Lunchtime O'Booze
January 1st, 2008, 19:24
I know many of you have wondered where those greats of the British theatre got to..reading the letters page of an Aussie newspaper I came across this:
Fings ain't wot they used t'be
Readers half my age can remember when the BBC was the pride and joy of virtue. Every script was studied by a director for unsuitable language, and phrases such as "Not too cocksure"' and "I'll be damned" were on the banned list.
How life has changed in the 21st century. Last night I caught up with a program called The Catherine Tate Show, presented in Australia by the ABC, and full of language like I haven't heard since World War II, when I was in uniform.
Miss Tate turned the Australian air blue. She came out with phrases that were very funny but her language was shocking even after the so-called watershed time of 9.30pm - put out by both the ABC and the BBC as a cop-out.
I am not a paragon of virtue but I was once Britain's highest-paid entertainer and sometimes I wonder how standards have been allowed to fall so low.
I am not knocking it. I just wish I was back in the old routine.
Max Bygraves OBE Sanctuary Cove (Qld)
***************************
http://www.smh.com.au/letters/?page=4
and a friend excitedly emails me to tell me he just saw DES O'CONNOR walking down a Sydney street !! :cyclops:
Fings ain't wot they used t'be
Readers half my age can remember when the BBC was the pride and joy of virtue. Every script was studied by a director for unsuitable language, and phrases such as "Not too cocksure"' and "I'll be damned" were on the banned list.
How life has changed in the 21st century. Last night I caught up with a program called The Catherine Tate Show, presented in Australia by the ABC, and full of language like I haven't heard since World War II, when I was in uniform.
Miss Tate turned the Australian air blue. She came out with phrases that were very funny but her language was shocking even after the so-called watershed time of 9.30pm - put out by both the ABC and the BBC as a cop-out.
I am not a paragon of virtue but I was once Britain's highest-paid entertainer and sometimes I wonder how standards have been allowed to fall so low.
I am not knocking it. I just wish I was back in the old routine.
Max Bygraves OBE Sanctuary Cove (Qld)
***************************
http://www.smh.com.au/letters/?page=4
and a friend excitedly emails me to tell me he just saw DES O'CONNOR walking down a Sydney street !! :cyclops: