KIRSTY McCOLL CAN’T SAY FAGGOT ON THE RADIO… BUT EVERYONE ELSE CAN

FACT OF THE WEEK: Nobody loves Raymond

QUOTE OF THE WEEK: “You can’t go wrong if you smell like a celebrity.” – local waste of skin interviewed whilst actually buying Paris Hilton’s perfume


MAIN EVENT:

A Christmas tale from No One Really Likes Jazz….

Fairytale of New York is without question the best Christmas song ever recorded. Admittedly it’s not a field overly crowded with classics, but it’s still a good song purely for focussing on the true spirit of Christmas: Alcahol abuse, relationship break-ups, arrests and bells. It also features Kirsty McColl, who was - before she got run-over by a boat - the closest thing Britain’s ever had to a good country singer. Suffice to say, Choon!

Anyway, earlier this week Radio 1 decided that when playing Fairytale of New York and thereby slightly stemming the flow of Wizard induced Christmas suicides, they would beep out the word Faggot from the song’s second verse. Fair enough I suppose. I doubt Shane McGowan really meant any affront and it’s certainly no more offensive to gays than say The Kaiser Chiefs’ ‘Angry Mob’ is to anyone who happens not to be middle-class, but it could feasibly offend a portion of Radio 1’s 18 billion or so listeners, so no problem.

Conversation over. Or so you’d think. In actual fact this vaguely understandable decision gave the ‘political correctness gone mad’ brigade - who of course can always be relied upon for a sensible, measured response - a reason to go crazy.

One enormous twat interviewed in a shopping centre stated, "The time will come when everything is banned and we'll have to watch whatever we say." Yes, very witty, if the microphone hadn’t been snatched away he’d probably have added something about a ‘nanny state’ to delight us further but alas, he wandered off to buy Jeremy Clarkson’s latest masterwork and stock up on opinions for the new-year. Mr Twat was not alone however and soon the message boards were crammed with demented listeners abusing their work internet connection to demand action.

Instead of issuing a statement simply reading 'Shh!', the BBC - who seem to continually forget that they are a uniquely powerful organisation, to all intents and purposes above conversing with the mortals that tune in - folded, completely reversing their decision. Not only that, they went on about the whole thing endlessly, ensuring the offending word was uttered by pretty much every employee with a microphone, spectacularly undermining their original point - the six o-clock news alone contained more faggot references than a kindling convention.

So the big bad company listened to the common man, all the Hobbits rejoiced and all was well in the Shire. The end.

Except that there are still two wars going on, you can buy a gun for 30 quid on any city street and David Cameron is going to be Prime Minister, but never mind all that.

Merry Christmas you cheap lousy Faggots!