Monday 18 January 2010

Progressive Regression


Peppa Pig is to gain a seatbelt, Tom & Jerry has already been shorn of any reference to smoking, so Michael Deacon's revelations of revisionist language tampering are, I suppose, almost expected.

I interviewed John Sullivan, the creator of Only Fools, and he told me about the way he has to edit old episodes to cleanse them of politically incorrect dialogue. He cited an episode from the Eighties in which Del told a child to "pop down to the Paki shop". That line is no longer broadcast in repeats.

Deacon rightly points out other literary tomes which could come under the righteous censor's knife if PC chooses to move in that direction, much as Comrade Beeb has seemingly ceased showing It Ain't Half Hot Mum (a notable omission amongst other shows of the same era which are repeated ad infinitum). And if Love Thy Neighbour or Mixed Blessings are ever screened, I've never seen them despite the fact that the racists were always, but always, shown up as idiotic and laughable.

We are living in an odd lefty world, whereby all reflection of life in bygone times must, for the sake of our sensibilities, be cleansed to reflect current 'progressive' ideology.

It matters not that the process may detract from our understanding of historical mindsets, or that enjoyment of life itself might be lessened that little bit more. The trendy dogmatic will must prevail, so Del Boy has to be gagged.

Conversely, our schools rightly continue to impart the writings of an author who liberally sprinkles his works with the words fart, arse, piss, shit, bollocks and fuck, while polenta munching guardianistas, and reactionary Mail readers to be fair, wax lyrical at their dinner parties about young Octavia's grasp of The Canterbury Tales.

The word Paki, used in historical context, fills them with horror, but it's fine when Chaucer's Miller's Tale tells of "a thing al rough and long yherd", sometimes shortening that description to "queynte" ...

... or cunt, as we now call it.




9 comments:

Cate Munro said...

Dick what a fabulous post.

I referred to Mandy on Twitter the other day as (abbreviated) L.F-b of M-m in gest, and suffered the wrath of all the loony lefties on there, including the vile KerryMP

PC has gone thru the roof under this vile excuse for a government. Progressive ideology has overtaken good old fashioned British common-sense/humour as the 'acceptable norm'

The Righteous don't want us to recognise history - or enjoy life for that matter. They want totalitarian thought control and have gone some way to achieve it over the past 13 years . . .

subrosa said...

I saw you had a wee erm skirmish with Ms Kerry TT.

Great post though Dick. Can't we start an anti-Righteous party? No politician will pay lip service to this gross intrusion of our cultures and history.

Dick Puddlecote said...

This, I did not expect. I use a fair few flim-flarm words and the first two commenters are female? ;-)

Thank you, ladies.

Right, now have a harem (does two count?), I shall seek out this Twitter spat which I missed.

MU said...

Into the memory bin with it all!

Mark Wadsworth said...

DP, old episodes of The Sweeney are still unsanitised, AFAIAA. Some of the stuff they come out with seems quite outrageous nowadays.

Bill Sticker said...

So they'll never be screening 'Texas Tom' again? Bugger.

Anonymous said...

Perhaps a Righteous would like to explain the difference between Airstrip One, 1984 and UK, 2010.

Jay

banned said...

Seems the remake of Reach For The Sky has been put back because the producers can't agree to the demand by Douglas Baders estate that his dog keeps the name 'N*g*e*'.

Pingu in Portugal said...

I'm far from a literary expert, and am not well versed in the older English writing styles, I never could get my head around Shakespeare, but I read "queynte" as "quaint" and neither have I read the book. This is more of an enquiry as to how "a thing al rough and long yherd" ends up as cunt?

Time to play a rather poor devil's advocate, can this... actually I can't find a way to play the DA. If you gave these people a history book, they must surely cut all references to the holocaust and the Nazi's anti-semitic ways, thus leading to either a denial of the holocaust, or the omission of the Nazi's. The former is holocaust denial, and the latter would make the second world war very strange.