Pand: You're not touching my Jira board?
Colleague: Yes...
Pand: I was saying that like Ted Bullpit.
Colleague: So the Jira board is your Kingswood.
Pand: Can we call it Neville?
Colleague: The Jira board isn't concrete.
The was tittering over communicator. My colleague, who's a few years older than me, and I, we talk the same language. Mrs Slocombe. Ted Bullpit. Plucka Duck, Agro. Heavens he might even know about Winky Dink and Fat Cat. (I wish I could find this old cartoon - I think it was in On Dit, the Adelaide Uni student paper - where they put Winky Dink on a lathe). He doesn't get my Young Ones references, but we both don't do a bad line in Monty Python. He is very envious that I met Terry Jones at a writer's festival one year.
But Ted Bullpit is extremely problematic in these woke days of now. And rightly so. I don't think cancel culture will get him as you'd struggle to find Kingswood Country on any streaming service. Ted Bullpit, the xenophobic, racist, sexist Australian archetype of the seventies who somehow has ingratiated himself into the Australian psyche.
And there are still people, like myself, who will occasionally yell out, "You're not taking the Kingswood!" at necessary moments. Like when you're workmate plays with your Jira board.
It's probably best that Ted Bullpit (Yes, that's Bullpit...) has been left off of the re-run schedule. With his wife Thema, slacker son, Craig, daughter Greta and her Italian husband, Bruno, this was the height of comedy in the early eighties. Oh, special mention of a garden ornament, called Neville, should be made. But then again, it shouldn't.
(In researching this, Neville, the concrete aboriginal, was named after Neville Bonner, the first indigenous member of the Australian Federal Parliament, who allegedly loved the show and was a regular in the studio at the show's taping)
But you look back at it now and wonder how it was funny. It's uncomfortable, mainly in it's completely politically incorrect sense of humour. I'm not a wowser, I do a good line in being non-PC on occasions, but this early comedy is something I don't find funny anymore. It's now more and eye roll, an 'Oi, oi!' and on occassions, a scowl and a comment like, "Do you really have to?"
Thing is, I grew up with a few Ted Bullpits. Not so extreme, but they were there. But this was also the time of Alf Garnett, On the Buses and many many other shows which were dreadfully racist. And sexist. And rather xenophobic. Many people of my age will recognise this for what it is now.
It's interesting when racism, inparticular, gets called out early on.
I remember a scene from The Crying Game, where Jody (Forrest Whittaker), the captive soldier is talking to his IRA guard (Stephen Rea) about what it is to be black and in Northern Ireland. This isn't the scene, but it's reminded me of this superlative film.
The film came out in 1992.
It was the first time I remember seeing systemic racism being called out. It left a big impact.
I'm not quite sure where I'm going with this.
I like that film, print media and television are showing a much more diverse cultures and characters - I welcome and celebrate this. As somebody who's known for not being that PC, racism, overt, underlying or unfortunately ingrained does not sit with me at all.
But should that stop me from occasionally using an old, ingrained, sorta wrong catch cry?
Well?
Today's song:
Colleague: Yes...
Pand: I was saying that like Ted Bullpit.
Colleague: So the Jira board is your Kingswood.
Pand: Can we call it Neville?
Colleague: The Jira board isn't concrete.
The was tittering over communicator. My colleague, who's a few years older than me, and I, we talk the same language. Mrs Slocombe. Ted Bullpit. Plucka Duck, Agro. Heavens he might even know about Winky Dink and Fat Cat. (I wish I could find this old cartoon - I think it was in On Dit, the Adelaide Uni student paper - where they put Winky Dink on a lathe). He doesn't get my Young Ones references, but we both don't do a bad line in Monty Python. He is very envious that I met Terry Jones at a writer's festival one year.
But Ted Bullpit is extremely problematic in these woke days of now. And rightly so. I don't think cancel culture will get him as you'd struggle to find Kingswood Country on any streaming service. Ted Bullpit, the xenophobic, racist, sexist Australian archetype of the seventies who somehow has ingratiated himself into the Australian psyche.
And there are still people, like myself, who will occasionally yell out, "You're not taking the Kingswood!" at necessary moments. Like when you're workmate plays with your Jira board.
It's probably best that Ted Bullpit (Yes, that's Bullpit...) has been left off of the re-run schedule. With his wife Thema, slacker son, Craig, daughter Greta and her Italian husband, Bruno, this was the height of comedy in the early eighties. Oh, special mention of a garden ornament, called Neville, should be made. But then again, it shouldn't.
(In researching this, Neville, the concrete aboriginal, was named after Neville Bonner, the first indigenous member of the Australian Federal Parliament, who allegedly loved the show and was a regular in the studio at the show's taping)
But you look back at it now and wonder how it was funny. It's uncomfortable, mainly in it's completely politically incorrect sense of humour. I'm not a wowser, I do a good line in being non-PC on occasions, but this early comedy is something I don't find funny anymore. It's now more and eye roll, an 'Oi, oi!' and on occassions, a scowl and a comment like, "Do you really have to?"
Thing is, I grew up with a few Ted Bullpits. Not so extreme, but they were there. But this was also the time of Alf Garnett, On the Buses and many many other shows which were dreadfully racist. And sexist. And rather xenophobic. Many people of my age will recognise this for what it is now.
It's interesting when racism, inparticular, gets called out early on.
I remember a scene from The Crying Game, where Jody (Forrest Whittaker), the captive soldier is talking to his IRA guard (Stephen Rea) about what it is to be black and in Northern Ireland. This isn't the scene, but it's reminded me of this superlative film.
The film came out in 1992.
It was the first time I remember seeing systemic racism being called out. It left a big impact.
I'm not quite sure where I'm going with this.
I like that film, print media and television are showing a much more diverse cultures and characters - I welcome and celebrate this. As somebody who's known for not being that PC, racism, overt, underlying or unfortunately ingrained does not sit with me at all.
But should that stop me from occasionally using an old, ingrained, sorta wrong catch cry?
Well?
Today's song:
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