when I was spiritual adviser to the England football team. I had to leave because I just couldn’t handle their attitude to women. You’ve got to worry when the movie on the team bus is The Accused. But you had to admire the simplicity of Sven’s team talks. He’d simply stand in the dressing room and say, ‘There are women out there.’ The team wouldn’t even leave by the door. They’d eat their way out onto the pitch through the dressing-room walls. Then for a while I ran an art project getting sex criminals and serial killers to send their ideas to television companies. It was always something they’d already thought of.
It’s interesting for me to see the things people choose to get offended about and the things they let slide. Earlier this year I had to quit my Daily Record column over a moral disagreement. We disagreed over whether it was OK to make jokes about a dead child molester. It’s not that I wasn’t a fan of Michael Jackson – I was a big fan when I was 8. I didn’t know it at the time, but I was his ‘type’. For his London concerts Michael Jackson advertised for children in wheelchairs or with missing legs. What parent would agree to that? Look what happened to kids who could run away! Those tickets sold out in minutes. An interesting attitude we have to paedophilia in this country: ‘We don’t want paedophiles round here … unless they’ve really worked on their choreography.’
We can all learn something from Michael’s life. For example, it looks like oxygen tents are a big waste of money. Apparently when the news of his death broke, Jackson’s father rushed straight to the hospital just to check if the medics needed a hand with beating Michael’s chest. The man may be gone but he has left a musical legacy that will be around for hundreds of years. As will his face.
There’s a really grim pro-censorship lobby that seems to be thriving at the moment. The Daily Mail and these religious maniacs must be stopped. They won’t rest until all telly has been cleansed. Until there’s no swearing and Walking with Dinosaurs is exposed as the heretical lie it is. They’ll be Walking with Creationists – ‘Our story begins 7,000 years ago when God created the earth – exactly like it is today. Here’s a Tyrannosaurus rex, being buried by God to test our faith.’ These are the same nutcases who complained that having Fiona Bruce present Antiques Roadshow was disgraceful and encouraged lustful thoughts. Presumably while all wanking like an incarcerated rapist on ecstasy.
It’s been interesting to write a book and work without the hands-on censorship of TV and radio. Amusingly, amidst all the horror of the world, I was censured this year for daring to make a joke about Israel. I think it was, ‘I’ve been studying Israeli Army Martial Arts. I now know sixteen ways to kick a Palestinian woman in the back.’ I was pulled up about this as civilians were killed by Israeli troops in Gaza. This was on a show called Political Animal on Radio 4. That’s where producers like to focus the edginess in their shows into the title.
But what I find incredible is that the Israelis say they can build housing in the West Bank because the Palestinians weren’t productive enough with it. So if a bunch of settlers start building flats on your back patio you’ve only got yourself to blame. For fuck’s sake plant some marrows before it’s too late. People say nothing can solve the Middle East problem. Not mediation, not arms, not financial aid. I say there is Something. Atheism. Suddenly everyone would be looking at each other thinking, ‘What the fuck were we doing? That was insane! Why are we all wearing these ridiculous hats? Were we drunk?’ Also, you could eliminate the problem of suicide bombing overnight by making everybody wear spandex. Good old Israel. They’re the South Africa that it’s not OK to call cunts. Mind you, I don’t understand the Palestinians either. If they hate Israel so much why don’t they go form their own fucking country?
It’s not like I don’t get offended myself. I was horrified last year when some people said the floods were God’s judgements on homosexuals. That’s an outrageously offensive thing to say, especially when everyone knows that God’s actual judgement was AIDS. But it’s often the most innocuous jokes that make TV bosses go nuts; there really isn’t any logic to it. Once I made a joke about Prince Harry, saying that now he’d joined the army he could look forward to having an arsehole like a collapsed mine-shaft. A woman from the channel literally ran onto the studio floor screaming ‘Nooooo!’ in a strange, slow-motion way and waving her hands in the air like somebody about to get eaten by a giant bug on Dr Who. But don’t feel sorry for Harry. The initiations and rituals in the army must be a light relief compared with those in the royal family. In the army it’s just drinking and getting hit on the backside with a cricket bat. No altar. No lizards from the lower fourth dimension. No having to watch your grandmother dislocate her jaw to consume a terrified homeless teenager. Harry actually has a lot in common with the average squaddy. In that he has absolutely no idea who his real father is.
That said, I don’t really understand the point of the royal princes joining the army. Why send a couple of pampered party boys like Harry or William in to fight? In a war you need a ruthless, merciless killing machine, someone like Andy McNab, or Prince Philip. Prince Philip is the perfect soldier: he likes shooting things and he’s a racist. He’d kill his own daughter-in-law if he thought he could get away with it.
It’s amazing how difficult it is to get jokes onto TV shows when adverts for abortions are to be shown on television. I wonder if they will use more famous adverts as inspiration. Have a break, have a killed kid. Or the McDonald’s classic, ‘I’m not lovin’ it.’ I suppose the best advert for abortion is just a silent thirty-second shot of Chris Moyles. The first TV advert for the morning-after pill has already been shown. It’s just a clip of the Teletubbies and a voice saying, ‘If you don’t want to watch this shit – take the pill!’
Having looked back over my career while writing this, I’ve concluded that show business is a great thing to work in, particularly if you enjoyed the stories of H. P. Lovecraft. Paul Gascoigne is appearing in a TV show called Total Wipeout. This is cruel. I don’t know if you’ve seen Gazza recently but he looks like he emits a high-pitched shriek at 1 am every morning that kills all the insects within ten miles. Judging by the title I assume it’s just Gazza staring at the screen attached to a saline drip, silently whispering the words to ‘Fog on the Tyne’ as someone performs brain surgery on him with an ice-cream scoop. Actually, it sounds like a winner.
Pretty much every celebrity nowadays seems to be a satirical morality tale. When Peter Andre left Jordan she was said to be devastated. Now she’s left with only two massive tits. Peter escaped to Cyprus; it says something when you escape the arguments and fighting by going to an island with UN peace-keepers. But he will of course be entitled to half of Jordan’s assets, so at least he gets a spacehopper out of it. And Kerry Katona announced on Facebook that she is selling off one of her breast implants on eBay in a bid to raise money for charity. One of them? What is she doing with the other one? Letting it look after the kids? I’m surprised Kerry is on Facebook, although I suppose it’s one way she can keep in touch with her children.
It’s easy to lose your sense of perspective in show business. I totally understand why people end up doing things they really shouldn’t. Apart from anything else, people keep offering them money. Nadya Suleman, the mother who gave birth to octuplets earlier this year, was offered £700,000 to appear in a porn film. Fair enough – she’s had more people inside her than most porn stars. Whoever the male star is, I hope he has GPS or he might not find his way out again. You can’t really describe it as throwing a sausage up an alley; it’ll be more like flicking a grain of rice into outer space. After having eight babies, is a penis really going to do it for her? I think she’ll need a football team in scuba gear armed with ostrich feathers and power tools.
I know show business seems fucking pointless now, like something Hieronymus Bosch coughed into a hankie. Look in your heart, though, you know that it’s going to get worse. We’ll look back on Tom Cruise as a charming eccentric. The actor who replaces him as the No. 1 film promotion entity will probably worship a giant serpent, marry Hermione from Harry Potter and lay an egg in her chest.
It’s been
