Filed under: Uncategorized
28 February 2007, 16:13:00 | Biffo
28 February 2007, 11:13:14 | Biffo
Curiously, the British Museum is filled with corpses. That’s not even an analogy: there actually are loads of dead bodies in there. Admittedly, they’re really old dead bodies, but it’s quite strange, if you think about it. As I stood there, amid a crowd of Italian students, staring a 2,000 year-old corpse, I had the following thoughts:
1. I’m not sure I’d want to be put in a museum after I’m dead. Though if it does happen, I’d quite like them to slip a pair of pants over my dried-up rude parts.
2. Why do the dead bodies draw bigger crowds than, say, a statue of Anubis, or a pair of bronze Age sandals? Death is about the one certainty of life; what’s the big curiosity?
I’m guessing that a fascination with death is hardwired into our nature.
When I was quite young, I did a terrible thing with my friend Stuart: we dug up my dead cat. It’s one of those things you look back on, and just think: “Whyyyy?! Why would I try to dig up my dead cat?”. Admittedly, it wasn’t freshly deceased. It had been down there a year or two, and all that was left were bones. But still, it’s an incredibly macabre thing for someone to do. Especially when you’re only 8 or 9.
27 February 2007, 10:47:43 | Biffo
It was a very good meeting, though. Our director is the unfeasibly experienced Richard Boden, who is perhaps best known for the classic Blackadder Goes Forth. He’s so willing to indulge every last bonkers aspect of the script that on occasion we also feel like the whole thing is a massive wind-up.
I don’t think it is, though. What an awful lot of effort to go to just to deliberately disappoint someone.
Incidentally, does anyone reading this have a realistic looking monkey they could lend us? Even better if it was once alive.
25 February 2007, 19:14:30 | Biffo
Admittedly, new rules confine them to the car, thereby depriving them of the single greatest pleasure known to humanity – throwing an old television over a wall – but still… it’s the dump, for pity’s sake! What’s wrong with them? As I keep telling them, it’s better than Disney Land!
23 February 2007, 00:58:02 | Biffo
Don’t pretend you’re not interested.
I find getting my hair cut to by one of life’s biggest chores, along with shaving, taking out the bin, and chasing goats up a mountain to retrieve my shoes from their mouths.
It’s just that I’m rarely, if ever, happy with my hair – short or long. From a fairly early age I would pray to be bald, just so that I wouldn’t have to worry about it any more. In fact, I deliberately worried more about my hair in the hope that it would all fall out through worry.
Somehow, the anxiety just made it grow thicker. Possibly out of spite.
When I was a teenager I once attempted to tame two unruly curls by lopping them off myself. Stupidly, I cut them off at the base, leaving myself with two un-hideable bald spots, which I attempted to claim were the result of alopecia brought on by a traumatic dream involving my late grandfather lunging at me from the wardrobe.
But I was desperate. I’d try anything to prevent my mother cutting my hair herself. I say “cutting”, but what she would actually do was rip the hair out of my scalp using a rusting device that was part comb, part razor blade, and part the sort of thing a CIA agent might use to extract confessions out of an enemy combatant/Muslim.
22 February 2007, 00:22:48 | Biffo
Chessington World of Sad Looking Animals
21 February 2007, 19:12:00 | Biffo
Chessington didn’t have anything quite as bewildering as Mouse Town, but it wasn’t far off. It really is in a terribly shoddy state, all rusting metal, and rain-muted colours. Though – presumably due to the cold – the tigers, lions and gorillas were more animated than I’ve seen at any other zoo, the penguins were basically flapping around in a puddle of mildew, and the cockatoos were shoved in a sort of “Will that do?” shed.
Why is it that even in the most wretched arse-cracks of America they can do these sorts of places so much better than we can? It’s truly embarrasing, given that Chessington is meant to be one of the UK’s top theme parks. I mean, it’s our Busch Gardens to Thorpe Park’s Universal Studios.
If any American visited Chessington they’d be mistaken for thinking it was designed to be a sort of deliberate, dystopian Disney World, where Donald Duck had been asphyxiated with a carrrier bag.
21 February 2007, 16:54:19 | Biffo
I always liken the process to sculpting. You start out with a big lump of nothing in particular, then chisel away, and chisel away until you’ve – hopefully – created something lovely. During the sculpting, you’re usually too close to the slab of granite to get an overview, and you need someone who can stand back, and tell you where you’re going wrong, or that you’ve just chipped off the statue’s stupid face.
That’s the job of the producers and script editors.
It’s a necessary evil, but slightly horrible nonetheless. We’d all like to think we’re the exception to the rule, and that we don’t need other people to steer us in the right direction.
I wish I could be more thick-skinned about it, but every time I get a set of notes it bruises my ego ever so slightly. I mean, try doing your job with people telling you where you’re going wrong every single day. The severity of that bruise does, of course, depend on the tone of the notes, and there are ways to dress up bad news, or tell someone that their breath smells.
I’ve worked with a handful of producers and script editors who seemingly took great delight in telling me I’d got it wrong, as if I’d accidentally reversed my car over one of their children, or something. These sorts seemingly enjoyed turning every creative debate into an argument, and are even more thin-skinned than us writers.
I quit one job a few months back when it because it became clear the production team lacked any real experience in making telly, and didn’t have a clue what the hell they were supposed to be doing.
After I pulled out – having attended several meetings, but not yet reached the stage where I’d handed in a script – the script editor then proceeded to tell the world that I’d been fired off the show for “not turning up to meetings, and handing in substandard work“. Unfortunately, for him, he happened to also tell this to a close friend of mine…
In addition to Biffovision for BBC3, I’ve recently been writing the pilot script of a new kids’ comedy for a company called RDF. I’ve just had back my first set of notes, and they’re great. I’d been dreading them, because a) I’d never worked for the company before, and b) I’d been warned that there were quite a lot of notes.
There are quite a lot of notes, but it’s a relief to see that they’re incredibly helpful: ego-strokingly complimentary about the good bits, not overly scathing about the bad bits, full of suggestions rather than being prescriptive, and don’t beat about the bush when required (ie: the rubbish bits are rightly rubbished).
20 February 2007, 16:54:06 | Biffo
Incidentally, I wrote the official biography on that page. My first draft was somewhat different to the one they eventually went with. Having been baffled by why I was asked in the first place, I assumed they wanted some sort of ‘comedy’ biography, and duly obliged.
20 February 2007, 11:37:55 | Biffo
Better late than never, I’ve finally got around to putting some more of my Chernobyl photos online. I’ll try and get the rest on there later, but for now – assuming you’re interested – you can view them here.
19 February 2007, 18:26:34 | Biffo
He left this point hanging with the barest of mumbles about some people perhaps finding this concept “a bit controversial“. He then explained that Adam and Eve were created genetically pure, and – though they were brother and sister – their offspring should have been similarly pure.
However, because Adam took the apple from the tree, their kids were born with genetic impurities. Consequently, humanity has mutated.
Using some colourful – and seemingly scientific – diagrams, emblazoned with the word “MUTATIONS”, he revealed how over the course of the last 25,000 years (following his research, the world hasn’t been around for any more than 25,000 years), humanity had mutated so dramatically that it was now filled with such hateful concepts as “different races“, and “disabled people“, and “people with poor eyesight and ginger hair“.
It was about this point that I switched off.
Now, admittedly, I didn’t see the whole show, so maybe I was missing the point, and it was actually meant as a bit of a wheeze, but I’m pretty certain the guy was dead serious.
Despite regularly attending chuch during my teens (in lieu of something better to do), I regard myself – as I did then – as an atheist. Nevertheless, I’m not militant about it. I’m as uncomfortable with fundamentalist atheists as I am with fundamentalist Christians.
I’ve known some pleasant, intelligent, and healthily sceptical Christians, but if some people want to believe a load of old bollocks – let them. So long as they don’t start teaching it in schools, or presenting TV shows insisting that disable people are contrary to God’s will, and that incest is ok because it says so in The Bible.
Y’know, if you’re going to use the term “mutation” to label anyone who doesn’t fit the Victorian England reinterpretation of Adam and Eve, then at best you’re mad, and at worst you’re Adolf Hitler.
It’s rare that anything on TV gets my back up – freedom of speech all the way, baby – but because Genesis TV is targeting the vulnerable and the weak of mind, it’s up there with crap like Most Haunted and Crossing Over with John Edward.
How are these fanatical religion channels any better than junk food TV ads which brainwash kids into eating reformed turkey anuses? Or a channel showing “Al Qaeda training videos” 24 hours a day? Or Tony Blair suddenly announcing that he’s had a think, and has concluded that he’s probably the Son of God?
19 February 2007, 15:01:35 | Biffo
16 February 2007, 10:10:59 | Biffo
It’s a pretty rubbish state of affairs if disc jockeys, and TV producers, and whoever else, feel so scared of offending a puritanical – but very vocal – minority, that it stifles their creativity. I have no qualms about stating unequivocally that anyone who complains about a TV show is wrong in the head, and needs shooting in the spine.
I can imagine they’re the same sort of idiots as the people who live a few doors down from me. A retired couple, they are constantly looking for some new and pointless crusade to go on.
About a month ago we had a delivery from Tesco, and the driver of the delivery van apparently reversed onto their drive as he was turning around to get out of what is a very narrow cul-de-sac. Whenever I come off our drive I have to reverse onto the drive of the house opposite, and cars are always using our drive to turn around – it’s pretty much unavoidable, and certainly not worth starting World War III over.
Anyway, the people a couple of doors down were so incensed by the Tesco driver’s actions that they stormed out of the house, and started bellowing at him. He returned the bellows in kind, and then drove off.
The same thing happened the following week, which prompted them to hammer on our door demanding to know who the driver was (“Pakistani bloke“, apparently – “You know what they can be like“). I offered to give them the number of Tesco customer services, but they didn’t want it. They wanted to catch him in the act, and – presumably – prolong the drama.
This weekend just gone, the neighbours’ called at our house wanting to know what time our Tesco delivery was turning up. They told me they’d barricaded their driveway – doubtlessly in such a way that the driver couldn’t see the barrier, so they could nab him for driving over that as well.
I had to point out that it’s not always the same driver, and that he doesn’t always turn up at the same time every week, and that – no – we wouldn’t be telling them every time we’d placed an online order with Tesco.
Nevertheless, they assured me they’d be on the look-out for him, and would be waiting.
Previously, the same couple tried to start a petition down our road to have an Indian family reported to the council, for reasons we never accurately ascertained, and issued a memorandum to every house down our road in a bid to stop children playing near their house.
15 February 2007, 11:02:13 | Biffo
Despite this, I have an undeniable soft spot for my alma mater (that’s “nourishing mother” in Latin, apparently). The schools have been, and remain, a big part of my family story. My sisters went there, and so did most of my nephews and nieces, and – because I’ve wholly failed to move away from home – both my sister and my wife now work there. And so did my mother until her knees gave out.
My daughters all went there as well, until we moved our youngest, after her classmates discovered that compasses were quite good for stabbing with, and the realisation that every other school in the area was using it as a dumping ground for their most stupid and violent, and violently stupid, pupils.
Anyway, I’m feeling strangely emotional about the schools at the moment, because they’re about to be demolished, and reconstructed as one school. Until now we’ve been one of the only areas in the country to have three stages of schooling – 5 to 9, 10 to 13, and 13 to 16 – rather than the usual two, so it’s real end of an era stuff.
I can’t pretend that I found all of school a terrible happy time. Indeed, having, until the age of 8, swung with the bad kids, my defection to the light side subsequently marked me out as a target for bullies pretty much until the day – aged 15 – that I punched Timothy James so hard in the face that his trousers fell off.
Nevertheless, good or bullied, the two schools have been an element of continuity in my life, and I shall be sad to see them go. Well, not go as such, but redeveloped beyond all recognition.
14 February 2007, 18:24:10 | Biffo
Enjoy (or don’t – it’s up to you):
INT. STUDIO – DOG-B-GONE ADVERT
A MAN – he’s dressed in a business suit, but there’s something a bit seamy about him, his hair’s a bit too long and lank, and he’s unshaven, with mascara smeared around his eyes – strides past a number of stuffed, crown-wearing dogs on podiums. He addresses the camera, talking incredibly quickly.
DOG-B-GONE MAN
Do you own a dog? Have you had enough of rip-off kennel fees? Are you afraid of going away, and coming home to find your dog has somehow learned to… to read your mind?
The Man stops in front of a large logo for ‘DOG-B-GONE’, his face momentarily wracked with paranoia.
DOG-B-GONE MAN (CONT’D)
At Dog-B-Gone we turn a holiday into a dog-away. Here’s how it works.
He walks past a series of huge diagrams illustrating the Dog-B-Gone system.
DOG-B-GONE MAN (CONT’D)
You simply go away as usual, and leave your dog at home. No need to worry about food or water – just let nature do its thing.
He knocks over one of the stuffed dogs.
DOG-B-GONE MAN (CONT’D)
I know what you’re mumbling: ‘Isn’t that kind of inconsiderate, Boris?’. Well, let me ask you this – is it inconsiderate to sellotape a bird face-first against a window, and repeatedly press your stomach against it?
He’s on the move again.
He stops back in front of the Dog-B-Gone sign, which now has a plastic box atop it.
DOG-B-GONE MAN (CONT’D)
When you sign up with Dog-B-Gone you don’t even have to worry about coming home to find some maggot-happy pet corpse on your welcome mat. Two days before you return we simply post a horde of rats through your letterbox, which home in on the stiff and scoff the lot. No mess. No fuss. No dog. Just lots of delicious rats.
He opens the plastic box, pulls out a rat, and takes a bite. We hear the rat squealing. He spits it back out again.
DOG-B-GONE MAN (CONT’D)(distraught)
What… what am I doing? These are my father’s rats.
Shocked by his own actions, the Dog-B-Gone Man clamps a hand over his mouth, and stares into the camera.
14 February 2007, 11:36:41 | Biffo
Next week I’m meeting up with a few people from Ladbrokes – the first place I ever worked upon leaving school. One of them I haven’t seen properly for almost six years – the last time was my 30th birthday party (and, curiously, I remember once having a conversation with him about jelly sweets) – and the other two I probably haven’t seen for at least 15 years.
It’s sort of a bit scary, really. There’s nothing quite like seeing people you haven’t seen in ages for reminding you of your own mortality, and the fact you’ve probably aged just as badly as they have.
Also, there’s a tremendous pressure to prove you’re not the ghastly, juvenile arse you used to be 15 years ago (or six years ago, if I’m honest) , and that you’ve matured into a well-rounded, stable individual, who no longer does things which – with hindsight – make him die a little bit inside every time he remembers them. And when I say “you”, I mean “me”.
13 February 2007, 14:32:42 | Biffo
Anyhoo, I’m clearly feeling suicidal, because here’s the chat in full. I should point out that I obviously don’t condone any of this repellent tosser’s opinions.
To put it in context, Lisa had already had one run-in with him (which will stay in the book), in which he’d revealed himself to be well-educated, in a decent job, and someone with a good few questionable views.
I hope you’re shocked by it. I was.
HappyEFKey: oi u
HappyEFKey: how r u?
LoopyLisa21f: Something weird just happened.
HappyEFKey: whats that?
LoopyLisa21f: I put the kettle on, and went into the downstairs loo, and I could hear the kettle making this weird sort of high-pitched noise.
LoopyLisa21f: Then it started making a kind of banging/fluttering sound.
LoopyLisa21f: So I came out, and opened it, and there was a little bird inside.
LoopyLisa21f: It scared the hell out of me.
LoopyLisa21f: That’s not supposed to happen is it?
HappyEFKey: thats fucked up
HappyEFKey: very fucked up
LoopyLisa21f: It wasn’t dead, so I just let it go. It was a bit wet, and hot, but it seemed ok.
HappyEFKey: that is so weird
LoopyLisa21f: It freaked me out.
HappyEFKey: and me
HappyEFKey: and im not even there
HappyEFKey: instead of a bunny boiler youa bird boiler
HappyEFKey: lolol
HappyEFKey: sorry bad joke
LoopyLisa21f: I’m a bit shaken up by it. Please stop making fun of me.
HappyEFKey: im not suprised ya shaken up
HappyEFKey: mebbe it was yer stalker lol
LoopyLisa21f: Don’t say that. What if I really do have a stalker?
LoopyLisa21f: What if there’s some guy putting dead foxes through my letterbox, and birds in my kettle?
HappyEFKey: lol
HappyEFKey: id say run
HappyEFKey: lolol
HappyEFKey: dead foxes in your letterbox tho???
LoopyLisa21f: Yeah.
LoopyLisa21f: Last week somebody forced a dead fox through my letterbox. I came downstair, and there was ginger fox fur all over the mat, and quite a lot of fox blood.
LoopyLisa21f: Did I call the police?
HappyEFKey: what do you mean? Don’t you remember???
LoopyLisa21f: I don’t know. I’m all shaken up. Are you cross with me?
HappyEFKey: nope
LoopyLisa21f: Why aren’t you at work?
HappyEFKey: iam at work
LoopyLisa21f: What do you do?
HappyEFKey: im a sales director
HappyEFKey: work in online marketing
LoopyLisa21f: Oh, it’s YOU! The man who seemed quite nice, until he revealed himself to be an awful racist.
HappyEFKey: how could u forget ?
HappyEFKey: cant believe you forgot me
HappyEFKey: tut
LoopyLisa21f: Sorry, dear. I normally remember the racist ones.
HappyEFKey: ishould think so as well
LoopyLisa21f: So, how have you been? Been to any good rallies lately?
HappyEFKey: im ok
LoopyLisa21f: Do you want to play truth or dare?
LoopyLisa21f: Or truth and truth?
HappyEFKey: go for it
LoopyLisa21f: You ask me first.
HappyEFKey: did you put the bird in your kettle
LoopyLisa21f: No!
LoopyLisa21f: For goodness sake.
HappyEFKey: lol
HappyEFKey: now u
LoopyLisa21f: Which would you rather eat – a dog or a cat?
HappyEFKey: dog
LoopyLisa21f: Why?
HappyEFKey: wild russiandog is a delicassy in parts of siberia
LoopyLisa21f: That’s a lie. How would you know, anyway? I don’t think you’re a Russian.
HappyEFKey: its nota lie
LoopyLisa21f: Your turn.
HappyEFKey: why did you want to play this game
LoopyLisa21f: Because I don’t want you to be bored. I want to keep the racist entertained.
HappyEFKey: hehe
LoopyLisa21f: Ok. If you had to wash a tramp, would you rather wash a boy tramp, or a girl tramp (bear in mind both tramps are filthy AND ugly AND old)?
HappyEFKey: a boy tramp
LoopyLisa21f: Why?
HappyEFKey: as then i wouldnt be accused of sexualassault or anything like that
HappyEFKey: see clever i am
LoopyLisa21f: You can still sexually assault boy tramps. In some ways that’s worse, because it’s gay sexual assault, so you would have two types of stain on your record (unless you’re not homophobic… which in your case is unlikely)
HappyEFKey: yeah but gay stuff is easily disproved
HappyEFKey: as gay stuff leaves huge amounts of dna and physical proof
LoopyLisa21f: Not necessarily. What if he accused you of sexual assault for brushing his testicles?
LoopyLisa21f: That wouldn’t leave any physical proof. Especially not if you did it quite gently.
HappyEFKey: ok enough im feeling sick now
HappyEFKey: next
HappyEFKey: yukyuk yuk
HappyEFKey: would you rather a man be loaded and ugly or poor and gorgeous
LoopyLisa21f: Hmm. That’s impossible to answer, because I don’t know what their personalities are like.
HappyEFKey: aww thas a sweet response
LoopyLisa21f: What if one of them is a maniac? And another one is a born-again Christian?
HappyEFKey: nice i like it
LoopyLisa21f: And what if one of them suffers from the runs?
HappyEFKey: your twisted
LoopyLisa21f: Not really.
LoopyLisa21f: I once went out with someone who had no control “down there”. It kind of ruined the romance.
HappyEFKey: when?
LoopyLisa21f: Every single time.
LoopyLisa21f: My turn?
LoopyLisa21f: How much money would you have to be paid to eat an entire beehive full of wasps?
HappyEFKey: 1 million if i was guaranteed not to be scared for life
LoopyLisa21f: Ok. Good answer. Your turn.
HappyEFKey: have you ever met anyone off the internet?
LoopyLisa21f: What, like a famous person? Someone like Rory Pulip, or Dan Grollie?
HappyEFKey: no like a normal person
LoopyLisa21f: No. I don’t think so. Maybe!
HappyEFKey: answer properly
HappyEFKey: you need to tell truth
LoopyLisa21f: Well, how do I know if I have? I may have done, but they never mentioned that they were from the Internet, and I never thought to ask.
HappyEFKey: so you have not chatted tosomeone on here thenarranged to meet them ?
LoopyLisa21f: No.
HappyEFKey: good
HappyEFKey: your not a saddo then lol
LoopyLisa21f: No. Not at all, dear.
HappyEFKey: no worries Go on
LoopyLisa21f: In the Meat Loaf song “I’d Do Anything For Love… But I Won’t Do That”, what is the “that” to which he refers?
HappyEFKey: sleeping with a man
LoopyLisa21f: Really? I suppose that makes a kind of sense. But in some other ways, it doesn’t make any sense at all.
HappyEFKey: do you think its right that queers can get married ?
HappyEFKey: even though our bodies are not designed for same sex relations
HappyEFKey: and we r only species of animal that has homosexuality
LoopyLisa21f: Oh, here we go. Here comes the bigotry…
LoopyLisa21f: Yes, I do think it’s right that gay people can get married.
LoopyLisa21f: Also, we’re not the only species that has homosexuality.
LoopyLisa21f: I once saw a boy monkey “having it off” with a gorilla.
HappyEFKey: might have been a girl gorilla
LoopyLisa21f: Don’t be stupid. Gorillas are boy chimpanzees, everyone knows that. You don’t get boy cows.
HappyEFKey: bulls
LoopyLisa21f: No it isn’t.
HappyEFKey: you sure that it wernt two niggers having gaysex ?
LoopyLisa21f: Why are you being so offensive suddenly?
HappyEFKey: it was a joke
LoopyLisa21f: You did this last time.
HappyEFKey: im just very racist
HappyEFKey: I cant help it
LoopyLisa21f: Well, at least you’re honest, I suppose. You know: an honest racist. I don’t know whether that’s worse than someone who doesn’t even realise they’re a racist.
LoopyLisa21f: Tell me, dear, why are you such an awful, racist person?
HappyEFKey: well i do live in east london
HappyEFKey: and i can walk home from tube station and not see one english person
HappyEFKey: makes me mad
LoopyLisa21f: Why does it make you mad, dear?
HappyEFKey: this country has 2 many foreigners
HappyEFKey: its ridiculous
LoopyLisa21f: But they’re not foreigners if they were born here.
HappyEFKey: they are 2 me
LoopyLisa21f: But that makes no sense. That’s like saying all dogs are actually cats “because they are to me”.
HappyEFKey: what?
LoopyLisa21f: You really haven’t thought your racism through properly.
LoopyLisa21f: If you’re going to be a racist you need to back up your opinions with some sort of intellectual process – however wrong-headed – otherwise you just come across like an idiot.
LoopyLisa21f: Don’t get me wrong. I’m open-minded about your racism. I’m prepared to be convinced that racism is the right way to be. You could say I’m “racism-curious”.
HappyEFKey: 1 sec
HappyEFKey: on phone
LoopyLisa21f: I hope you’re not on the phone to a black person. That must be terrible for you talking through gritted teeth, and shuddering the whole time.
HappyEFKey: hehe
HappyEFKey: no im not
HappyEFKey: idont do business with them if they are based in the uk
LoopyLisa21f: So, black people are ok if they’re overseas?
HappyEFKey: yep
LoopyLisa21f: What if they came on here for a holiday?
HappyEFKey: they fine
LoopyLisa21f: How do you know the ones you see every day aren’t just tourists?
LoopyLisa21f: What about white foreigners who live here?
HappyEFKey: hate em jus asmuch
LoopyLisa21f: What about English people who choose to live abroad?
HappyEFKey: dont bother me
HappyEFKey: if they living elsewhere then it does not affect me
HappyEFKey: its not my problem
HappyEFKey: i only care about what affects me
HappyEFKey: couldnt give 2 fucks about anyone else other than my mum n dad
LoopyLisa21f: What would happen if one day your parents said that you’d been adopted, and you went and found your real parents, and your real parents were black?
HappyEFKey: dont b stupid
HappyEFKey: we have to put up with them day in day out downour street in our shops
HappyEFKey: it affects us
HappyEFKey: i dont want to have to deal with some fucking ape who jus come off banana boat from africa
HappyEFKey: or soem smelly paki who dont even look me in the eye and who complains about the way we conduct ourselves here
HappyEFKey: the way in which it is perfectly ok for rappers to go nigger nigger nigger but if i say it i am up in court for racism
HappyEFKey: how tower hamlets did not have 5th november fireworks theyhad a bengali event instead
HappyEFKey: how kids ion the local schools spend more time learning about africa and india than british history
HappyEFKey: how 90% of people that live in east london are not english
HappyEFKey: immigration is ok but when its mass immigration on a scale thatis unparalleled by anywhere else in europe
HappyEFKey: do you work
HappyEFKey: do you pay tax
HappyEFKey: do you pay full rent
HappyEFKey: or have a mortgage
HappyEFKey: my family has lived here for 100s of years paying tax and i pay £800 a month to live in a 2 bed terraced house
HappyEFKey: in the house next door to me 4 pakies live there
HappyEFKey: they only pay 150 to live there
HappyEFKey: as housing benefit pay the rest
HappyEFKey: last year i paid 10k in tax and i get nothign
HappyEFKey: them smelly fucks get rent paid and god knows what else
HappyEFKey: i have to travel into essex to see a gp as all the doctors are foreign around here
LoopyLisa21f: You know who I miss?
HappyEFKey: go on who
HappyEFKey: enoch powell ?
LoopyLisa21f: Aulus Plautius.
LoopyLisa21f: Things were better back in his day.
HappyEFKey: thats a roman leader
LoopyLisa21f: Yes he was.
HappyEFKey: i know roman history well
LoopyLisa21f: I liked it before those awful barbarians came over here, and took all our jobs, and our women, and our homes. Following the fall of Roman Britain things just weren’t the same. Ruddy barbarians. As barbaric as the ace of spades they were.
HappyEFKey: i prefere the days of prior to world war 2
HappyEFKey: we are paying for 100 years of empire
HappyEFKey: coons were not really here then
LoopyLisa21f: Yes, just us pure-bred whites.
LoopyLisa21f: With our pure genetic structure, untainted by any outside influence? Yes. Yes, I see. I’m now coming around to your way of thinking.
HappyEFKey: thats not entirely true
LoopyLisa21f: Surely it is a bit true?
HappyEFKey: the romans did there fare share of breeding and raping of english women
HappyEFKey: which is italian blood
LoopyLisa21f: Really? What, seriously? I can’t imagine that! So you’re saying I could be part foreigner? Having now – in the past minute – become a racist myself, I’m appalled by that. I’m disgusted that part of me might not be entirely good.
HappyEFKey: my grandfather is italian
HappyEFKey: but only coz he had english parents that lived there for 5 years lol
HappyEFKey: i also have scotts blood in my family line but that dates back over 200 years ago
HappyEFKey: english people are not pure race
LoopyLisa21f: So what you’re saying is that in some respects our entire culture and gene pool has been influenced by immigration? That’s awful. I don’t want to be English person anymore – all of this is making me feel really angry. I wish there was something I could do to change things.
HappyEFKey: we have viking and roman and french
HappyEFKey: western european
HappyEFKey: properous countries
HappyEFKey: name one predominantly black country that is wealthy
HappyEFKey: or one asian country you can say places like saudi arabia but 99% of country is in poverty
LoopyLisa21f: Hang on – I thought you (and I) hated all foreigners, not just black folk?
HappyEFKey: i do
HappyEFKey: but not as much as asian and blacks
HappyEFKey: i hate eastern europeans as much as blacks n pakies
HappyEFKey: england has never been perfect and never will be
HappyEFKey: but it has fallen intosuch a bad way now that its only going to get wors
HappyEFKey: the welsh are the purest form of english as that side of the country was barely touched by roman britain and dane law
LoopyLisa21f: Yes, well, Wales should be an example to us all. The Welsh are the most pure English people ever.
HappyEFKey: wessex as well
LoopyLisa21f: Yes, of course. If only we could all be like the people from Wales and Wessex. But we’re not. We’re tainted by our dirty, foreigner genes. I feel like crying.
HappyEFKey: its down to england as a whole
HappyEFKey: we should never have gone on the warpath across 3/4of the worlds surface
HappyEFKey: slaughtering and enslaving
LoopyLisa21f:
HappyEFKey: thats life innit, live with it
LoopyLisa21f: I could live with it. Or I could go on a racist rampage, and drive the foreigners out of both my glorious country, and my DNA. I could run at them brandishing a union jack, with a big spike on the top of the flagpole.
HappyEFKey: sarky bitchHappyEFKey signed off at 13:26
13 February 2007, 10:20:48 | Biffo
From the point of view of keeping a record, the blog has been really important on quite a personal level. If anything, it’s taught me that you just can’t tell what’s around the corner – good, bad, or weird. Trying to second guess life is just stupid, because it’s never going to turn out like you expect.
12 February 2007, 18:33:45 | Biffo
I was hopeful that nothing “LoopyLisa” said to this guy in any way condoned his opinions. Indeed, I think it’s fairly apparent that “she” is taking the piss out of him, albeit in a slightly more restrained manner than usual – in part, due to shock, and in part in order to let the guy speak for himself. As it were.
Also, the victim claimed to be in charge of a sales team for an advertising agency. He had a respectable job, apparently earned good money, and yet here he was talking about “smelly pakis” and “niggers”, and claiming to “hate foreigners” – and was apparently being sincere whilst doing so.
What made it worse was the fact he had a better grasp of English than almost everyone else I’d spoken to while writing the book. He was clearly educated and intelligent, and yet his most entrenched opinions were utterly repellent.
The chat does jar quite significantly with the relatively lighter tone of the rest of the book, but I kind of feel that if I don’t include the whole, unedited tirade, then the only one who benefits is the racist himself. Why should I soften his racism? Yes, it makes me feel uncomfortable (as it does Scaryduck), but that’s sort of the whole point, surely?
If we pretend these people don’t exist, and don’t expose the fact that people still think this way in 2007 – thankyou, Celebrity Big Brother, for ramming this point home better than I ever could have – then aren’t we just burying our heads in the sand?
It should go without saying that, like anyone who isn’t an ignorant idiot, I abhor racism. Indeed, I’m usually the first to pull anyone up on casual racism, but I’m not militant about it like some people (I sometimes feel those sorts doth protesteth too much). It seems that people are too often confuse stupidity and ignorance for bigotry.
In some respects, I didn’t see much from Jade Goody on CBB which made me think she was racist – just a pigshit thick bully. Conversely, I saw stuff from Jo O’Meara and Daniela Lloyd which was very obviously racist.
Often it’s the ones who are intelligent enough not to spout their poison in polite company who are the ones to watch out for. Doubtless, had the aforementioned chat victim not been in a private message session with LoopyLisa, he’d have kept his opinions to himself.
Interestingly, we had a sketch in the first draft of the Biffovision TV pilot which our producer – who I like and respect immensely – felt was on “dodgy ground”. The fact he recommended we remove it, especially in light of the CBB fiasco, has – along with Scaryduck’s comments on the book – sort of made me question my own prejudices. Or perceived lack of. I mean, am I slightly more racist than I thought I was?
I didn’t think the sketch was the best thing I’d ever written, but neither did I think it was racist; yes it features a white family and a black man, but it doesn’t comment on anything beyond skin colour. But does the simple fact it’s been written by me – Mr Whitey – make it racist? I dunno. Between that and all the animal cruelty I’m starting to think I’m History’s Greatest Monster.
Anyway, here’s the exorcised sketch in full, so you can judge for yourself:
INT. BATHROOM – DAY
A WHITE MAN enters the bathroom in his pyjamas.
BLACK MAN
Hell’s teeth.
He snatches up the soap, and storms out.
CUT TO:
INT. KITCHEN – DAY
A WHITE FAMILY – mother, son, daughter – sit at the breakfast table, eating breakfast.
BLACK MAN
Right. Who was it?
The family look at him, and turn away – stifling a snigger.
BLACK MAN (CONT’D)
Which one of you put the black-face soap in the bathroom?
Beat. More sniggers.
BLACK MAN (CONT’D)
I’ve got to go to work like this. I’m never going to get it off in time.
MOTHER
I’ll help you clean it off if it’s bothering you.
BLACK MAN
Of course it’s bothering me. I’ve got to go to work with a black face.
MOTHER
Can you watch what you say in front of the kids?
BLACK MAN
What?
MOTHER
That’s not a very nice thing to say.
BLACK MAN
I… it… What’s that supposed to mean? Is that meant to mean I’m a racist? Right. Fine. I’ll go to work looking like this.
MOTHER
Just sit down and have your breakfast.
BLACK MAN
Ok. I’ll sit down. I’ll sit down, with my black face, and eat my cornflakes with my big, black mouth.
The Black Man sits down. He goes to tuck into his cornflakes, but pauses – realising that everyone is looking at him.
BLACK MAN (CONT’D)
You’ve done something to my cornflakes, haven’t you?
His family shake their heads. He takes a mouthful of cornflakes, irritated, oblivious to his family stifling their mirth.He momentarily hesitates, and gives a little frown as he chews his cornflakes.
12 February 2007, 12:09:52 | Biffo
12 February 2007, 10:27:55 | Biffo
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