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I was very sad to hear of the death of Lance Percival, one of the people at the forefront of the British satire boom of the 1960s and the acceptable face of the topical calypso (take note Mike Read), but also lots of fun in silly Carry On comedy films and stuff like Up Pompeii. But I was mainly freaked out because I was sure that I remembered him dying a few years ago. This wasn’t just a case of, I thought he was dead, what a surprise to find out he’s still alive, and oh no how doubly sad that he is now dead. I really thought I remembered the tributes on the news and feeling sad that he was dead. Had Lance Percival come back to life? Was he zombie? Or a Lazarus? Or a much funnier Jesus?
Have I jumped to an alternate universe? Is this another glitch in the Matrix? Other people told me they felt the same. Some said I was thinking of Willie Rushton, but I know my satirists. It was Percival. I am glad that Lance got another few years, but I think we have a new Paul Mccartney style conspiracy theory on our hands. Whoever is running this Truman show has made a rare error, that’s my theory. They forgot that the fictional character of Lance Percival was already dead and killed him again. If he dies again in a few years time then we can be sure. I’ve put it down on a blog now. There’s no way they can get to this.
I was also finding it hard to believe that they had managed to get a third installment out of the Taken franchise. How many times can Liam Neeson fall victim to some kind of kidnapping based plot? Surely he would have some shit hot security on board, just in case or just lock himself and his family up in his house. Or did he secretly really just like killing hundreds of bad guys in a 24 hour period so made it a bit easy for them to do their dirty work? I suggested that they were working on a fourth Taken film where Neeson has his urine sample stolen for a hospital and has to track it down so he can get his test results back. It’s called Taken: The Piss.
It’s the kind of terrible throwaway gag that I enjoy doing on Twitter, where I don’t need to be as comedically rigorous as I am on stage. Most people joined in with their own suggestions “Taken 4: A mug” probably being the most popular. Though typically of social media these days one person told me they thought this was poor timing given what was happening in Paris. I’ve really noticed this stretch to be offended cropping up more and more. You’d have to really shut down a lot of filters in your brain to think that these two things were in any way connected and have to want to be offended. It’s been a weird week for the right to offend and be offended. I had a couple of long Twitter discussions with people who are upset that Channel 4 is planning a comedy based around the Irish famine. There’s a protest gathering about the very idea, even though the programme does not yet exist and nobody knows what is in it. Some people of course think there are subjects that can’t be joked about and that by even thinking of making comedy out of a terrible situation means you’re not taking it seriously or are frivolous about it. But of course there’s every chance (and I’d be amazed if this isn’t the case) that the sitcom won’t be mocking famine victims, might raise awareness of the subject and make us think about how the poor are mistreated by the rich. It might not, it might be a load of stupid disrespectful jokes, in which case I’d probably complain about it too. But the point is we don’t know yet. You can’t protest against something that doesn’t exist, or at what you imagine something is going to be (as I found with most Christian protestors against Christ on a Bike). One man asked me if a sitcom about Auschwitz or pogroms would be acceptable and I said that of course it would, depending on how it was handled. The darkest subject matter can provide the biggest laughs as long as it is targetted in the right way. Humour is also the only sensible way to get through atrocities like that. But think of all the amazing comedies and satire we would have lost if people had protested about the very nature of the subject matter being a suitable setting for comedy.
And then on the other side of the coin we have the people thinking free speech means that we have to say and do everything that can be said and done. If I had been killed by a Christian protestor in Glasgow in 2010, would the BBC have shown my Jesus stigmata routine on the news (as that was what had upset them, even though it wasn’t in the show that they were protesting against)? No, they wouldn’t and nor should they. Context is everything. If I was stopped from doing that routine at all and the DVDs were burned, that's one thing. But I never intended it to be seen by everyone and nor would I want it to be.
We have to have the right to offend people and the right to say what we want, but we also have to consider when and where we use that right and whether what we’re doing is worthwhile.
Sometimes we need to be offended, though I am not sure we should be wasting that offence on jokes when there’s so much serious stuff to get offended by. People protest against a sitcom that doesn’t exist and that in all sensible likelihood will be sympathetic to what they believe in and don’t make a stand against the serious things that politicians say and do. That’s craziness.
We have to find a way that we can all live side by side with our stupid crazy ideas. We have to be allowed to say that it’s crazy that Muslims think drawing a cartoon of their God is worth killing someone over, but they might think it’s crazy that we cycle to the gym in order to cycle on a static bike (or whatever). But maybe there needs to be some limits put on how many times you’re allowed to be offended. We need to save that stuff up for when we really need it, or it becomes meaningless.
Again it’s a stupidly complex issue, full of contradictions.
Talking of cycling at the gym I had a very successful session of Pointless work out today. As I was on the exercise bike I could live tweet it too. I did an hour of cycling, burned up over 400 calories and got a Pointless answer (Tuvalu ironically enough - oh it’s pointless now isn’t it Osman, you prick). I will try to make these a semi regular occurrence if you want to join in. Let’s get this country mentally and physically fit. From now on you’re only allowed to tweet back if you’re actually exercising too.
