Swearing

This is an extension of what I've been writing on Twitter, apologies to those who follow me, I feel that 140 characters aren't enough to explain my position so I'm writing here instead.

It seems that some right wing Sunday tabloids like to complain about swearing on radio, or anything that comes close. Predictably, most of the complaints seem to involve the BBC, which is an organisation over which most privately owned media in the UK seems to have a bee in its bonnet. It began a while back when the Mail on Sunday urged its users to complain to Ofcom about Sandi Toksvig making reference to a swear word on Radio 4's News Quiz. I say 'making reference to', she never actually said the word, she merely stated humourously that the conservative-led government are "putting the 'n' in 'cuts'". Now, the Sunday Express are reporting, on their front page no less, that the BBC broadcast the words 'bullshit' and 'bastards' on a morning radio show. I emphasise that this was the front page of a Sunday newspaper, at a time when much of Africa is experiencing one of its worst famines in living memory, and Norway is reeling from the shock of an insane christian fundamentalist mass murderer.

I like swearing. I think it's perfectly acceptable in context. Billy Connolly wouldn't be funny if he didn't swear. Die Hard wouldn't have been so memorable had Bruce Willis simply said "Yippie-kai-yay" and there are some people, such as Jim Davidson and Piers Morgan, for whom only a word as strong as 'cunt' is suitable when attempting to describe them. Don't forget, also, that the word 'fuck' is possibly the most versatile word in common use, it can be used as a noun, an adjective, an adverb, a verb, a pronoun, the list goes on. So while the tabloids are mounting their sad attempt to get a TV-style watershed applied to radio, so that certain words can't be said after a certain time of night, I think it's time we abolished the idea of a watershed on television.

Imagine - the weather would be so much funner if the presenter stood there and said "well, today it's going to piss down." X-Factor would be better if the contestants were able to call Simon Cowell a cunt to his face (I might actually apply if that were the prize) The news would be better if they were allowed to say "a man is in hospital after his jealous wife hacked off his cock" and not have to fluffy-fy it by saying that she "amputated his penis". And let's not forget that there is nothing funnier than puppets swearing.

Basically, Mary Whitehouse is long dead, and times are a-changing. It's much less taboo to talk about things like sex on TV than it was back in the bad old days, and I think the same goes for swearing. Let's finally take our thumbs out of our arses and admit that sometimes, just sometimes, swearing is funny.