I think it’s time we started ignoring people who pretend to take offense and any and everything they can, just to make a noise.
Like the MP that told a joke. Factually accurate, you may not like it, but lots of people don’t like a lot of stuff. No need to take offense...
Cllr Roger Walkden, whose hometown of Dover, Kent has been at the centre of immigration controversy, was reported to Tory leader David Cameron’s office and the local government watchdog over his gag.
Guest house owner Cllr Walkden could be reprimanded or stripped of his seat on Dover District Council over the funny – in which an immigrant is handed a free eight-bedroom house by a fairy after arriving in England.
In the punchline the new foreigner’s house and other new-found gains are stripped away after he asks to become native, with the fairy explaining “Now that you are English, you’re entitled to f*** all.”
The Tory Party immediately distanced itself from the joke – condemned by the town’s MP as offensive.
Then there’s the play about immigration
Campaigners have already disrupted one performance of Richard Bean’s play, England People Very Nice, by mounting the first onstage demonstration in the National Theatre’s 32-year history.
However, they are now planning to picket audiences arriving at the theatre and Travelex, one of the National’s main sponsors.
Last Friday, two protesters clambered on to the stage at the National’s Olivier Theatre and condemned Bean as racist.
Then we have a few people in a private conversation, taking offense that someone referred to a tennis player as having hair similar to the Robinsons Jam trademark
CAROL Thatcher emerged last night as an unlikely rallying point for freedom of speech, after the former prime minister’s daughter was axed by the BBC for referring to a tennis player as a “golliwog”.
Then there’s the story of Al Jonson. Al Jonson blacked up. To have a play any other way would be historical revisionism. Oh dear…
It was one of the iconic moments of the 20th century – Al Jolson singing “My Mammy” in the first talking picture, The Jazz Singer. But in a new theatrical production based on the life of the man famous for “blacking up”, the actor who plays Jolson will perform the song without minstrel make-up, to avoid offending audiences.
The decision not to include a full blackface scene in Jolson & Co – the Musical at the King’s Theatre in Edinburgh next month is likely to invoke allegations of over-the-top political correctness.
Then there’s the guy at Samizdata who blogged in support of Gail Trimble.
Except he made the mistake of finishing his support of her intellect with
And then again, I will openly confess to having a weakness for brunettes with brains and a cultivated voice. I see the young lady has a few male admirers on the web. Good for her.
Nothing wrong with that, you’d think. Oh dear….someone’s pretending to take offense
Good for her not that she is trouncing all challengers, not that she does not feel obligated to hide her pride at achievement as so many would want we uppity women to do [...] but that a few men online – you included – find her hot. Because at the end of all the bothersome question-answering, is that not the ultimate success?
She sounds a bit nuts, to be honest. But again, an adult who can make her own folly.
But what really prompted me to write all this was this blog. The story (if you can’t bring yourself to wade through a mound of socialist nonsense) is that this guy’ s son brings home a 12 year old literacy assisting book (the book is 12 years old, I mean). The story is:
Kids play in tree in bloke’s garden, tree has TPO (tree preservation order), then house gets sold. Woman moves in. Either she or her solicitor didn’t do their homework and fail to notice the TPO (hardly tricky – it’ll be one of the basic things the solicitor is looking for), woman tries to chop tree down. TPO gets enforced, tree lives on.
Pretty simple, huh? As well as new words, it teaches children about basic laws – nothing really new, political or controversial there. And I strongly believe that children should be given the tools to reason, decide and think about rights, responsibilites etc. And WHEN they reach 16 they can go and break a law if that’s what they want to do, and if they don’t like that law, at 18 they can vote. Or move country.
Let’s recap: This is a literacy aid using a fictional story about a tree with a legal device in place before the new owner purchases the property. That’s the whole effing point of the story! Sadly, it seems literacy isn’t a strong point with our blogger’s readers. Instead, they want to encourage destruction of property, both personal and protected.
For example
