Sunday, 28 August 2011

Taking it too far.

Remember Frankie Boyle, the ginger specky git who loves to offend? He was in trouble for having a go at some pop-tart's kid and again for making fun of Down's syndrome. There was Outrage! The lefties were all up in arms (apart from the Down's syndrome lefties who were busy with some chocolate). It was a Terrible Thing he did.

Okay, he does go well past the bounds of good taste on occasion. Well, most of the time actually. But he does not mean it maliciously, he's just an outspoken sod. Sometimes he's really funny even if some of his jokes make even me go 'Ooooo'. We don't have to watch him but enough people do to let him make a career of it and if you pay to go to a show or tune in to a TV programme knowing you're going to be offended then you're an idiot and you'll get no sympathy here.

Frankie Boyle is joking. You might not find it funny. I might not find it funny. But he is joking.

So, you can argue, are those who have decided to depict Maggie the Thatch as deranged enough to sleep with the Tiny Blur. It's not realistic, no woman could be that deranged which is why he married a postbox.

One comment points out that Spitting Image used to rip the piss out of her every week so why is this different?

It's different because she is no longer Prime Monster, hasn't been for a long time and indeed has no official public role. It's different because she is old and frail and a bit loose in the head these days and cannot defend herself. When Spitting Image made their puppets, the Thatch was a powerful woman with a mind so sharp it could perform surgery on itself. She was Prime Monster and in charge of the country. She made no move to silence Spitting Image even though it deliberately denigrated her and all of her allies as well as all of her foes. The Hattersley puppet was responsible for several hosepipe bans and the Tebbit puppet made leather fashionable.

When Frankie Boyle picks his targets he knows they can defend themselves or that they have people to defend them, or that they won't be watching or won't care. He is not malicious. When Spitting Image indulged in caricature they were also not being malicious.

This depiction of the Thatch is malicious. It is different from 'funny', it is different from 'taking the piss', it is simply vindictive.

If the Thatch was in power or even in parliament now, I would be among the first to deride her efforts, but she is not. She is a confused and vulnerable old woman in the last days of her life.

The Tiny Blur still babbles his nonsense as if anyone was listening, 'Kicker' Tebbitt is still compost mental and blogging, the Brown Gorgon can still hide in a jar of prunes and blame it on the gherkins, Red Ken still pops out idiocies to delight the news, Boris the Spider is the best comedy mayor since Red Ken, Monochrome Man, the Prime Monster nobody can remember except that he dressed as a walrus and had an affair with the Eggwoman, is still there in black and white, and Drooling Kinnock is still available for derision and probably always will be because I grew up in that arse's constituency and he convinced me never to vote Labour. The Cleggy and the Cameron have a poem being devised just for them, even now.

The last short story collection had a poem at the end, and this next one will too, in the interests of balance.

When they are too old and too frail to be derided, it's time to leave them alone. Come on, she is five prime monsters in the past and has had no effect on anyone's lives since Monochrome Man took over. She is just an old woman now.

Even Frankie Boyle knows when to drop the sick jokes. It seems his most vociferous critics don't.

But then it does seem to be a particular blind spot with socialist control freaks.


Majid Ali said...

Please help me by reading my appeal on my profile

Herbie said...

Maybe Boyle wasn't the best example in this case. He had no love for Maggie:

TheBigYin said...

It's a bit early in the year to be getting the begging bowl out Majid, you should wait till around Christmas time, lots of free time to go a clicking at 'begging bowl' ads then.

Aint the education system grand eh.

Zaphod said...

I have immense respect for Maggie, and say so at every opportunity.

Her achievements seriously upset a lot of lefties though, and they are still sulking. This is hardly surprising.

It's understandable that they want to try to kick her, now that she is not so strong.

I think she might just be pleased that they are still so angry? I would be.

Paul said...

A lot of this is really to do with hatred. Remember that many of the people involved with this wouldn't even have known who she was at the time that she left office. I was one by the time she left office. Are people going to be indoctrinated into hating Thatcher hundreds of years from now? Will she become the new Oliver Cromwell to Labourites?

If you want to have a go at political targets, have a go at David Cameron, Nick Clegg, that idiot with the lisp, any of the front bench, the EU, the IMF, Barroso and so on. There's more, more, more than enough stuff to do.

This TV show smacks of cowardice.

Amusing Bunni said...

I really hate people who pick on weak people, or the elderly, or sick! They are cowards and creeps.

David Davis said...

I can't understand a word of what the buggers on the movie are saying, as i have tinnitus.

As to Margaret Thatcher, her reputation will grow and become more revered with time, especially long after her death, when she will be seen as a beacon of liberalism. This and only this is why the fascist "nazis" , the "one-nationers", among the "tories" like "Heseltine", got rid of her.

They found that she was really (underneath) a classical-liberal, a follower of the greatest and most articulate of liberals, Enoch Powell (which is what classical liberals in the 20th/21st century are) and they therefore became hysterically-violent - having Drunk From The Cup Of Traitor Ted Heath.

All the other reputations, with the possible exceptions of Normal (I did type "Normal") Tebbitt and Daniel Hannan, will crumble, like those of the foul Kennedys, into dust.

TheBigYin said...

David Davis @17:57 I will take it that you are not the MP as you do not have those credentials after your name.

I am a Scotsman who has lived in Middlesbrough for two many years for me to remember but I do remember the thatcherite era and, to me and those in the north east and Scotland she was a bitch, not just a bitch but a hated bitch in these parts. In my lifetime I will not forget her legacy of decimating mining in this area and many other things but times have moved on and I, as a carer of my wife who has Alzheimer's, cannot condone the vilification of a human being that cannot fight back with any rhetoric.

I see the joke in the TV programme but will not feel vindicated for my views about M thatcher because of it. Enjoy your last years on this earth Margeret without fear nor trepidation, this is the least that is expected of a person of your years. Stay safe.

constabulary refuse to grant licence to stage fight - after failing to receive a big enough cut of purse said...

i followed your final link and discovered that one group of troublmakers, the anti-fascist brigade, have called for an overtly provocative, but nevertheless democratically legitimate march through the east-end of london, by another group of troublemakers, the english defence league, to be banned - and the upshot is that a third group of troublemakers, the metropolitan police, have taken these suggestions on board and, after due consideration, have now banned all groups of troublemakers (except themselves) from marching under any pretext anywhere in the east-end for a whole month. all the anti-fascists had to do was to turn their backs on these fascist fellows, give them the silent treatment, and let them go home with their tails between their legs, frustrated at failing to fulfil their primary purpose of stirring-up a riot - but no, the anti-fascists reportedly rose to the bait and organized hate-fuelled counter-protests. by stirring-up counter-hatred and calling for the right-wing march to be banned, the left-wingers have shown themselves to be closet-fascists and equally despicable as the people whom they claim to oppose - freedom is not safe in the hands of any of these extremist political factions (including the police).

agent p said...


i think, also, that the local asian population (including many muslims) realized that, if trouble broke-out, they would ultimately be the ones saddled with the blame - even tho' it was probably predominantly white socialist extremists who were inciting the incendiary welcoming-committee.

penny for disthought said...


well, well...makes a change from the police organizing riots in notting hill...i suppose our law-enforcers have recently just been too busy dealing with the national wave of anarchy, which they have deliberately unleashed and encouraged, to stretch their thinly-disguised manpower to mount yet another kick-off in the east-end...hopefully, anyway.

illuminutta said...


yes, if you trace to the top-level the respective chains-of-command of both these fixated political factions and the state's law-enforcement crew, you will eventually establish that they are all controlled by the same power- and stock-broker, the devil himself, who, with the evilly able assistance of his mortal minions here on earth, manipulates wars and conflict between right and left, muslim and christian, establishment and anti-establishment, and black and white - death, despair and destruction created for his personal malicious amusement and for the material profit and gain of his self-selecting clique of single-mindedly ambitiously malevolent messengers. every party, movement and organization's been infiltrated, you see.

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