The Death of Humour

I had a very funny title which I was tempted to use for a post which I put on this blog yesterday and which I was also tempted to tweet.

Unfortunately it would have been all too easy for a malicious person or political opponent to misrepresent it as a sneer against the people of West Cumbria.

It wouldn't have been, and most people reading it would not have taken it that way, but it only takes one person of ill-intent to quote something out of context and you're in trouble - look what happened to Emily Thornberry when she tweeted a picture of a house with a white van outside and some large England flags and the words "Image from Rochester." So I didn't use the joke.

Boris Johnson and one or two other people that I know seem to be able to get away with it, but sadly these days one has to exercise a degree of self-censorship which takes a lot of the fun and spontaneity out of politics.

Comments

Jim said…
You should have posted it anyway. The main thing with Emily Thornberry was her reaction when asked what she meant by it, not the quote itself.
Though even what was wrong with that escaped me.

The really really sad part is that the people who may have taken it badly are the same who not so long ago were tweeting "Je Suis Charlie".

going off on a bit of a related tangent, another point of course would be to sneer at the people of West Cumbria, would be to sneer at yourself. Which we are all allowed to do. Granted you perhaps were not born in west cumbria, but you have lived here long enough to consider yourself a west cumbrian. Its not like it has the test of birth like the US Presidency.

Thats one i also came across by accident about people here joking about me being from Whitehaven. one said born a jam eater always a jam eater. I asked were they were born, of course most people who were "born and bred in Workington" actually were not. If the vast majority of them check their passports they quickly learn it says PLACE OF BIRTH : WHITEHAVEN. And of course it does, simply because that is the location of West Cumberland Hospital, the place most children in west cumbria are born.
5:18 pm
Jim said…
and now we have that there, you can tell us in context what your funny title was going to be.
7:08 pm
Chris Whiteside said…
A good point. I will email it to you in confidence.
10:21 pm
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