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Devils Advocate

Devils Advocate

Old Jan 15th 2004, 12:13 am
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Does anyone else ever read this? .... A weekly satirical look at something topical, printed on Wednesday in the Bristol Evening News.

Devil’s Advocate - January 14th 2004

This Column is no stranger to controversy. For whatever reason, much of what has been written here in the past has driven the local Guardianistas to mouthfrothing, lentil-spitting apoplexy.

In the past year alone, I've managed to upset the Irish, the Scots and the Welsh (yes, I know, it goes without saying), the Americans, the French, the Germans, the Italians, the massed ranks of travelling Pikeys, assorted towelheads, and the odd darkie.

Each time, the response is the same. "Burn the witch, " cry the amateur Thought Police, before storming off to the Press Complaints Commission, the Racial Equality Council and the local Constabulary in vain attempts to have me jailed, castrated, banned from setting foot in a newspaper office again and sentenced to the sort of attitude-correction envisaged by Anthony Burgess in A Clockwork Orange.

The result is usually the same.

After microscopic examination of the Race Relations Act, the Use Of Inflammatory Language Act 1753, the Data Protection Act and the local parking regulations, all the regulatory bodies conclude that there is no case to answer and, somewhat reluctantly, send the soap-dodgers packing.

And do you know why? It's because in this country, and for the moment at least, we still have something called Freedom of Speech. I am allowed to voice my opinions as long as they are honestly held and not sufficiently inflammatory to have grannies from Fishponds burning down the local asylum seekers' centre. And long may that basic right continue.

You might not agree with me. You might think me an offensive oaf who spouts rabble-rousing idiocy. If that is the case, you have every right to write to this newspaper and your letter, if the Letters Editor isn't drunk and hasn't used it to light his cheroot, will probably be published. Again, it's called Freedom of Speech (and the use of those capital letters is quite deliberate) .

I will happily admit that with that freedom comes responsibility. Nobody wants to see a caravan of variegated Pikeys going up in flames just hours after you've called them baby-stealing, peg-selling, law-breaking, heather-selling scum. Well, not unless you're from a bonfire society in Sussex, anyway. And even if it's true.

We should treasure this ability to say what we think. And we should fight to protect it, because between Mr Blah's NuLabour stormtroopers, the whining public sector apparatchiks and the self-serving platitudes of the gutless bureaucrats of Brussels, it is under constant threat.

Which brings us inevitably to Robert Kilroy-Silk and the BBC, the British Broadcasting Corporation, which each and every one of us (apart from the soap-dodging, tax-dodging, licence-dodging, responsibility-dodging Lefties) funds to the tune of £100-plus a year.

Mr Kilroy-Silk is a perma-tanned buffoon who inhabits the twilight zone of daytime television, goading a collection of sub-Jerry Springer mullet-wearers for the entertainment of an audience of lazy housewives who should be doing the washing instead of sitting on their fat arses in front of the television, dipping Hobnobs into endless cups of tea. It's the 21st century version of Bedlam.

He arrived, unbidden, in the spotlight last week after writing, rather carelessly, about the contribution of the Arab States to modern civilisation. He was less than complimentary, at which point the BBC suspended him and cancelled his programme - a remarkable reaction to a man who punches with the weight of a powder puff.

Now I can quite understand that the Powers That Be at the Beeb are suffering from a severe case of squeaky bottom at the moment. Their flawed coverage of the Hutton affair has accidentally put Mr Blah on the spot to the extent that he might well have to resign for telling porkies. This is not a good thing when your charter, your right to operate as a state-funded monopoly, is up for renewal.

So that might explain their astonishing and cowardly reaction to Kilroy-Silk's column in the pitiful Sunday Express last week. Let's consider the facts.

The column in question originally appeared in April of last year. Despite being fundamentally flawed in its argument (for starters, the Arabs gave us reading, writing, arithmetic, geometry, medicine, astronomy, heroin and hashish, sand, the tent, Lawrence of Arabia, suicide bombing, the word "assassin", the stoning to death of adulterous women, black as a fashion statement, Omar Sharif, Turkish delight, dates, shoes with curly toes, sheep's eyes and flying carpets), it failed to attract significant complaints.

This may well be because Sunday Express readers are unlikely to forgo their roast beef and Yorkshire pudding to pop out and stone the Saudi Embassy, or because no self-respecting Leftie would ever admit to reading the rag, but no matter.

Then, for whatever reason (although anyone who's ever worked for a newspaper would recognise classic ineptitude), the column reappeared last week, with minor changes. This time around, the shit hit the fan. Someone tipped off the Commission for Racial Equality, who in turn called in the police and the media Mullahs, and suddenly we have a major diplomatic situation on our hands.

If we were talking John Humphreys or Jeremy Paxman, rather than Kilroy-Silk, it would be easier to understand the Beeb's unease. But this man is not a major political agenda-setter. He's a trifle, a flummery, a mere feather in the gale of serious debate. But even so, he has a right to say what he wants, where he wants to say it.

I seem to recall that Cherie Booth, the Zippy-gobbed, crazy-eyed, loony-Liberal wife of our Prime Minister, recently upsetting the Saudi ambassador by pointing out to him that women are treated as second-class citizens in the Arab States. Nobody rushed forward to condemn her, yet when a man who spends his working life discussing erectile dysfunction, the slack morals of single mothers and Men Who Dress As Women dares to put his head above the parapet, the world goes mad.

And what about that one-eyed scrote, Abu Hamza al-Masri, who spends a day a week spouting anti-Western rhetoric in the middle of London while the Metropolitan Police kindly provide him with protection from passing, apoplectic taxi-drivers?

I'll tell you where Kilroy-Silk went wrong. Firstly, he forgot to use the word "some", as in "some Arab states". It's the catch-all excuse all of us racist columnists use when confronted with the reality of our rhetoric.

And secondly, he attacked the anti-Semitic, oil-bearing rulers of one of the most cruel and corrupt societies on Earth, instead of opting for the softer target of white, middle-class, middle-aged males, who must surely represent the most vilified and vulnerable sectors of society.

Well, Anne Robinson got away with it, and she only mentioned the Welsh.
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Old Jan 15th 2004, 12:49 am
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His take on Comic Releif is even better

"I dread Comic Relief night. It's the televisual equivalent of a car crash on the motorway. You don't want to watch, but you know you just have to.

Those painful celebrity appearances where unfunny actors try to get a laugh from a script hastily scribbled on the back of a fag packet; the embarrassing hordes of bank managers from Basingstoke dressed as Teletubbies with Cynthia from Accounts holding a big cardboard cheque for £153.72; Lenny Henry's fat, once-famous wife kissing anything in trousers; and the sickening, saccharin tales of poverty and woe from the streets of Glasgow and the wastelands of Ethiopia, all to a soundtrack of this week's Top Twenty weepy.

It's enough to make you puke.

(And let's not get started on the tight-wads who bring last year's novelty red nose out of the drawer where they also keep a stock of Remembrance Day poppies.)

The only saving grace of this annual conscience-nudger was that every penny of the money raised (and it was a cool £60 million this year) actually made it through to worthy causes – a third of them in this country and two-thirds in Africa.

Projects like helping street children in Tanzania or helping provide shelter for victims of domestic violence in Penzance.

What I didn't expect, and what I guess you didn't expect, was that some of the money would go towards funding the salary of a "development officer" at the Manchester Lesbian Community Project.

Yep, that's right. And to the tune of £60,000 over three years. And that's only part of a package of aid to UK gay groups totalling almost £1 million since 2001.

I don't remember anyone mentioning this back in March when they were pleading for our money. I don't remember a touching film clip of cheery little lesbians gambolling around Lenny Henry's feet, or pictures of Christian Aid volunteers digging them a new well.

And what does a lesbian development officer do, anyway? Help them choose their Doc Martens? Give advice on what size pudding basin to wear to the barbers? Train them in moustache-trimming techniques? Teach them to play tiddlywinks?

I don't know about you, but I can't remember ever seeing a poor, starving lesbian begging on a street corner. Most of them seem to be middle-class, public sector employees on a good whack.

They can afford to buy The Guardian and they can afford to eat organic food. So why should our charitable donations be spent on them, rather than on hungry children?

It stinks. Remember that the next time these licensed muggers take over your television.


Poor bastard, there cant be much else to do in Bristol but moan.
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