So Offensive, It Merited Swift Action...

But not so swift it didn't come nearly a half-year after the offense:

Jamie Borthwick has been suspended by the BBC after he used a slur aimed at disabled people on the set of Strictly. A video obtained by The Sun showed the EastEnders actor using the term 'm********s' to describe residents of Blackpool where the show was being filmed at the time.

The term was 'mongoloids' and the time - last November.

The BBC told The Sun on Sunday: 'This language is entirely unacceptable and in no way reflects the values or standards we hold and expect at the BBC. We have robust processes in place for this.'

Just not speedy ones, eh?

Can I Desecrate Graves Too?

A man is exasperated after repeatedly being told he would have to pay hundreds of pounds to see a “deeply offensive” racial term removed from two gravestones.

Because the world should immediately cave in and do it for free..?

Last week, St Margaret’s Church in Rottingdean covered up the headstones to two white music hall singers who performed in blackface. It has now promised to put the memorials – both inscribed with the word “c**n” – into storage.

But it has since emerged that a man had been battling to have the offensive language erased since last April.

Joseph Letang from Telscombe Cliffs, who is of Caribbean heritage, was upset by the wording. He wrote emails to church authorities and took his complaint to the highest levels of the Church of England.

He was repeatedly told the Church could not consider changing the wording unless he paid a £296.20 fee to launch a petition in a church court.

Personally, I'd have preferred the church to say 'No, not at any price. This is someone's gravestone, and the only people who can change it are the descendants'.

But of course, they didn't. Because they too are cowards, these days.

He is astounded by the length of time it took the church to act, and that as someone hurt by the language, he should have to pay for its removal.

How was he 'hurt by the language'? Could he see these gravestones from his window? Did he have to walk past them every day?

Reader, of course not:

He heard about the inscriptions from his 24-year-old daughter, who saw the graves on a walk in the churchyard.

He didn't even see them himself....

Mr Letang said he did not intend for the headstones to be taken away.

He said replacement stones without the offensive words should be put up to remember the dead and the originals, or photos of them, should be given to a museum.

When are we going to stop abasing ourselves to this 'offence culture'? There's no end to it. And the backlash is already starting.

"Won't Somebody Think Of The Children!" Part 78056

Ms Bardsley-Smith said: "I was amused at first but then I realised I found it annoying.

"It's not something you want to see at eye level when you are out shopping.

"There is a place and a time to be selling or buying things like that."

Ooh!

Ms Bardsley-Smith said: "There are a lot of families in the area. I wouldn't want my child to ask what it is.

"Thankfully I was on my own when I was out shopping. I would say it's insensitive.

"If they are going to sell things like that, they should be at the back of the store."

Knives? High in salt & sugar sweets?

Dozens of 'Bonkin' Bunny' vibrators were reportedly stacked between slinkies, Finding Nemo bath towels and sweetie-themed candles at the store in Tolworth, south London.

Oooh, matron!

"Nice Progressive Society You Got Here...Be A Shame If Anything Happened To It."

A Birmingham primary school that taught pupils about LGBT rights as part of a programme to challenge homophobia has suspended the lessons indefinitely until a resolution is reached with protesting parents.

Wait, didn't they say they'd stand firm?

Previously Parkfield said they would continue as normal after the Easter holidays.

What changed?

Mohammed Aslam, a spokesperson, said: “We welcome these developments and reiterate that the school needs to work with parents in a spirit of partnership and cooperation and not against them in educating their children.”

Isn't it precisely this sort of craven capitulation in the face of religious dogmatism and refusal to integrate that drives the so-called 'right wing backlash' against Islam?

So why do they do it?

When Did They Become The Bad Taste Police?

This was Cardiff’s first game since it was confirmed that their £15million signing had died in a plane crash and tributes were paid to the player following the tragedy.

Yet sickening footage emerged afterwards showing two men in the stands at St Mary’s, stretching their arms out wide and pretending to be planes towards the away end.

Crass and stupid? Yes. Poor taste? Undoubtedly.

A matter for police? You'd think not. But it's 2019.

Both fans had their details taken by Hampshire Police and will face three-year banning orders from the South Coast club.

I wish I could say I was surprised, but given their general woeful performance, I'm not.

This Month's Winner Of The Abasement Olympics

Adrian Chapman, one of Wishbone Brewery’s founders, said: “We brewed this beer in Keighley. Among its ingredients are coriander and lime and it’s a light, refreshing, fruity edged beer. We were tossing around ideas for a name, with one idea that was turned down being ‘Indian Summer’.

“The name we came up with in the end was ‘Ganesh’ and it was something we did in all innocence.

“The most important thing for us is how the beer tastes, with the name being secondary.

“The only criteria we have for a name is that it isn’t the same as what some other brewery has already used for their beer.

“We’re completely open to changing the name of the beer, as it was never our intention to offend anybody, though as this was a beer we’d made a couple of months ago for this particular festival there’s an 80 per cent chance we won’t be making it again anyway.

“We’d never knowingly pick a name that could hurt anyone. For example, we’re not the kind of brewery that would put a picture of a busty blonde women on a pump clip along with a lewd name. That’s just not us.”

Good grief! Was the brewery besieged by Hindus with flaming torches and pitchforks?

Who complained?

...Rajan Zed, the Nevada-based president of Universal Society of Hinduism.

*blinks*

"We're The Bad Taste Police, Son. Get Yer Trousers On, Yer Nicked!"

The country is gone. Finito. Orwell was an amateur. He couldn't have dreamed of the sort of hell humans were capable of making for themselves, when we decide the rule of law means nothing, and there no longer remains any adults in charge to check the mob...

A Scotland Yard spokesman said it was 'too early' to state what type of offences could have been committed.

Translation: "We'll have to think of something, because now there's a Twittermob!"

Meanwhile....

Still, who cares about gang murders, knife crime and muggings when burning someone in effigy has been decided to be the cause celebre, the crime du jour, the...

Wait!

*shrugs* I guess it's OK sometimes.

“The Truth? You Can’t Handle The Truth!”

Lady Gaga has apologised after she described the death of model Rick Genest, AKA Zombie Boy, as a suicide before the cause of death has been established.

So, she just plucked it out of thin air?

Montreal police initially told the media they were treating his death as a suicide, but his manager Karim Leduc told USA Today he believed it was an accident, saying: “He could have just lost balance.”

Ah. No, of course not.

So why is she apologising?

The Offence-Takers Get Ambitious....

A traffic accident, a news report, and....CUE OUTRAGE!

This is what pandering to the lowest-common denominator on other matters gets you - a demand that newspapers should cease reporting news.

With the modern, thoroughly warped version of 'respect' (meaning craven capitulation for fear of injury) thrown in for good measure.

Peak Absurdity Has Now Been Reached!

The new Peter Rabbit film is facing a boycott over a scene in which a gang of bunnies attack a man with blackberries...

Eh..?

...knowing he is allergic to them.

Oh, for the love of...! I can guess who is demanding a boycott! And I'm not wrong:

Several groups representing allergy sufferers have condemned the scene, prompting the hashtag #boycottpeterrabbit on social media.

Australian group Global Anaphylaxis Awareness and Inclusivity (Globalaai) has created a petition asking distributor Sony Pictures to apologise, saying the film “mocks the seriousness of allergic disease and is heartbreakingly disrespectful to the families of those that have lost loved ones to anaphylaxis”.

I'd like to think Sony Pictures will tell them to sod off. But we know they won't.

The American group Kids with Food Allergies Foundation said in a Facebook post warning parents about the film that “food allergy ‘jokes’ are harmful to our community”.

You aren't 'a community', you're just the spokegroup for people with a disorder!

Wouldn't your time be better spent looking for a cure, instead of something to be outraged about?

So Just What Are Your 'Institutional Values', Then?

Bosses at Strathclyde University were forced to send a memo to the 400 students and 250 staff asking them to stop with their 'inappropriate' toilet habits.

 Were people taking their mobiles into the loo? God, I hate that and...

Oh.

The memo, posted on Thursday, was sent by the operations management team of the University's Technology and Innovation Centre.It read: 'Given the incidence of people pooing in bins, showers and the likes, can I please remind all TIC occupants that the toilets have been provided for that specific purpose.

'All bodily fluids, solids and toilet paper must be disposed of down the toilet.

'While I appreciate that the TIC population is multi-cultural and different countries have different practices, here in the UK the accepted practice is to use only the WC.'

Naturally, the university let out a screech of alarm at the thought that the sort of people who can't use a First World toilet properly might feel singled out, and came down like a ton of bricks on the poor sod fed up of scrubbing human excrement off the shower tiles.

The university apologised for offence caused by suggesting that ‘multicultural’ practices may be behind the poo problem. Strathclyde University spokeswoman said: ‘We’ve apologised for any offence caused to colleagues.

‘The email contained sentiments completely contrary to our institutional values and should not have been sent. It was recalled as soon as it came to our attention and we swiftly issued an apology to staff.’

That's a great advert for Strathclyde University, isn't it? "Come and be educated here, where if you want to shit on the floor, you can!!"

Don't Mention The War Truth!

Zac Goldsmith’s mayoral campaign team is investigating a claim that one of their canvassers made an Islamophobic remark about the Labour candidate, Sadiq Khan.

Gosh! What did he say?

That Muslims are behind most of the wars in the world today? That their system of government is vile and misogynistic? That they increase tensions in communities with their incessant demands for capitulation to their (alien) culture?

The unidentified man was said to have been distributing leaflets for the Conservative candidate when he allegedly referred to Khan as “the Muslim” in a doorstep exchange with Perry Pontac, of Streatham, south London.

Ummm, so....isn't he a Muslim, then?

Are we supposed to not notice?!?

Pontac told the Guardian that the exchange occurred at lunchtime on 22 December. He said that as he returned home from shopping, he saw a white, middle-aged man standing in the front garden who indicated he was distributing leaflets.

Pontac said he opened the door and picked up the “Back Zac” flyers before offering to hand them back to the canvasser. “I told him: ‘You can have these back because I’m not voting for him, I’m voting for the MP for Tooting [Khan],’” he said.

He claimed the man replied in a disdainful tone: “You’re voting for the Muslim?”

So, it was his tone he objected to? Did he really expect any other response, when he mounted his high horse, strapped on his buckler of Righteousness and sallied forth?

Pontac, who was born in the US but is now a naturalised UK citizen having lived in Britain for 45 years, said he had never met Khan and lived just outside of his constituency.

He said he was a Labour voter and was once a party member but dropped out when Tony Blair took the UK into the Iraq war.

As a writer, he said, he was careful with words and was sure that he did not mishear the canvasser. “I am very careful about what I say because I don’t want any holes to be picked in what I say ,” he said.

No, I bet. I hope getting your name in the Guardian for this provides you with the warm glow of (self)satisfaction you're clearly searching desperately for, Mr Pontac.

As Panto Season Is Fast Approaching, I Feel Compelled...

...to say 'Oh, yes, it is..!':

‘The Student Union isn’t in the business of protecting people from ideas they don’t like.’

*sighs* Remember when going to university meant something?

Mind you, I can also remember when police did actual policing, rather than dance to the tune of the Legion of Perpetual Offence, for whom they always seem to go the extra distance:

Officers from Thames Valley Police approached the magazine stand while it was unattended and took all 150 copies ‘to assess whether the content was obscene’.

And when they'd determined that they weren't (you needed them all to do that? Have you never heard of sampling?) were they all returned?

H/T: @liontornado via Twitter

Asking For Trouble…

Year 9 and 10 pupils at Beauchamps High School, Wickford, were set the exercise as part of studies connected with JB Priestley’s play, An Inspector Calls.

The drama, set in 1912, involves the suicide of a young woman, Eva Smith, and the factors which led her to take her life. For their homework, 13 and 14-year-old GCSE pupils were asked to imagine Eva’s final journal entry ….

Oh, oh…!

…a request which prompted an angry response from parents and relatives of pupils. The older sister of one girl wrote: “My sister is reading An Inspector Calls at school and for her homework she has to write a suicide note from the girl in it.

“I’m fine with the fact that, yes, the girl writes it, but why are teachers thinking it's acceptable to get 13-year-olds to write them as if they were the girl?

“Personally, I think this is so wrong and feel really uncomfortable knowing they think this is normal.”

But (so far, anyway) the head hasn’t yet been forced into an apology.

However, headteacher Bob Hodges said: “An Inspector Calls is a text which has been set by the exam board, just like Romeo and Juliet and many other pieces of literature.

“With regard to the homework that was set, it was to write Eva’s last journal entry, explaining her thoughts and feelings.

“It is part of the syllabus, looking at the themes of responsibility and the role of every character in the play.

“I am sure every school in the country will be studying something like An Inspector Calls, and this is part of the theme of the text.”

Mr Hodges insisted he had no concerns for any pupils involved who might have had personal connections to suicide.

I await the inevitable FarceBook campaign to remove him…

They Look After Their Own, Don’t They…?

The officer - posting on his personal Facebook page - said he was annoyed about waiting for a train then callously joked that a woman playing the piano at Brighton Station would "be picking her teeth up off the live line with broken fingers".

It’s his own personal page, so does it matter?

The revelation is a further social media embarrassment to Sussex Police as it comes the week after two other Sussex Police officers were found to have caused "inexplicable and unnecessary distress" by posting a selfie of themselves at the scene of the Shoreham air crash with an offensive hashtag

Following a formal investigation the chief constable of Sussex Police concluded those two officers should be dismissed.

Ah. Yes indeed, good point. Though the selfies weren’t even posted on public sites, so this chap’s punishment should be much harsher, right?

Oh…

PC Bridger - who has worked as an equalities officer and on the force's LGBT liaison unit and safeguarding vulnerable people - has been spoken to by his managers about the incident and told to apologise.

However, the telling off is not considered an official disciplinary action for misconduct.

Well, well, well....

A spokesman for Sussex Police confirmed the force received a formal complaint about the post but added: "It was a personal account and the officer was not posting under his own name or identifying himself as a police officer, but the matter was brought to the attention of the force. "

Which rather begs the question....how did the complainant know he was a police officer then?

The Tyranny Of The Perpetually Offended…

A café owner in the town where 5-year-old April Jones was abducted and murdered has defended putting up a sign featuring a joke about kidnapping.

Just savour those words. You have to defend humour, now.

The sign read: “The more you weigh, the harder you are to kidnap! Stay safe. Eat cake!!”

And a local resident, one Angharad Penrhyn, tweeted a photo ‘questioning it’. As you do, these days.

Penrhyn said she was apparently told she was being “hypersensitive” about an incident which happened “years ago”, when she complained about the sign.

Good! If a few more of these whinging ‘concerned types’ were met with a robust ‘Sod off, princess!’ the world would be a better place…

Responding to the complaint, the café owner claimed in an interview with the BBC that April Jones’ family had visited the café but “have not said anything” .

And even if they had, why should that oblige the café owner to remove it. They’ve already lobbied to have a perfectly good cottage knocked down, FFS!

The Independent has attempted to contact Chimes café for a comment.

Why? Why not contact Angharad Penrhyn instead, and ask her how she manages to get through a day without hyperventilating?

Save Us, Advertising Standards Authority, You’re Our Only Hope!

An advertisement for a fantasy football Sun newspaper competition which offered a date with a Page 3 girl as a prize has been banned and branded “sexist and demeaning”.

By real people, or by the sort of rabid harridans we can expect to marshal their forces into battle over this sort of thing?

Complaints, many submitted via campaigning platform SumOfUs.org, said that the offer of a date was sexist, demeaning, offensive and objectified women.

Ah. That says it all, doesn’t it?

A spokesman for the Sun said the paper was deeply disappointed at the ban, adding that numerous companies run promotions using the competition mechanic of winning a special date.

“We believe that the email and prize was an obviously lighthearted marketing exercise,” he added.

“We note that there have been countless campaigns of a broadly similar, light-hearted nature run by other companies – including those involving a ‘win a date with’ scenario – which have not been ruled ‘socially inappropriate’ by the ASA. We will abide by the judgment, but wish to register our deep disappointment at this decision.”

Perhaps not abiding by it might change things quicker?

News UK, publisher of the Sun, had argued in its submission to the ASA defending the promotion that it was “appropriate” for the target audience – 93% of email recipients were male – and that it would not offend them.

It doesn’t seem to matter these days whether your target audience is offended – you have to avoid ‘offending’ the sort of people who make it their life’s work to find things to be offended about.

And how can anyone possibly do that?

The Tyranny Of The Minority…

An online petition garnering just 65 signatures was enough to sway the administration of the UK’s most famous music festival, helping to convince Emily Eavis that the ceremonial garb should not be treated as meaningless fancy dress.

The Glastonbury website has since listed “Indian headdresses” , alongside cigarettes, candle flares and flags as items not to be sold in its traders section “without prior authorisation or discussion with the markets’ management”.

Yes, it’s the continuing crusade about the use of Indian headdresses.

And just 65 people are enough to rule their sale ‘unacceptable’. Remember when Glastonbury was counter-culture, do as you please, freedom of expression, love alternative cultures & all that hippy garbage?

Storm In A Pint Glass!

The Jolly Brewer displayed a blackboard which said: “Men no shirt, no service. Women no shirt, free beer.”

A little feeble, but it raised a smile. Not, of course, with everyone…

The landlord and landlady at the pub on Ditchling Road, Brighton, say although the sign was purely intended to make customers chuckle, they have been forced to take it down after complaints the wording was “offensive.”

‘Forced’..? It doesn’t say by whom, or even who would have the power to do so.

But then, I guess maybe there really is no such thing as bad publicity?

Amy Phipps, 29, of Preston Circus, said she witnessed 40-year-old men laughing and jeering at the wording when she saw the sign.

She said: “It’s just offensive and derogatory. There are schools near here, it worries me young girls and children could see it and think it’s acceptable to objectify women. Sadly these comments are common but it’s shocking when it’s right in front of you.”

*rolls eyes*

Gary Hills, partner to landlady Nicky Hills, said the complaints were from “very sad people” and claimed the phrase was a well-known joke featured on a website which suggests funny anecdotes for pub signs.

He said: “We put a new one out each week to make people laugh. The landlady picked it, so she doesn’t mind. We’ve taken it down now but we just can’t believe this has happened. It was just a joke and everyone we have spoken to thought it was funny. We saw people take pictures, smiling as they walked past.”

Not everyone, clearly.

Angela Upton said: “It’s a joke just for men who are misogynistic and are unlikely to treat women with the respect they deserve.”

I always thought respect should be earned…

A 23-year-old male staff member at Corner News And Booze, on Upper Hollingdean Road, said: “It’s not offensive. There are more important things to worry about.”

And a 58-year-old resident of nearby Nettledon and Dudeney flats, said: “It’s a joke. There are other things that go on in our area which are more offensive.”

Indeed so. But I suspect the likes of Angela and Amy would really rather not challenge those, for fear of the consequences…

"My Slogans Belong To ME!"

“I think it was the fact that they were chanting feminist slogans, but in this case it was drunken men staggering and chanting in a jostling way.

It was taking slogans out of their context and presenting them in a way that was offensive.”

So claims an unnamed 22-year-old female Oxford student who filmed the incident on her mobile phone. And now the police are involved, apparently:

Thames Valley Police issued a statement which said: “We received a call on Sunday which was a report of a group of men using offensive language in Cornmarket Street, Oxford, on Saturday evening at approximately 7.30pm.

Our officers are in the early stages of making enquiries.”

The 'offensive language' seems to be...well, not really that offensive, except to that small subset of human who appears to have lost all sense of proportion:

Some members of the group, who are out of shot and not identifiable in the video, can be heard chanting “rape, rape, rape”, “she’s too young” and “15 years”.

And this merits police action? Seriously?