Comments on: Hello, kettle? This is pot: “Black”

By: Babychaos

Babychaos — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 12:54:21 +0000

I thought the whole joke was the other way around! After all it says “Watch out! London is just at the corner of your street/end of the road now!” I think au coin de la rue is the equivalent of “just a stone’s throw away”. So my reading is that the implication is more “watch it, those pesky Brits are just a stone’s throw away now, lock up your daughters or they’ll be round here popping balloons down your ear and pissing in your tea in no time!”.

The skinhead is probably meant to be a punk but nobody in Europe seemed to quite “get” punk, really so I expect they don’t realise there’s a difference between punk, ie anarchic naughty shocking but most essentially humorous behaviour which is essentially harmless and challenges preconceived ideas or skinheads, ie BNP, beating people up, angry mob, thugs and other behaviour people with absolutely NO sense of humour and even less brain tend to get up to when they want to feel important etc. That means if it’s punk, you assume humorous intent but with a skinhead you assume malicious intent. I’d reckon that’s why the got so many complaints.

I think they’re quite funny but the skinhead does make me feel uneasy… for the reasons outlined!

Cheers

By: NS

NS — Sat, 17 Nov 2007 13:11:50 +0000

See Nik, you are a proper Brit. I like your style.

Tabitha, you are also quite right. Some people just don’t see the hypocrisy and it makes me giggle.

By: Tabitha

Tabitha — Sat, 17 Nov 2007 11:00:03 +0000

The Brits are upset because they didn’t do the offending first.

By: nikki

nikki — Sat, 17 Nov 2007 09:56:24 +0000

maybe thats why he is pissing in a cup, ye know, coz we take the piss!! that poster works on so many levels!!!

By: NS

NS — Sat, 17 Nov 2007 09:02:21 +0000

Eh. I still don’t think it had some kind of racist skinhead agenda. You can’t deny that there are loads of these types of guys around, sporting the cross of St George and being drunk and disorderly (pissing into inappropriate containers being quite common). I don’t automatically equate a bald head with BNP membership.

Nikki — yeah, even though I find it quite funny in a train wreck sort of way, I do wonder why the Belgians thought this would make people WANT to come to the UK. I guess it’d be like if we had a billboard of a bunch of Belgians sitting mutely and expressionless with a backdrop of grey skies and ugly buildings. Not exactly inspiring, is it?

I still think that the Brits have got to be able to laugh at themselves if they’re going to laugh at everyone else though. Most people do but the ones who take the piss but get all ‘offended’ when it gets dished right back at them are really annoying.