The swearing came to a head yesterday. That sentence sounds much more interesting than it really is, but it was a weird coincidence if nothing else.
Graham Linehan on his blog, often laments that swearing is used as a substitute for jokes, which I tend to agree with. And Richard Herring wrote a blog the other day about an experiment he did for ITV, in which he added swearing to one set, and removed it from another. His conclusion is obvious, but much more intelligent than what will ultimately make it on to the air. Go over to Warming Up to read it.
Then after I had uploaded this week’s podcast, iszi sent me a message asking why I hadn’t bleeped the shits. I never bleep the shits, I only bleep the sexual swear words, because that’s the way I understand the iTunes policy works if you want to be listed as a Cleaned show. There really is no reason we couldn’t be listed as explicit, but I think we both agree that restricting what we can say makes us a bit more creative with our language – and, to back up Mr Herring’s point, when we do decide to use the stronger words, it gives them more impact, and often times makes them funnier. It’s very satisfying calling Piers Morgan a c*nt.
Sometimes I wonder if I swear too much on stage, but no-one has ever mentioned it to me, so it must go unnoticed, or uncared about. I did an interesting experiment this evening as part of the Calvin & Hobbes challenge: I did automatic typing. I’m not sure what else to call it, but I definitely don’t mean I channelled spirits. Basically I sat and typed without thinking, literally typing the first thing that came into my head, without punctuation and without going back to correct mistakes. The weird thing is, there weren’t any swear words – a lot of Man Alives and Gods, but no cussing. That’s fucking weird.
