I am amused to see that Geoffrey Boycott is in a spot of hot water for exclaiming 'fucking tosser' on Test Match Special. Note for American readers: Geoffrey Boycott is an old Yorkshire and England cricketer. He is a strange man but was an all time great and is now a very knowledgeable commentator on the game. Test Match Special is the BBC national radio live cricket commentary programme. Boycott assumed he wasn't on air when he said the rude words. Oh yes he was! Cue much predictable outrage.
Mike Selvey has a sensible article in the Guardian today bringing an element of commonsense to the synthetic outrage that has blown up over the Boycottian rude word fest. He tells the story of Allan Lamb (another old England cricketer - pic above in typical pose). He was invited once to do a guest appearance on Test Match Special. There was a questionable umpiring decision.
'Fuck me!' exclaimed Lamb.
A note was passed to him.
'You can't say fuck on air' said the note.
'Shit!' said Lamb. 'Did I say that?'
This was apparently the end of our man's glorious career in the broadcast media, sadly nipped in the bud. We haven't had any Dead for a while so here they are with Not Fade Away
And as a bonus here are the Stones from 1964 with the same...
6 comments:
I'm sorry, but WTF??? I say grow the hell up everybody!! We all make mistakes. I think it would be amusing as hell to hear a real from the gut comment like that on air... although, the same thing happen to Soupy Sails many years ago. Rumor has it that he used to host a kids radio show. One night, I guess the "on air" light wasn't working and he said something like... "That ought to hold the little bastards!" I believe this was in the 50s or 60s.
Don't even get me started on Janet J's nipple. Good GAWD!!
Oh, ah... PS I don't know what "tosser" is, so if it is a slur, then I have to rethink my response. heheh!
Pass The Salt Gunga Din......
Tony - I've heard that story. True or not, I do believe FST lacked a lot as a person in many respects.
I always liked the question Richard Hutton once asked him: 'would you describe yourself as a modest man?'
Little flower - a tosser is an - erm - um - how does one put this? - autoerotic fellow.
'Nuff said!
And then there was the student in my high school that, during the hourly news, read the 7 words you can't say on the radio, on our high school radio station. Needless to say, his career at WSDH FM was cut short.
In NZ we had a cricketer by the name of Cunnis.Commentator: Cunnis' bowling like his name is neither one thing or the other.
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