July 7th People's Independent Inquiry Forum -> The New Puritanism?

The New Puritanism?, Censorship of comedians etc

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The Antagonist

Posted: Sep 13 2009, 07:47 PM

Antagonista

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QUOTE

Is Britain in moral crisis?
The Bishop of Rochester has warned that the rejection of Christian values is having a damaging effect on the country.
Published: 6:31PM BST 13 Sep 2009

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Bishop of Rochester, Michael Nazir-Ali: Bishop of Rochester: Church of England must do more to counter twin threats of secularism and radical Islam

The Rt Rev Michael Nazir-Ali said that the rejection of Christian values is having a damaging effect on the country.

Speaking at his farewell service, he expressed particular concern at the breakdown of the family and at growing calls for the legalisation of assisted suicide.

Although he is stepping down as bishop, he vowed to continue to speak out on important issues and to fight for a return to Christian principles.

"I believe that the Christian faith is necessary for the life of our country," he said.

"We need to get away from the constant making of moral decisions by opinion poll.

"We are facing a crisis about affirming the dignity of human purpose.

"It may be at the earliest stage of life or as we are hearing more and more, at the later stages of life."

Is the weakening of family life responsible for what we face on our streets, in our classrooms and homes?

Presumably, "the rejection of Christian values" also includes things like being opposed to the crusades that continue in the middle-east.

justthefacts

Posted: Nov 4 2009, 10:51 AM

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Frankie Boyle interviewed in Time Out:

QUOTE

The BBC Trust's Editorial Standards Committee found remarks you'd made about Rebecca Adlington in August 2008 to be 'offensive and not clearly editorially justified'.

'It was all bollocks. Especially when you consider we're fighting two wars, there's fucking swine flu and the global economy is going down the toilet. There's all this stuff that people expect you to talk about, and what do the production team send us? A picture of Rebecca Adlington. And then they tell us to write jokes about her. Our top story was the British Olympic team returning home. We'd talked about them for five weeks yet still had to joke about them getting off a plane. What are you going to write about, apart from the fact that she looks like a beagle? What else is there? Their tracksuits? The shutter speed the photographers were using?'

........

The real problem is that they ask us to cover that light, frothy stuff and you're expected to find something in it. There's nothing intrinsically funny about 'Things you wouldn't say during a driving test' or a Norwich by-election - so you'd better hope that someone looks weird or there's some bizarre angle. Oddly this lack of meaning tends to make the comedy more extreme. If we were allowed to do stuff about equipment shortages in Afghanistan or the swine flu vaccination programme there would be more intrinsic interest for the audience and we wouldn't need to hook them in so much. We could be gentler, more whimsical and much more sophisticated with it. But in the end they get what they ask for.'

......

But did you agree with the committee that the comments were 'humiliating', and 'exacerbated by the fact that she had not sought celebrity status or courted media attention'?

'Who gives a fuck? Can you imagine anyone reading that and actually giving a fuck? We had 75 people complain out of some 5 million viewers. It's disheartening. Who are these people? What authority do they have to judge comedy? There are bridges people shouldn't be allowed to cross, but it now feels like we're back in the 1970s in terms of compliance. British people have a really sophisticated sense of humour, because we're exposed to much more than Europeans and Americans, not least in our literary heritage. We have decoding software which allows us to process complex issues: "Did they mean that in a bad way? Answer: Oh no, they didn't." The average British person would hear me doing my joke about Rebecca Adlington and realise there's no malice in it. It was an off-the-cuff ad lib.'

.....

But nobody in charge of television wants to hear real political comment. The number one priority in TV comedy today is "Don't frighten the horses", and it's probably numbers two and three as well. Talent is probably number four and politics and having a point of view is fucking nowhere. Unfortunately that's also true for a lot of comedians. If you look at the scheduling these days, it's all just celebrities meeting meerkats. It's almost purposely dull. I love the BBC and I think it's a really important thing. But if it doesn't start producing more engaging content, a lot of people won't fucking watch it any more; they'll just migrate to the internet.'

...........

Also in your book you say that: 'TV's just a shiny bauble used to distract morons while they're having their pockets picked.' Did you feel you were contributing to that?

'Fucking constantly - all the fucking time. You're torn by it. It's like that Karl Marx thing: "We make history but not in the conditions of our own choosing." So you make the best of what you're offered. I've been working for the past few years to get myself into a position where I can do what I want, so now I've got to give it a try. At the moment I'm writing stuff about Iraq and Iran and about the world's paranoia. But getting out of the celebrity side of show business is one of my top priorities.'

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