take as our first example the coverage of Live 8 last Saturday. It was fantastic by the way but that’s not what I’m on about. Twenty years ago Sir Saint God Geldof uttered the immortal line “Give us your fucking money” during the live broadcast to the planet. He actually never said that, it’s got a bit embroidered in the telling like the “Play it again Sam” moment in Casablanca. But that’s not the point either. The point is everybody went on about it, and by it I mean the use of the word Fuck. And they’re still going on about it as a landmark piece of telly broadcasting for that reason. Yet last Saturday at a very similar event Madonna asked Hyde Park if it was “Fucking ready” and nobody has even so much as coughed in embarrassment. Fuck has become part of the English speaking world’s language. Just to give you another example about Sixteen or Seventeen years ago I went with some people I new to see Billy Connolly. Now the big Yin is known for his colourful language and I think he is also probably the funniest man on the planet. But I digress. The point again is you don’t go to see him on stage if Mary Whitehouse is your spiritual Grandmother. Within the first Two minutes Billy started by saying, “I better warn you that Fuck is my favourite word and if you don’t Fucking like it you can Fuck off now”. And people did. Strange why go in the first place you know what you’re going to get. I mean it’s like watching porn for the story you just don’t.

Anyway fuck is now used in all but the most sanitised situations my place of work springs to mind. We seem to have sided with the nanny thought police and decided to be very wet and pamper to the softies. And I suspect that the whole use of swear words has moved. Cunt probably has taken the place of fuck today as Wanker has taken the place of Sun reader. Sorry could not resist that. But they are aren’t they. People have a greater tolerance to swearing or do they just hear more and get used to it. I have no end of CD’s in my collection with warning about lyrical content on the sleeve most of which I don’t even think are offensive. I guess it’s all about context. Try listening to gangster rap. Even the stuff in the charts is full of swearing because it’s no big thing.

Today we are much more worried by the use of offensive racial words such as Nigger, Wog, Sambo, and Pakki. And quite rightly so. Interestingly I’m writing this in Word and its spell checker does not recognise any of the words just mentioned. I bet if it had been around Thirty years ago they would have come up. The world has moved on try watching Till death us do part. Apart from the fine acting and great scripts the use of racial or rather anti racial language just makes me cringe. It’s the same with numerous sitcom’s of the day all way out of step with today. Going back to Fuck and Cunt etc I think there quite an important part of out language. There are times when only Fuck can sum up the way you feel about a situation or person. We could however do with some new Twenty-first century swear words. Any ideas you know where to leave the suggestions. Time for me to fuck off then. Until next time Bollocks to you all.
Matt