Catherine Tate’s Christmas Nostaligia
THE people who watch TV shows they don’t like and then call the BBC to complain say the Catherine Tate Christmas Special was the “most offensive” programme on the box this Christmas.
Anorak loves few things more than watching TV it hates. Each morning is passed to Jeremy Kyle’s soundtrack of “Be a man!”, “Do you love yer kids?” and “We all have your problem, pal!”. Afternoons are spent with Anthea Turner telling us how to live life as a doily. Evenings with the Monarch of the Glenn fans club are a must.
There is much more offensive stuff on the telly than Tate, especially over Christmas when Dickens gets dusted off and Morecambe and Wise dance with sausages (why do they not at least show the Andre Previn sketch?).
Ofcom is looking into allegations of “excessive swearing”, reports the Times. Incredible. Can you swear excessively on the telly? Gordon Ramsay tells us to make steak and chip from a “fucking cow” and some “fucking potatoes”. Even when we ask for the ingredients at the supermarket, no-one blushes.
Congratulations to Tate of discovering that sweating can still shock. (Do you rememberethe first time [insert health warning here] “cunt” was heard on British TV? John Lydon utterd it on I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out of Here!)
On Tate’s show, it her character Nan’s lot to embark on a swearing competition with her daughter (see clip). What hope Ramsay was watching and will add some invention to his usual outpouring?
TV loves remind us of the first time “fuck” was uttered on the telly. It passes for TV nostalgia, one of those clips that you expect to see at Christmas, sandwiched in between Del Boy’s Filofax and Emu biting Parky.
In time, Tate’s swearing contest may well become a “classic clip”. And we will tune and be taken back to those halcyon days when we first heard the phrase “jizz tonsils”.
“What does that mean, grandpa?” the kids will ask. “Don’t tell him, Pike,” says the BBC, over and over and over again…
December 28th, 2007 at 5:32 pm
Well, fuck me.
December 28th, 2007 at 6:33 pm
Fuck-a-duck.
I once interviewed a rugby team and spent the beet part of night singing songs about “finger f*ck a duck”, “lick out a trout”, “gang bang an orangutan” etc. each verse ending with the honoured and hideously drunken “fuck a wallaby”
December 28th, 2007 at 8:47 pm
I once interviewed a rugby team and spent the beet part of night…
Good to see Anorak honouring his roots…
December 28th, 2007 at 8:50 pm
… though surprised at his ignorance of just why it was necessary to tie the kangaroo down, sport…
December 29th, 2007 at 12:45 am
What I didn’t like was her use of an Asian man as a punchline. He walked in the room and the audience laughed like something out of the 1970s, then she said ‘there’s an Asian in my living-room’ and I switched over. Naff. Lazy. Old-fashioned. Boring. I’d rather watch Bernard Manning (I really would, at least he was funny, in a nasty way).
December 29th, 2007 at 7:02 am
but the joke is all on her -
December 30th, 2007 at 2:53 am
Catherine Tate has lost it for the moment. She was so good to begin with. Hope she gets back on track.
January 3rd, 2008 at 10:40 pm
I’m glad to finally see which scene in particular has been getting everyone’s knickers in a twist. I actually thought Nan’s scene with Charlotte Church scene was a bit darker that the mother-is-like-the-daughter bit. Nevertheless, I like Tate’s stuff and have no problem with it - in fact, I’m glad it’s here, in this post-911 world of heightened sensitivies and hidden agendas.