h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Ive seen that one, its on a video put out by the bbc as the best of pete and dud. Moore was explaining how in the middle ages these bits of gauze were just floating around and it was quite common.
as i recall it also had the line "My feet are killing me, would you like a sandwich" in it. I laughed for days, and so did cook. Or at least for a few seconds until he pulled himself together.

If the Pistols said it, which I don't deny, then that was an interview on live TV, so wasn't the broadcaster deliberately choosing to air the word.

I do not believe that it would have been the 1990s before the c-word was deliberately aired on TV. Surely "Taxi Driver" would have been screened before then?

In 1976, when it was filmed, the word was so taboo that Martin Scorcese couldn't find an actor willing to say it on celluloid, and so played the part of "Homicidal passenger in Travis's cab" himself.

Now that's *interesting*. Sometimes I wish that we hadn't got this one through the edtorial process, so that it was still possible to make changes to it.

Thanks for reading, and many thanks for posting.

Ben

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I wonder what that was?

I hate it when the BBC protects me from my own sense of outrage - it gets so little exercise that it's good for it to get an airing every now and again.

Ben

Ben, I was the guy who Linda'd it...

Basically, it seemed to be a 12-year-old trying to see how many swear words they could get into a sentence while insulting whoever happened to be reading at the time. No great loss.

But did he do it with style, imagination and flair?

It's good to see you around me ole mucker!

Did you catch Feedback on R4 yesterday? Some interesting stuff about swearing on Radio. They even wheeled out a talking head from Editorial Policy.

The three key things I remember were the fact that most of the referrals to Ed Pol come from BBC7, because programmes made way-back-when include racism (and presumably sexism) to an extent which is simply not ok these days. Likewise younger people are more sensitive to racist, sexist and disablist language, but swear like 'king troopers.

The second thing which was interesting was that the F-word, the C-word and the MF-word are mandatory referrals to Ed Pol.

And the third thing was more of a comment that the radio-versions of songs these days can lull parents into a false sense of security because the CD versions are much more explicit.

Interesting stuff, given our experiences here.

B

'Fraid I missed "Feedback", and the original broadcast of it too. I'll have to LA.

Swearing really doesn't bother me in the slightest, I'm uncomfortable around "bad" sexism (but don't see a problem with holding a door open, for example) and the only thing that I don't like is racial or religous bigotry. The exact opposite of how the average American is portrayed in the media at the moment, in fact.

I just ordered up 11 DVDs of "Charlie Chan" movies, though - you know, the ones that used to be on BBC2 every weekend until someone pointed out to Ed Pol back in the 1990s that they were "politically incorrect"... There's something like 43 movies in total, and I'm *really* looking forward to them.

43 movies!

*blinks*

Yep. I'm with you on the bad sexism / good sexism, and the bigotry thing. It's all about respect, and it seems that it is no longer considered disrespectful to swear in front of women. I find it rather sweet when people apologise to me for using bad language, actually. An engaging form of 'good' sexism.

Ben