Lewd, licentious yet lovely

If anyone was offended by Jerry Spinger: The Opera, then they are over-sensitive. It did not, as the Christians claim, mock anybody’s religious beliefs. Yes, it featured Jesus in a nappy singing that he might be a little bit gay, and out of context that does sound terribly offensive. And yes, it did contain an awful lot of swearing. But it was clearly not mocking religion, it was mocking the absurdity of Jerry Springer, and similar TV shows, and mocking the elitism of opera.

It did this through hyperbole. What more ridiculous situation could there be than a TV argument between Jesus and the Devil, moderated by Jerry Springer? That isn’t insulting to religion, it’s insulting to the over-grand self-importance of American talk shows. A provacative talk show host cannot reunite heaven and hell any more than an eleison can be based on the name of a talk show host. Both are hilariously absurd – and anybody who doesn’t respect Christian teachings simply wouldn’t get the joke.

The whole thing is a bit excessive and extreme, but that’s the point. The church should be embracing cultural formats that poke fun at quick-fix TV solutions to life’s problems, not shunning them. Unless, of course, their apparent faith is so weak that they believe that their religion is one of those quick-fix solutions. In which case, they deserve mocking.

It was an excellent opera, both musically and ideologically, and I heartily congratulate the Beeb for being brave enough to go ahead with it.

The art of swearing

It would help me a lot in the struggle to retain my sanity if people would kindly wait until they have seen Jerry Springer: The Opera to comment on it. And as for the Christian complaints, doesn’t Christianity forbid prejudice?

The reason I chose this particular piece to link to was purely for the following quote:

The Sun – headlines yesterday included “I had sex with chatline girl – and her boyfriend” – doesn’t always spring to mind as custodian of the nation’s morals, though it does insert asterisks in swear word so readers are not shocked by full-frontal contact with missing vowels and consonants.

I’ll be watching tonight and, no doubt, commenting on it at some point.

And, as a side-note, if you’re wondering about The Guardian’s position on swearing after its criticism of The Sun:

We are more liberal than any other newspaper, using words such as cunt and fuck that most of our competitors would not use.

The editor’s guidelines are straightforward:

First, remember the reader, and respect demands that we should not casually use words that are likely to offend.

Second, use such words only when absolutely necessary to the facts of a piece, or to portray a character in an article; there is almost never a case in which we need to use a swearword outside direct quotes.

Third, the stronger the swearword, the harder we ought to think about using it.

Finally, never use asterisks, which are just a copout.

Courtesy of Reuters:

A police sniffer dog died of a suspected overdose while out hunting for drugs, British police said on Monday.

Todd, a 7-year-old Springer spaniel, had been looking for drugs in a field and car in Preston, northern England, when his handler noticed he was looking unwell.

He was taken to a vet and then rushed to an animal intensive care unit at Liverpool University, displaying symptoms of ingesting amphetamines, a Lancashire police spokeswoman said.

He died shortly afterwards.

The death was said to have devastated Todd’s handler, Police Constable Roger Moore, his wife and two young children.

“He (Todd) lived with them and they would all go for walks with him — he was their dog,” Sergeant Peter Crane of Preston’s dog unit told the Daily Mirror.

“He’s going to be very difficult to replace, but police work is dangerous and unfortunately Todd has become a casualty.”

Police said a post mortem on Todd was being carried out.

Oh, the irony.

Originally posted on The LBSC

Given my hatred for all forms of desecration of the English language, imagine my mirth at the following tale of woe…

The Territorial Army started a “Get Fitta” campaign recently, registering the domain name www.GetFitta.com. Nothing funny there.

The TA were very confused, then, when the majority of the hits were coming from Sweden. Why? Because “Fitta” is Swedish for…well…click here and find out. And while you’re there, just stare in awe at the fact that anybody actually wrote that page. You really can find anything on the internet. Apart from www.GetFitta.com which has now been taken down. Wonder why?

There was one domain name registration story this week that was even funnier.

Italy has its own fork lift truck charger battery manufacturer called Powergen. (Can you see where I’m going with this?) To distinguish themselves from the English Powergen electricity supplier, they tagged “Italia” onto their name. They now own the somewhat unfortunate domain www.powergenitalia.com

Well it amused me.

Just as a final thought (very Jerry Springer), the first Icelandic version of the old email Nigerian 419 scam has started circulating. It contains the text:

“I am not a Nigerian and this proposal has no liking as such. I therefore politely but seriously request that you do not treat this as one of these junks you may have heard about.”

That’s me convinced…

Originally posted on The LBSC