Down Under, and Gordon Ramsay's bollocks are in trouble. Sorry - that should
more accurately read “Down Under, and Gordon Ramsay's ‘bollocks' are in
trouble”. The celebrity chef's hit TV series, Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares,
has just begun showing in Australia. For those who have never seen it, the
programme is a novel, previously never-attempted broadcasting combination of
cooking “good, simple food” and screaming “f***!” over and over again.
In the UK, for some reason, we just kind of accept that Ramsay swears a lot.
We just let it happen. Maybe it's because he lives here and we fear that, if
we protested against his sewer language, he would arrive on our doorstep
screaming “Oi, f***y-knackers, don't p*** on my chips - either figuratively
or literally, you ****!” through our letterbox. In Australia, however - safe
in the knowledge that Ramsay's big, red shouty face is 10,103 miles away -
there has been some demurring, after an hour-long show was broadcast last
week in which he uttered three “c***s” and no fewer than 80 “f***s” - an
impressive logistical feat, if nothing else. How does he fit them all in?
And manage to breathe? It's a genuine skill.
This barrage of filth prompted Senator Cory Bernardi, of the Liberal Party, to
claim that Ramsay's show had reached the “absolute limits of acceptability”.
Subsequently Australia is conducting a parliamentary inquiry. A
parliamentary inquiry - into Gordon Ramsay's swearing! In the country that
brought the world both Rodney Rude and Kevin “Bloody” Wilson. I know - this
means that Gordon Ramsay must officially be the biggest swearer OF ALL TIME.
He's our Beatles of “bollocks”.
Of course, there are mitigating factors. Australia, as a whole, hasn't
suddenly turned into a fainting Victorian woman with a fan. Ramsay has been
so controversial over there because his show is broadcast at 8.30pm - prime
time, when children are still watching. Additionally, Bernardi clearly tends
towards overexcitement. He repeatedly referred to Ramsay's second-favourite
word as “the C-bomb” - a coyness tinged with hysteria that actually made the
word sound marginally worse. Not only was he likening a word to a bomb -
which kills people - but “bomb” also sounds a bit like “bum”, thus inventing
the word “c***-bum”. That, to me, sounds superlatively rude. It could be in
the running for “Biggest Swear of 2008”, as and when the Nobel Institute
found that prize.
Of course, all of this raises many wider points about profanity. Or, as Ramsay
would put it: “F***ing raises more *****y points about argh.” Myself, when
it comes to swearing, I am torn. Torn between two wildly differing beliefs.
On the one hand, profanity is clearly a lazy way to razz up a sentence. It's
a cheat. It's a diversionary tactic, from, like, you know, inarticulacy.
There's far more vim in Jane Austen's wasp-bonneted “You have delighted us
long enough” than some hoodies shouting “F***nuts” at each other. There is a
pertinent argument to be made that we should reserve swearing only for very
special occasions - childbirth, perhaps, and parties. Like a cigar. On the
other hand, however ... I love to swear. It's as simple and profound a joy
as having a cup of tea, or killing a wasp. I swear a great deal. Indeed I
swear, perhaps, too much. Well I remember a builder working at our house
pulling my husband to one side and commenting: “Your wife swears quite a
lot.”
I don't think he had ever before seen a heavily pregnant woman watching
Bargain Hunt,folding Babygros, and shouting “You scary, orange f***!” at
David Dickinson. For while most cursing is thoughtless, listless
junk-swearing, there exists, in pockets, superlative swearers.
Swear-masters. Laureates of cussing. I am not one of them, but I study their
work avidly.
Charlie Brooker, of The Guardian, for instance, has a very distinctive
swear-style - very much the linguistic equivalent of Heston Blumenthal. It's
all startling juxtapositions. “Quasihuman s***creeps.” “Gitprong.” In many
ways, Brooker runs some manner of swearing makeover clinic - getting Britain
to reconsider its tired old wardrobe of swearwords, and experiment with the
lexical equivalent of mixing high street jeans with a vintage hat. Or
“vintage hate”, as I first typed, rather fittingly.
On BBC Two's political satire The Thick of It, meanwhile - easily the best
comedy of the past ten years - the swearing is more symphonic; Wagnerian,
really. The show's writers - Armando Iannucci, Jesse Armstrong and Ian
Martin - specialise in monologues delivered with increasing hysteria and
urgency, but in which the language, extreme as it is, retains rhythm, power
and pinpoint precision. And, obvious, towering stacks of swearwords.
Referring to a duplicitous character as “You mimsy f***ing bastard Quisling
leak f***” is, for the show, a mere swear-snack. Fans of the show can quote
the now legendary “iPod Nano” speech by heart: “You take the piss out of Al
Jolson again and I will remove your iPod from its tiny nano-sheath, and push
it up your c**k. Then I'll put some speakers up your arse and put it on to
shuffle with my f***ing fist. Then, every time I hear something that I don't
like - which will be every time that something comes on - I will skip to the
next track by crushing your balls.” Beautiful, isn't it? Like a triumphant
roll of cannon and timpani at the end of the Proms.
So yes. While I'm understandably proud that our Gordon's swearing has prompted
an Australian parliamentary inquiry, I can't help but feel that it will
conclude, ultimately, that his swearing is the swearing of an amateur. An
uninspired dilettante. A child. I just wish that we'd got our f***ing arses
into gear and sent our s***-hot swearing professionals over there instead.
Ex-opper showed mettle over his mistress
After his career was hit by scandal, the chief constable in the Dyfed-Powys
police force, Terry Grange, retired from his job. On closer examination, it
seems that this scandal consisted merely of his having had an affair. As
I've made clear, I'm not really pro-infidelity - the admin is tortuous, and
it seems to drive most participants insane - but I feel that I must stand up
for Team Grange. One of the Independent Police Complaints Commission's main
charges against him was as follows: £130.38 of “mischarged” expenses for à
deux dinners with his former mistress - for which Grange has apologised, and
refunded. £130.38? That's the most economically streamlined affair I've ever
heard of. Dyfed-Powys police should be proud to have a copper who can have a
bit on the side at such an advantageous rate. He's undercut most MPs by
3,000 per cent. With global recession looming, Grange could well be one of
our country's biggest weapons. Someone get him to write a Cuckolding in a
Credit Crunch guide - quickly.
Who's the man? Me!
Last week's Observer noted a growing trend among young couples to recruit a
female best man at their wedding. Well, for the first time since I was part
of the 27 per cent of the population who have had a persistent verruca for
five or more years, I find myself at the forefront of a trend. For only last
month I had the honour of being the best man at the wedding of our friends
Stephen and Claire. Of course, when you're at the forefront of a new trend,
you have to do a lot of explaining, vis-à-vis the novelty of your position.
In the months before the wedding, I grew ever wearier at having to say:
“Yes, I'm the best man. But a best man who is a woman. I know! And it's
legal for us to own property in our own names, too! It is a scandal.” In the
end, my husband coined a new term. “You should refer to yourself as the
breast man,” he said, laughing away behind his copy of Mojo.
