Stive Pesley

I see Bernard Manning mentioned a couple of times. And that's a good example as to why it's not so much comedy that has changed, but the societal and technological constructs around it.
Manning (and as another example - Chubby Brown) have always been known as offensive base humour comedians since I was a kid in the late 70s and 80s. They were rarely on TV because the channels knew they would be deluged with complaints. But still plenty of people found them funny and they sold out gigs wherever they went, What was said within the 4 walls of that gig stayed there. If you found them offensive and unfunny you didn't attend. Simpler times for sure, but doesn't mean a huge number of people didn't consider them offensive. There was just no point in going on about it, it was just something that we tolerated.
But now we have social media and a 24/7 news culture that depends on public outrage for it's very existence, and its exhausting and very very tiresome. "The offended" constantly pitted against "the anti-woke brigade" - neither side realising that they are being played just the same
 
 
 

That's just the sort if thing I imagine the "treating other people with respect" brigade would post. Scum!

I'd not heard of her, and somehow had managed to miss this particular  "controversy" (thank god). 
But I think that's quite a false equivalence to say that it's no different to Trump. Having watched the clip it's a clear ironic exposition joke. And there were 42 complaints (from people either deliberately missing the joke or worse, just didn't get it), which wouldn't have even made the news if the Daily Mail hadn't pestered Ofcom for the stats and then made it news
Trump on the other hand was never "just joking", so inappropriate to bring him up in a topic about comedy. And we talked about "knowing your audience" - he was tweeting to his 80 million followers..as the most powerful man in the western world

Doesn't sound like it will be long - the news last night seemed to be suggesting that all over 40s would be vaccinated by Easter - that's only 3 weeks away. It's taking roughly a week to vaccinate the age groups in blocks of 5 years, so that sort of almost adds up.

If you get mild side effects from the vaccine (such as aches/pains or flu-like symptoms), you're advised to take paracetamol. If you read the warnings in the packet of the potential side-effects from Paracetamol, you may well have a heart-attack as they're considerably more serious than the health issues people are panicking about from the vaccine....

I've just read a report that basically states there's nothing in the vacine that would cause blood clots and in any case the total number of cases is so small as to be insignificant statistically when looking at the side effects of a mass immunisation programme.
In addition, it was pointed out than when dealing with a pandemic, pausing immuniation due to side effects without a clear link (or reducing immunisation rates as several of our EU friends have done) can actually be worse than sticking with the programme as more folk will now die from Covid in those countries.... 

Yeah - and that's how it should be.
The problem comes when it's involuntarily foisted onto you by the media (and by others on social media) - and then invited to express your opinion on it. Most people seem incapable of resisting that invitation, and so it snowballs
I don't find her especially funny either - and let's remember that she was subject to the same attempt at cancellation over the battery acid joke in 2019
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-49508231
Her career was so ruined that she..erm checks notes...has appeared on TV frequently and was one of the headline comperes on the BBC Funny Festival last week
Which illustrates the point that the whole "cancel culture" thing is yet one more thing that doesn't actually exist oustide of the media's culture war baiting business model
 
 

People still would have been offended by the same jokes told today, 40 years ago. People now just have a platform to make that offense known. Like others have said, you have to know your audience. 

Yeah it did seem to have quite a negative tone, but then the last paragraph at least attempted to redeem itself
Which is essentially what you are saying - none of the challenges are insurmountable. I think what he's done is assumed that because no one in the media is talking about the boring problem of how you power a martian colony, it means that no one has thought of it. I'm certain that can't possibly be the case!

Thanks. Interesting, but I suggest far too negative. But right to point out that a colony will require a lot of energy.
Initially there's a lot of space on Mars for a lot of solar panels. and with people there we can clean the dust off most of the time. Then the option not even mentioned here is space-based solar power, with stations in orbit around Mars in permanent sunshine beaming the energy down. We're getting closer to this on Earth and the technology is instantly transferable to a Mars colony. Then nuclear is an option within a much shorter timeframe than the 200 years mentioned. The writer doesn't understand the accelerating pace of technological progress. Any Martian colony will likely end up refining its own uranium fairly quickly when we see that technology fairly easy to develop and maintain on Earth.
With a spacefaring capacity on Mars it's so much easier to also industrialize the asteroid belt, as you don't have to escape Earth's deep gravity, so that will happen within 50 years not 200. Though the point of Mars is that it does have the resources needed in situ.
The piece talks so much about a colony of 12 people and doesn't grasp the transformational nature of what SpaceX is trying to achieve. This is about the democratization of space. It's not about 12 people or even 12,000. It's hundreds of thousands. The Starships being built are cheap and relatively easy to build and SpaceX will be building one a week and then even faster. This means even in the early days there will be a vast cargo capability to Mars, taking far more than anyone would at one time (and even now for this author) have thought possible to carry to the red planet.
 

bit of an over-exaggeration? Are there really "a number  of things being cancelled on a daily basis"? Or is it just the usual media tactic of hammering stories to get ad-clicks from the inevitable polarised reaction?
For what it's worth, I think that anyone should be able to joke about anything - but the flipside of that is that they have to consider the audience/platform and if they get that wrong then they can't be surprised if someone calls them out for it. They just need to be prepared to defend themselves or apologise (whichever they prefer). Taking the "oh it's PC gone mad" stance is a weak excuse. Be accountable for your words or STFU
Remember that this is a two-sided argument after all - you have a right to tell what jokes you like, just as much as someone else has the right to say that they don't find it funny. Works both ways. If you're really complaining that you can't joke about stuff without being told you're not funny, then is your skin really any thinner than the person who you deem to be "over-reacting"?
 

I see Bernard Manning mentioned a couple of times. And that's a good example as to why it's not so much comedy that has changed, but the societal and technological constructs around it.
Manning (and as another example - Chubby Brown) have always been known as offensive base humour comedians since I was a kid in the late 70s and 80s. They were rarely on TV because the channels knew they would be deluged with complaints. But still plenty of people found them funny and they sold out gigs wherever they went, What was said within the 4 walls of that gig stayed there. If you found them offensive and unfunny you didn't attend. Simpler times for sure, but doesn't mean a huge number of people didn't consider them offensive. There was just no point in going on about it, it was just something that we tolerated.
But now we have social media and a 24/7 news culture that depends on public outrage for it's very existence, and its exhausting and very very tiresome. "The offended" constantly pitted against "the anti-woke brigade" - neither side realising that they are being played just the same
 
 
 

An interesting piece about the challenges of how we power an inhabited base on Mars in the future
https://medium.com/predict/mars-big-problem-does-elon-know-7453dcb5feaf
TL;DR with great difficulty
 

I would have gone to the local surgery but it's all been centrallised due to Covid - Royal is fairly convenient and the booking system works well - just need to take a 2m stick with me if I have to go again ?

I've just realised your mourning the death of The Mash Report. I know, cancel culture is real.

We certainly are. Looks like cases are staring to plateau now, which is as expected given where we are with the vaccination programme and the temporary decline / 2nd jabs.
As you say, expect an increase in cases, the worry is always that we still have a lot of the country that hasn't had a jab yet, so there is still a risk that these translate into serious cases. Given the age population left though, it would IMO need to be a big uplift in cases for this to materialise.
My own view is that we have had our "3rd Wave", it was just a continuation of the 2nd which is what other countries are seeing now. I don't think / hope there is anything to worry about, especially given the variant over in Germany I believe is the one that formed the mainstay of our cases. 

We're down to basically a regular full ICU's worth of Covid patients now, so whilst still incredibly busy by normal standards, we're in a far far better than we were 2 months ago.
Vaccine has been the game changer and hopefully that continues as uptake increases further.
Increase in cases will happen as things start to open up and expect another week or so will see the impact of schools going back, but it's irrelevant if cases don't translate into serious disease.
Hopefully any malicious variants can be contained.
We're on the up.

I see Bernard Manning mentioned a couple of times. And that's a good example as to why it's not so much comedy that has changed, but the societal and technological constructs around it.
Manning (and as another example - Chubby Brown) have always been known as offensive base humour comedians since I was a kid in the late 70s and 80s. They were rarely on TV because the channels knew they would be deluged with complaints. But still plenty of people found them funny and they sold out gigs wherever they went, What was said within the 4 walls of that gig stayed there. If you found them offensive and unfunny you didn't attend. Simpler times for sure, but doesn't mean a huge number of people didn't consider them offensive. There was just no point in going on about it, it was just something that we tolerated.
But now we have social media and a 24/7 news culture that depends on public outrage for it's very existence, and its exhausting and very very tiresome. "The offended" constantly pitted against "the anti-woke brigade" - neither side realising that they are being played just the same
 
 
 

One thing I can't get my head around is the number of people who take objection to a particular comedian or group of comedians, or a particular style of comedy.
Pick one, and go look for a gig advertised on Facebook and read the public comments. 
"Not funny". "Would rather bleed from the eyes". "Worst comedian ever". People have to tell you their personal opinion, and post it as gospel.
So, if it's not your thing, don't watch it. I don't particularly care for a lot of comedy, but that's just my personal preference. Others views vary. You don't have to take it personally that they are aiming for a market that doesn't include you.

I see Bernard Manning mentioned a couple of times. And that's a good example as to why it's not so much comedy that has changed, but the societal and technological constructs around it.
Manning (and as another example - Chubby Brown) have always been known as offensive base humour comedians since I was a kid in the late 70s and 80s. They were rarely on TV because the channels knew they would be deluged with complaints. But still plenty of people found them funny and they sold out gigs wherever they went, What was said within the 4 walls of that gig stayed there. If you found them offensive and unfunny you didn't attend. Simpler times for sure, but doesn't mean a huge number of people didn't consider them offensive. There was just no point in going on about it, it was just something that we tolerated.
But now we have social media and a 24/7 news culture that depends on public outrage for it's very existence, and its exhausting and very very tiresome. "The offended" constantly pitted against "the anti-woke brigade" - neither side realising that they are being played just the same
 
 
 

Working in a factory for 40 years I don't see any change in humour, jokes etc. Daft jokes amongst workmates continue aplenty on the shop floor.
WhatsApp jokes proliferate amongst my groups.
The issue is on wider social media where you don't know your audience, thats whats different, not real people in real life.

Comedy is subjective. And can also be complex, with multiple levels to a joke. Likewise some jokes are just mean-spirited blunt instruments
For example, if the sole premise of a Ginger joke is "haha they have orange hair" then it's not actually that funny is it? Regardless of whether it's offensive or not. It's just not a very subtle joke.
Whereas the Prince Harry/Ginger joke in the other thread at least worked on different levels. Taking the crap and tired cliche old joke about ginger hair somehow being regarded as a bad thing and saying "he'd done alright for a ginger" - when he's a filthy rich titled member of the British Royal Family - his ginger hair is not really the reason he's "done alright"
I think most people get the distinction, but quite often those who moan about how "you cant joke about x any more" are the people who simply aren't funny and need an excuse as to why no one is laughing at their weak gags
 

bit of an over-exaggeration? Are there really "a number  of things being cancelled on a daily basis"? Or is it just the usual media tactic of hammering stories to get ad-clicks from the inevitable polarised reaction?
For what it's worth, I think that anyone should be able to joke about anything - but the flipside of that is that they have to consider the audience/platform and if they get that wrong then they can't be surprised if someone calls them out for it. They just need to be prepared to defend themselves or apologise (whichever they prefer). Taking the "oh it's PC gone mad" stance is a weak excuse. Be accountable for your words or STFU
Remember that this is a two-sided argument after all - you have a right to tell what jokes you like, just as much as someone else has the right to say that they don't find it funny. Works both ways. If you're really complaining that you can't joke about stuff without being told you're not funny, then is your skin really any thinner than the person who you deem to be "over-reacting"?
 

bit of an over-exaggeration? Are there really "a number  of things being cancelled on a daily basis"? Or is it just the usual media tactic of hammering stories to get ad-clicks from the inevitable polarised reaction?
For what it's worth, I think that anyone should be able to joke about anything - but the flipside of that is that they have to consider the audience/platform and if they get that wrong then they can't be surprised if someone calls them out for it. They just need to be prepared to defend themselves or apologise (whichever they prefer). Taking the "oh it's PC gone mad" stance is a weak excuse. Be accountable for your words or STFU
Remember that this is a two-sided argument after all - you have a right to tell what jokes you like, just as much as someone else has the right to say that they don't find it funny. Works both ways. If you're really complaining that you can't joke about stuff without being told you're not funny, then is your skin really any thinner than the person who you deem to be "over-reacting"?
 

Comedy is subjective. And can also be complex, with multiple levels to a joke. Likewise some jokes are just mean-spirited blunt instruments
For example, if the sole premise of a Ginger joke is "haha they have orange hair" then it's not actually that funny is it? Regardless of whether it's offensive or not. It's just not a very subtle joke.
Whereas the Prince Harry/Ginger joke in the other thread at least worked on different levels. Taking the crap and tired cliche old joke about ginger hair somehow being regarded as a bad thing and saying "he'd done alright for a ginger" - when he's a filthy rich titled member of the British Royal Family - his ginger hair is not really the reason he's "done alright"
I think most people get the distinction, but quite often those who moan about how "you cant joke about x any more" are the people who simply aren't funny and need an excuse as to why no one is laughing at their weak gags