Just finished fourth draft of Cabinet, and given up proper coffee as I was getting palpitations. Hence:
Why does no-one want to do comedy in period costumes any more? Whenever anyone sends out a call for spec sketches for whatever ghastly fricking sketch show format is the rage this Tuesday, it's all 'contemporary settings' this and 'up to the minute' that.
Well stick contemporary up your bollocks, as a great Irish philosopher once said. Wearing olive green t-shirts and making jokes about ipods is already soooo ten minutes ago. I want people dressing up in silly costumes and arsing about with actual jokes, and talking in accents not their own. Like Big Train, that was ace. Jokes about the Boer War and Lord Palmerstone, that's what I want to hear.
Also, Jimmy Carr = twatfuckery of the worst order. It wasn't even a funny joke*. I don't like his suits either, he looks like someone who pimps jockeys. I think he and David Walliams share the same cold dead eyes, which they plucked from the cadaver of a shark which washed up on one of their country estates, using them to take turns scanning a great pile of various newspapers' media sections for jobs with the Daily Mail of the nineteen thirties.
* Unless the joke was about male gypsies having an astonishing sense of smell, in which case it was pleasingly surreal, and I apologise unreservedly.
Yes.. I think you're giving him too much credit. He was presumably trying to be clever, whereas in fact he is neither that nor funny.
ReplyDeleteIt's especially sad that the Gypsy Council spokeswoman was angry but 'not surprised'.
Do you own an olive green t-shirt?
I do not. I've got an olive green fleece though, which I'm wearing at the moment, thanks for asking, you saucy minx.
ReplyDeleteAll I'm saying is, you have been known to make jokes about iPods...
ReplyDeleteAmen to the post.
ReplyDeleteAlthough I deplore racist jokes, or even lazy stereotyping, I'm more puzzled by Jimmy Carr's remarks than anything. Gypsies have a lot of negative connotations attached to them (not all of them entirely unfounded, as you'll have to admit if you've ever lived next to them like wot I have!) but being smelly isn't one of them, as far as I know.
ReplyDeleteHave I missed a new Daily Mail campaign about their personal hygiene ("Gypsy Odour Cause House Price Fall")? Why can't we all live and let live *cue holding hands and swaying*
Who's Jimmy Carr?!? Is he on the telly?
ReplyDeleteI knew I was adopted when my 'brother' got me a Jimmy Carr Live DVD for Christmas last year. I've still got it in the shrinkwrap, actually - anyone want it?
ReplyDeleteI really, really want to make a joke that includes the phrase "fourth draught of Cabernet". But I won't.
ReplyDeleteI guess most of your readers must also read the Guardian*, and have it set up on their computers - as no-one esle has complained that the link given takes you to a sign-on page.
ReplyDeleteI have no idea who Jimmy Carr is, or what you were moaning about, but I'm sure I agree with you.
*I'm a Times man, myself.
Go James!
ReplyDelete(Ooh - swearing an' all...)
;-)
A Times-er here too. Think I did actually register to read a previous link, but can't remember my log in details and can't be arsed to find out. Jaaa-aames what did he say, for the lazy amongst us? Something about gypsies being smelly, presumably.
ReplyDeletetosser (mr carr, not you)
ReplyDeleteI just wanted to add a general sense of amen to the above comments.
ReplyDeleteThat man (Jimmy Carr) is not, and never has been, funny. He's just not. Really.
ReplyDeleteSorry - didn't occur to me a lot of people wouldn't be able to follow the link. Article reads:
ReplyDelete"The BBC has issued an unreserved apology for remarks by the comedian, Jimmy Carr, on Radio 4's Loose Ends which suggested all Gypsy women smelled. A spokeswoman for the Gypsy Council said yesterday that they were angered but not surprised by the remarks.
Carr, whose website describes him as "one of the most distinctive new stars on television, radio and now the big screen" said on the long-running Saturday morning show over Christmas: "The male gypsy moth can smell the female gyspy moth up to seven miles away - and that fact also works if you remove the word 'moth'."
The BBC apologised after an inquiry into the remarks. "This joke should never have been transmitted," said a spokesman. "We apologise unreservedly for any offence caused." There was puzzlement in the BBC as to how the material was transmitted as the show is not live and the offensive material could have easily been removed. Carr is a regular guest on Ned Sherrin's "weekly feast of comedy, live music and lively conversation".
Ann Bagehot, secretary of the Gypsy Council, said she was "disappointed and angry and upset but I am not surprised". She said that over 30 years in her post she had become used to such remarks. "If I had a thin skin, I would be bleeding but what I am curious about is this - what is Jimmy Carr's point? It's not as if it's funny, is it? Does he want people to spit at Gypsy women because they smell? Does he want people to look at Gypsy women and say 'pooh'? There are certain groups of people that everyone thinks they can make jokes about and you have to shrug your shoulders and move on."
Ms Bagehot said that the climate for Gypsies and Travellers had deteriorated recently because of constant attacks against them in the Sun and Daily Mail and therefore people might feel that they could say anything about them.
Carr, 33, who went to Cambridge University and used to work for Shell before a career change, has declined to apologise.
A spokesman for Hannah Chambers management, which represents him, said yesterday he had no comment about the remarks or whether he would retain them in his repertoire on his upcoming national tour.
Carr won the Loaded Lafta award for best stand-up act in 2004, was nominated for the Perrier award in 2002 and has appeared on a number of shows including Have I Got News For You and the Royal Variety Show.
He has hosted The Friday Night Project and 8 out of 10 Cats on Channel 4."
Anyway, I don't want to lead a hate campaign against Mister Carr, just to register my unease at the increasing amount of not-particularly-hilarious 'ironic racism' jokes that seem to be doing the rounds at the moment, particularly amongst comedians from a privileged background, which shouldn't make it worse, but does, for some reason. There's a 'playing to the gallery' feel to it, which I particularly dislike.
Ah I loved Blackadder.
ReplyDeleteWhich has nohing to do with Carr being a git but does have an abundance of fantastic costumes...
So you're giving up real coffee in favour of what? Decaf? The palpitations are pathetic on decaf. Stick with the real stuff and get the real palpitations.
ReplyDeletep.s. A mate saved me a gromit mug. I'm in germany and I have a gromit mug with a nose that changes colour, which cost me nothing, whilst people are scrambling to pay forty quid for them on ebay.
Cracking!
Great angry post! I agree about the dead pan eyes. There is something especially sinister about Mr Carr.
ReplyDeletetwatfuckery = officially the best word ever. I also love monkey.
ReplyDelete