The slow death of comedy and humour.

[ketteringram]

1 hour ago, Normanton Lad said:

I don't know if that is funny or not. I don't find much funny nowadays, but your post has reminded me of something I was told years ago. I used to work with a guy in the early 1970s who said that during the war he could see Coventry burning from Derby. He wasn't the type to make things up but I found that hard to believe.  I wonder if someone a bit smarter than me can say if that was possible.

Maybe? They did drop 30,000 incendiary bombs , plus 500 tons of high explosives , using over 500 bombers over about 11 hours.

 

[AndyinLiverpool]

1 hour ago, Normanton Lad said:

I don't know if that is funny or not. I don't find much funny nowadays, but your post has reminded me of something I was told years ago. I used to work with a guy in the early 1970s who said that during the war he could see Coventry burning from Derby. He wasn't the type to make things up but I found that hard to believe.  I wonder if someone a bit smarter than me can say if that was possible.

My grandmother watched it from her house in Arley, North Warwickshire but that's only 6 or 7 miles north of Coventry. I imaging that the glow would have been visible in the sky for many many miles, though.

[Normanton Lad]

This site says “the flames were so intense they could be seen from a hundred miles away”. How do they know this? Many of the things we are told are probably exaggerations or lies so I don’t like accepting claims without some sort of proof.

The link mentions German planes using the flames to guide them towards Coventry. I don’t doubt that you would see Coventry burning from a plane a long way away, but my witness said he watched it from his house at night. If it was at night then he is not talking about the smoke. You would see that for many miles. He must have been talking about the light from the flames.

Coventry burning

Given the curvature of the Earth is it possible to see sky above a point a 100 or even 50 miles away?

[Gee SCREAMER !!]

My grandma lived in Coventry during the war, they moved there as her dad was a baker and Coventry was a boom city with loads of work.  She told my aunt many grim stories including one where a German pilot who survived a crash landing was pushed back into the flames of his burning wreckage upon escape.  An incendiary also landed in the alley way beside the house but didn't go off. The cathedral in Derby was a primary lookout point regionally for air raids . As the second tallest church tower in England it would be feasible to see something from there I imagine. 

[ketteringram]

1 hour ago, Normanton Lad said:

This site says “the flames were so intense they could be seen from a hundred miles away”. How do they know this? Many of the things we are told are probably exaggerations or lies so I don’t like accepting claims without some sort of proof.

 

If you like some sort of proof about things that happened in the past, do you believe anything?

[Normanton Lad]

28 minutes ago, ketteringram said:

If you like some sort of proof about things that happened in the past, do you believe anything?

Not much. Most of the things I used to believe I no longer believe. Many of the things I have been told in my life are lies or exaggerations. I don't accept much of what I see on the news as objective and fair. I think most people are too trusting.

I don't even trust my own memories. We all have memories of games where a player did this or that and then we look at the historical record and we find that player wasn't even playing in that game. I saw something like that in a comment about the famous England - Hungary game at Wembley where a poster said all the English players were useless apart from Johnny Haynes. He gave the impression that he was at the game, but Haynes wasn't even in the team. 

We lie to others and ourselves all the time. If you were completely honest nobody would have anything to do with you.

[Pearl Ram]

                                                                

[Angry Ram]

Someone has killed comedy on this thread. 

[Rev]

8 hours ago, Angry Ram said:

Someone has killed comedy on this thread. 

That's normally my job!

[Yani P]

I think a lot of this actually only exists inside Twitter and other social media bubbles..many like minded people actually only a tiny minority of the population who have convinced themselves that they are right to be outraged by pretty much anything.

The vast majority of the population just look on amazed but sadly do nothing to address the cancel culture. It's a laughable thing really but very dangerous in other ways.

[EtoileSportiveDeDerby]

Sean Lock RIP

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-58254859

Brilliant on 8 out of 10 cats

 

[Stive Pesley]

On 12/04/2021 at 11:34, Anag Ram said:

I watched Jimmy Carr on Netflix yesterday and I think he smashed about twenty taboos in one show. 

If he'd said any of it at a council meeting he would have been shot.

So time and place does seem to apply. 

Yes he'll be fine as long as he only does it on Netflix ?

[Boycie]

Ricky Gervais sums it up perfectly for me.

"I think a lot of this pious offense comes from people mistaking the target of the joke with the subject.

"You can joke about anything, but it depends on what the actual target is. If you use irony and people see that at face value and think you're saying one thing but you're actually saying the opposite. 

"Even the critical thinkers, if it's a subject that's personal to them, they can't see the wood for the trees, they can't see objectively. People laugh at 19 of the terrible subjects I joke about, but not the 20th because that affects them."

[Stive Pesley]

8 minutes ago, Boycie said:

Ricky Gervais sums it up perfectly for me.

"I think a lot of this pious offense comes from people mistaking the target of the joke with the subject.

"You can joke about anything, but it depends on what the actual target is. If you use irony and people see that at face value and think you're saying one thing but you're actually saying the opposite. 

"Even the critical thinkers, if it's a subject that's personal to them, they can't see the wood for the trees, they can't see objectively. People laugh at 19 of the terrible subjects I joke about, but not the 20th because that affects them."

Yeah - i partly agree with that.

But I stand by my view that if the butt of a joke affects you, then you have just as much right to be offended by it as the comedian has to make the joke.

In the case of Jimmy Carr, I don't think there is a great deal of irony involved - he's just riffing on the fact that a lot of people don't like gypsies. It's just base level populist humour in the same vein as your Chubby Browns. I didn't laugh at the joke, just made me think he was a tit. I think calling for him to be "cancelled" is largely counter-productive

We just end up with people trying to cancel the people who want him cancelled - seemingly oblivious to the free speech they want to protect working both ways

 

 

 

 

 

[Tyler Durden]

I've always had it drummed into me by HR at work that if someone is offended by a comment from someone else then they feel offended. 

[JoetheRam]

31 minutes ago, Tyler Durden said:

I've always had it drummed into me by HR at work that if someone is offended by a comment from someone else then they feel offended. 

I agree they do but what actually happens when you are offended?

What does that feel like because I am genuinely struggling to recall a time I was offended by anything or anyone. What does it mean to be offended?

Maybe that makes me a psychopath or something, I dunno.

[RoyMac5]

4 minutes ago, JoetheRam said:

I agree they do but what actually happens when you are offended?

What does that feel like because I am genuinely struggling to recall a time I was offended by anything or anyone. What does it mean to be offended?

Maybe that makes me a psychopath or something, I dunno.

Try some empathy?

[Anag Ram]

So, my take on it is this.

From an early age,most people start storing up resentment and bitterness. All the times we have felt hard done by, unfairly treated, bullied or abused fester within us.

We can’t wait to unleash it on any minority that isn’t us. Sometimes this is relatively innocuous banter at someone’s expense, sometimes more serious bigoted behaviours with extremes stretching to violence.

Comedy is often the majority laughing at the minority, picking on easy targets to make us feel a little less victimised. If there’s enough people laughing at the same thing that’s got to be okay, right? It’s a release valve for resentment.

So when there’s an audience that hears a group being attacked, especially one it feels has been ‘getting away with it’ like the alternative lifestyle enjoyed by ‘gypsies’’ (a million miles away from the group persecuted and killed by the Nazis) there’s an urge to laugh.

It’s that need to laugh we feel in church because we know we shouldn’t.

Comedians are naughty boys and girls encouraging us to be naughty boys and girls.

I wouldn’t personally laugh at Carr’s  jokes in this instance but I have laughed at other jokes in ‘poor taste’.

[Tyler Durden]

2 minutes ago, JoetheRam said:

I agree they do but what actually happens when you are offended?

What does that feel like because I am genuinely struggling to recall a time I was offended by anything or anyone. What does it mean to be offended?

Maybe that makes me a psychopath or something, I dunno.

Fair comment, I guess some people's internal filters are more heightened than others if that's the correct word?

I used to work in an open plan office and the Technical Manager there was a very religious person and any mention of blasphemy or mild cuss words and they would be straight in the HR Office complaining. It was an extremely difficult situation to manage quite frankly as for me if someone said Jesus H it would have no real impact but for them was totally unacceptable. 

[JoetheRam]

3 minutes ago, RoyMac5 said:

Try some empathy?

Tried that. Comedown was a bar steward.