In praise of Titty and Fanny

This week I have mostly been thinking of ........................swearing!

My musings were brought about by the news that the BBC, in their politically correct crusade, have changed the name of one of the heroines in their new adaptation of the brilliant Arthur Ransome's Swallows and Amazons from the original Titty to the politically correct and seemingly acceptable Tatty. What a lot of absolute cock! (Editor's note; shouldn't that read 'total penis'?)

Now come on, what on Earth is this all about? The Beeb had pledged that their adaption of S & A would be faithful to the original, written before Elf n' Safety prevented children from climbing trees, sailing boats, apprehending criminals and all the other essentials of a well-rounded upbringing, and for that they are to be congratulated. However, it seems that the sensibilities of your 21st century viewer are too delicate to deal with the name Titty.

I can do no better in pointing out the absurdity of this stance than quote verbatim the Torygraph's editorial on this subject;- (but first a photo of Titty)

The 1974 version with Ronald Frazer and some fine Titty

By Telegraph View

6:35AM BST 25 Jun 2015

In the new BBC Films version of Swallows and Amazons one character’s name has been changed. Titty will become Tatty. Really! 

Her name might have made us snigger when we were 12, perhaps, but practically anything could set off a determined searcher for “rude” words. After all, another of the clean-living outdoor crew of the Swallow is Roger. Roger as a verb is quite as “rude” as Titty. 

In any case, if you want to stop people laughing at a name, the best way is to speak out loud and bold. May Dick be always welcome and Fanny praised. Let us see nothing amiss with wee Willie. 

Otherwise we shall end up living in Grace Brothers department store, whooping with laughter at every double entendre, yet petrified to talk of bastard trenching or female joints lest some imaginary listener be offended.

________________________________

For the youngsters amongst our readership. I would point out that Grace Brothers were a department store in the BBC comedy (sic) Are you being served? which featured a hugely camp and mincing shop assistant who was always harping on about stroking Mrs. Slocombe's pussy. Oh the golden days of British comedy! Bastard trenching is a horticultural term meaning double digging (to two spades depth) and caused a lot of problems for the 'Saint of the Sod' Mr. Alan Titchmarsh when he used it recently.

Now I may be wrong, but I reckon that the average pre-pubescent young girl would hate to be called 'tatty' and would much rather be known as 'titty'!

By the way....... I've just noticed that my spell-checker has joined in the act! It is happy with titty (in the mammary sense) but seems to take objection to Titty with a capital. I suspect this is all down to the bloody Americans and their total confusion when it comes to naming private parts. Good old Uncle Sam seems to get its knickers (or panties in a twist - hate that word!) when trying to assign a name to the botty. For the sake of our American chums I will provide a visual clue;-

Ass

Arse

Butt

There, it's easy! The Yanks will soon get the hang of it - and then I'll try to explain the intricacies of the word fanny as we use it in the developed world.

The final word on the Titty/Tatty fudge should probably go to a mature correspondent who opined "When you get to my age most of the titty you meet has gone a bit tatty!"

Talking of our trans-Atlantic cousins, my musings on this subject were further intrigued when President Obama used the N-word.

"Racism, we are not cured of it," the president said. "And it's not just a matter of it not being polite to say nigger in public."  

Now I must admit to be being very, very confused about the use of this word. Of course I would abhor the use of the word as an insult directed against anyone with a black skin (and there are PC problems with using that term I gather. I feel myself walking on thin ice, but will persevere.)

What is confusing is that nigger  has become a popular term of endearment by the descendents of the very people who once had to endure it. Among many young people today—black and white—the n-word can mean friend. All very tricky. I don't much like the idea of a word being hijacked by one section of the community to the exclusion of its use by everyone else. Why are only homosexuals allowed to be gay now? and what happened to the good old word poof?

And while I'm at it....... I wish that the the press would stop using N-word, C-word, F-word and so on.

When I see N-word I immediately start thinking of all the silly words starting with N that could be used in the context, like nincompoop, namby-pamby, nannoplankton and narcissist. The use of N***** is just as bad; I have an urgent need to fill in the missing letters. Is it nitwit, numpty or noodle ? Now this may just be me going slightly demented, but if you put F*** in the paper the average 6-year old, trying to decide which words they can get away with using in polite company, will work out wtf you're on about! 

I think we need to do some serious thinking about this subject, but at the moment I can't be a****!

Bloody Sycophants!

After rejoicing yesterday about Gareth's Knighthood your correspondent was moved close to chundering this morning in reaction to this piece of journalistic bilge about Prince George going to watch his Dad play polo.

A Sunday afternoon, a two year old rolling about on the grass and having good fun (albeit surrounded by the paparazzi). End of, finito, fin de l'exercise .....? Oh no! Not according to the mentally challenged reptiles masquerading as the British press.

Small boy climbing up bank

Sorry! Got that one wrong - in fact George is "struggling to crawl his way up a daunting hill".

Christ mate, it's not the foothills of the bloody Himalayas (and, if I'm not mistaken, neither is that Sherpa Tensing on the left).

Child in dodgy footwear kicks pill

Oh no! Silly me. This is a "self assured" kick. What a crock of shite. He'll be playing centre forward for his father's 'beloved' Aston Villa next. (And while I'm moaning, why are football teams always 'beloved'? My dear lady wife is my 'beloved'. I 'support' Wales, but the thought of having sexual relations with any of that hairy-arsed bunch is appalling.) (Oh I don't know! - Mrs. Bobbledegookist)

Child rolls down hill

I can remember doing this as a kid and landing in a cow pat! I got my arse smacked for being a prat. Young kids today? Don't realise how lucky they are.

I think the final words in this rant should go to Prince George himself;-

Hurrumph!

A Knighthood for Gareth Edwards and a walk down memory lane

Congratulations to the great Gareth Edwards on the well-deserved award of a K in the Queen's Birthday Honours list. GOE was one of Wales' greatest players, a world class scrumhalf if ever there was one and a terrific ambassador for the sport of rugby.

The great man in his pomp

Gareth was reckoned to be possibly the greatest player to ever play for Wales, and who's to gainsay that? He was one of the first scrumhalves to perfect the long spin pass and this did so much to free up the two fabulous outside halves he played with, Barry John and Phil Bennett, during Wales' glory years.

Gareth anguished that his sideburns were not as good as JPR's!

A spot of Googlisation reveals that the commemorative figurines (Groggs) of those days are still available - a fantastic Fathers' Day present if ever there was one.

Groggtastic mates!

Of course, no mention of the Great Man would be complete without reference to THAT try, so for those heathens amongst you who may not have seen it recently, hold on to your hats!;-

Please note that this game was not played in a mist! It's just the crappy quality of the old film! Amazing how the game has changed, the lineout then was mayhem and a great excuse for skullduggerry (and many were skullduggerred!) and there are at least two attempts at decapitation in this clip. Good to hear the dulcet tones of the late, great Cliff Morgan on commentary too.

Mention of Sir Gareth brought back happy(ish) memories for your correspondent of the day when I played against Gareth. As far as I can recall, I haven't thought about this during the 50 years that have elapsed since Gareth and I were callow youths in opposition!

Back in the mid-sixties our provincial Welsh grammar school side were invited to a prestigious sevens tournament in Bristol, and who did we draw in the first round but Millfield School who were then by far the most powerful schoolboy side in England. A trip across the channel was of course an international tour for us and off we set by steam train for the great adventure. There were no bridges across the Severn in those days (small boys in the park, jumpers for goalposts etc.) so other than a trek round via Gloucester (where to this day the locals still eat Welsh people) a trip by rail through Brunel's great Severn Tunnel was the only way to get to foreign parts. Anyway for some reason (probably sheep on the line) our train was late arriving in Bristol and so we had to change on the train and rush to the ground by taxi. God knows where the money for that came from! Somehow the organisers had been informed of our hold up (No idea how, no mobile phones in those days, must have been a carrier pigeon) and generously rescheduled the playing order to give us a chance to arrive. So there we were, straight out of the taxis and onto the pitch to meet the greatest challenge in our lives.

To put it into perspective, Millfield's side were all schoolboy internationals (including JPR Williams, another from the Welsh pantheon) and so we were deep in the doodoo before kickoff. Sadly there was to be no fairytale ending and we were duly beaten by this array of stars, but we gave a good account of ourselves and were certainly not disgraced. I should here record that during the match I inflicted on Gareth the hardest tackle he encountered in his entire playing career but, truth be told, all I can really remember is bouncing off the biggest pair of thighs I'd ever had the misfortune to come across (oooh-er Mrs.!). Actually, neither Gareth nor JPR were the best players on the day; that accolade went to Vaughan Williams, then the Welsh Schools fly half who strangely never made it through to the senior ranks (although he was capped by The Bahamas!). Vaughan Williams died a couple of years back after 30 years of service as Director of Sports at Nottingham University (where incidentally he was indirectly my daughter's employer when she worked as a lifeguard at the University Pool - small world we live in!).

Predictably, after our prodigious efforts against Millfield, we were rubbish in our next tie in the Plate competition and got well tonked. C'est la vie.

This encounter with rugby's royalty was not, however, the only highlight of our day. On our journey home we went to the station buffet at Bristol Temple Meads (named after a New Zealand rugby great) and partook of that rare delicacy Oxtail Soup. Served with two slices of bread and butter, this was the food of the Gods. Now I doubt that this was a speciality of British Rail's catering (all nicely nationalised in those days you see). It probably came out of a tin, but to a bruised and battered sixteen year old it tasted wonderful and I can smell its aroma as I write this drivel.

That delicacy in full
(though we didn't do garnishes in those days,
and certainly not napkins - far too elaborate)

The source of said tit-bit

Of course, I didn't realise the real source of this comestible in those days, so it's only fair to show you where it actually comes from;-

There you have it then, from the Honours System to cows' arses! Some would say it's not too big a leap.

P.S. I saw this headline on the Beeb website just now;-

Gay Priest in action against Church

I decided I'd better not go there!

The Sound of Merkel

Well, you knew I couldn't resist it!

Bobbledegook is proud to announce its first ever caption competition.

To celebrate the fact that readers (plural? - Ed.) can now communicate with Bobbledegook by posting a comment (just click on the 'comment' link at the end of the post) we are proud to present this photo of the Feisty Fraulein and POTUS in an alpine setting reminiscent of The Sound of Mucus (That's what Christopher Plummer called it!).

Just add an (in)appropriate comment for Angele, Barack or both.

Please feel free to add a comment to this or any other post. Bobbledegook welcomes your observations and criticisms and would love to receive any links that you can provide to stories that might be worth having a go at. 

Just remember that if you get too abusive, my 'chums' and I know where you live, and will be round PDQ with the baseball bats.

Crumbs!

Your correspondent was appalled this morning when the Torygraph (which is normally sound on matters concerning God's greatest confection) carried a front page article bemoaning the imminent death of the traditional British wedding cake.

The article (which was close to pornographic in my opinion) went on to describe said culinary masterpiece in the following disparaging tones;- "the idiosyncratically British combination of brown and slightly-too-dry fruitcake with a hint of something alcoholic." At this point I spluttered over my toast and marmite and was only saved by my good lady wife supplying a substantial portion of said great comestible produced in accordance with the recipe handed down from her grand-mother.

For those of you who are feeling (understandably!) nauseous at this disgraceful proposition, my apologies. Here is a picture to brighten your hearts;-

and a picture of Her Maj. cutting off a couple of slices for her mates.

That's got the bugger, ma'am!

The Royal Family and the traditional fruitcake are, of course, the binding ingredients which have kept this country together through two World Wars, the recession and countless humiliations in the Eurovision Song Contest.

The Queen and Phil the Greek on their wedding day. Note how the Duke of Edinburgh has come suitably equipped for the cake cutting duties which are to become an integral part of his life. "Brought the bloody broadsword along for this one Liz."












You won't find PtheG eating any 'American-style cupcakes' or 'rich chocolate and sponge-based varieties' as suggested in the paper, oh no! If the bride and groom were to indulge in such namby - pamby products for the wedding breakfast, how could they keep the top tier for the christening of their first born? (Note from the Editor: Have you been to a modern wedding? It's usually the bride's children by her previous liaisons who scoff the cake in the first place.) Imagine having the family fridge full of decaying Ben & Jerry's slush filled wed-o-gateau for the early years of marriage.

The heir to the throne whips out a big 'un!

What is the Duchess thinking?

It's a Royal edict you know!

Feeling somewhat more at ease now, and buttering a couple of rounds of crumpet and thick-cut marmalade, I turned back to the paper to look for the source of the 'research' behind this appalling article.

It transpires that this is the result of a survey by that well-known and much respected institution LateRooms.com!

Now I don't want to appear snobbish, but couples whose main interest in booking their nuptuals is to try and get a cheap deal on the accommodation may not be representative of the Great British, cake loving, dewy-eyed populace at large! LateRooms offer a very good cut-price hotel booking service, but as social commentators and experts on the world of sultana-based foodstuffs they leave much to be desired.

Cake making as we remember it!

So cake-lovers - be not afraid! The great British fruit cake in all her magnificent manifestations remains central to our way of life. To quote Winston Churchill - "we shall eat them on the beaches,

we shall eat them on the landing grounds, we shall eat them in the fields and in the streets,
we shall eat them in the hills......."

Michael D. Higgins - small but perfectly formed!

This post is dedicated to that great Irishman (Are you taking the piss already? We'll have no dwarfophobia here! - Ed.) Michael D. Higgins who popped up this lunchtime when he was presented to the teams before the Republic of Ireland v England football match. It was touching to see that each player was accompanied onto the pitch by a small child so that Michael would not feel intimidated when he arrived for the presentation.

T'ank God for that! I was getting a right crick in me neck!

Michael D. is Ireland's Ceremonial Leprechaun (or President in Gaelic) and lives in a palatially appointed hutch under the West Stand of Dublin's Aviva Stadium. He is wheeled out for all the great sporting occasions to the traditional Irish greeting of "Bejaysus, now who's that little bastard to be sure?"

Michael is unstinting in his support for Irish sporting giants;-

The Big Man with the Dwarf Sports Team of Ireland
prior to their departure for the 2013 Dwarf Games in Michigan

MDH with Paul O'Connell, Irish rugby captain
"Jaysus Paul, will ye look on the size of you!"

When not meeting and greeting sporting nobility MickeyD likes to dabble in the arts. He is obviously very much in demand during the panto season and is a regular guest as Reverend Timms in the much loved children's series Postman Pat.

Reverend Timms                                  Michael  D    

Michael is seen here in his official regalia
as State Leprechaun in Chief

Michael is seen here taking his first bicycle ride without stabilisers.








Micky Bhoy is also a published poet. His works include "The death of the Red Cow" and "Arse".
(Editor's note: Sorry about that! The last one should have been 'The Ass' - an ode to a donkey.)

Michael's official business card

Despite his limited height, Mikey has never found it hard to take his place at the political top table (as long as someone remembers to bring the baby chair).

Michael's fame is celebrated in the hit song "Michael D. Rocking in the Dáil" by popular Tuam band the Saw Doctors. (The Dáil is the Irish Parliament - I only put this in because I'm please to have discovered how to type accented characters. If you want to know what Tuam means, look it up for yourself .)

I urge readers to watch this clip in its entirety. A catchy little number with some great shots of our hero.

It is a little known fact that the Higgs Boson discovered at CERN recently was originally called the Higgins particle in honour of our hero, being miniscule in size but massive in its stature. Then some obscure old Scottish physicist by the name of Higgs turned up to claim that he invented the thing and the rest, as they say, is history.

Having extracted the urine from the poor wee man, it's only fair to end on a serious note and I am proud to add the following text, the words to Michael's latest poem The Prophets are Weeping. This is the only poem he has published since becoming President and its references to extremism and the displacement of people in the Middle East certainly makes you think.

The Prophets are Weeping

To those on the road it is reported that
The Prophets are weeping,
At the abuse
Of their words,
Scattered to sow an evil seed.

Rumour has it that,
The Prophets are weeping,
At their texts distorted,
The death and destruction,
Imposed in their name.

The sun burns down,
On the children who are crying,
On the long journeys repeated,
Their questions not answered.

Mothers and Fathers hide their faces,
Unable to explain,
Why they must endlessly,
No end in sight,
Move for shelter,
for food, for safety, for hope.

The Prophets are weeping,
For the words that have been stolen,
From texts that once offered,
To reveal in ancient times,
A shared space,
Of love and care,
Above all for the stranger.

Great words Michael. Thank you for that.

Blatt's All Folks!

The world of geriatric sexual fumbling was shaken to its very core last night on the shock news that arch groper Sepp Blatter had resigned as president of FIFA (Federation International of the Fornicating Aged)

Bladder, aged 78, has long been looked upon as a beacon of light in the otherwise barren world of over-seventies shagging.

Sclhepp with his latest conquest (as of Monday at least) Linda Bareass

Mr. Bladder's fans in the UK  (Sid and Doris Gone-Dogging) were aghast at the news. "Old Shep has always been an inspiration to us randy pensioners" said a visibly shaken Sid. "He has seen it as his mission to to spread the "beautiful game" to all corners of the globe and has sewn his aged wild oats across every continent without fear or favour, and without any thought of the cost to his health and to FIFA's funds." Doris was equally effusive;- "We just love the old goat! How we ladies wish we were getting a bit of what Linda's had. No wonder she's got a smile on her face (and is keeping a good grip on her handbag)."

Pressure has been growing on Herr Splatter in recent months with the international press insinuating that Splatter has been indulging his droit du seigneur rather too freely, especially amongst the developing nations of Africa and Asia. "The allegation that Sepp has been bribing black beauties and Asian babes to gain their sexual favours is a gross calumny" said Splatter's aide (The Porteur of the Prophylactic) Mr Johnny Carrier. "Mr Belter is an experienced knobbeur, and his attraction to the younger woman is the size of his genitals, not the size of his wallet."

Other members of FIFA gave their comments last night;-

Christ! Nearly had my eye out there!

Formula One Supremo Bernie Ecclestone
is a board member of FIFA.
"I may stand now that Slept has moved over.
I'm confident of cornering the dwarf vote.
Aren't these marvellous super-chargers?!"










Ageing Scotrocker Rod Stewpot has always been a fan of Belter. "They didn't call him 'Old Shep' for nothing - he could sniff out available crumpet at a distance of 100 m"

Rod claims that FIFA has made his very existence worthwhile. "Ageing Nookie was once a problem" said Rod, "now I seem to have my handful!"

"Not quite what I had in mind when you suggested a leg-over!"

Ageing Lothario Bruce Forsythe is also a FIFA member.







Young bimbos across the world were united in their grief at the news that Slapp Better was calling it a day. The young laideeeeeees (or Slappers as they are known) are thought to be trying to get Il Presidente to reconsider his retirement decision. Feelme Thunderthighs, one of Slapp's go-to 'assistantes' said, "Don't you worry, we'll ensure that the old dear always has a place to lay his wallet. There's money in the old dog yet!"

We leave you with some of our favourite images of The Supremo of the Sack;-

Blather with his prized 'Shagger of the Year'
trophy

Sepp gets the red card
(Note the cunningly concealed bribe-belt)

Ever the showman, Sepp signs off with his
famous Private Pike impression

Small Ads Section

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Bungs (Bids, shurely -Ed.) in a plain brown envelope to Dodge E. Dealer, Bribe-Master on Camel, c/o The Emir of Qatar, Arabian Gulf. (Cash only, US dollars preferred, buyer collects.)