Yesterday, on this very blog, I concocted a joyful bundle of insults regarding inexplicably popular Radio 2 toss-jockey Steve Wright. It pleased me well enough and perhaps it passed the time for you. It's possible, I suppose, that you are a huge fan of Senor Wright and found my words to be the most offensive thing you'd read since last week, when I toyed with the idea of Jesus Christ having aids. But I doubt it.
It's also possible, I suppose, that Steve himself came across the piece. I can picture him, his face contorted in the ecstatic throes of a self-googling frenzy, pouncing on my piece of whimsy. 'Hooray!' he would think, 'A picture of my brilliant face!' And then his smile would fade and the sweat cool on his thighs. This was no gushing testament of praise! This was... this was blasphemy. How hurtful! How inhuman! Poor Steve would collapse to the floor, all self worth gone, and I would have really spoiled his evening.
I don't really think this, of course. I mean the bit about him being upset. I do think he probably Googles himself, and possibly while naked. But I don't think he'd give a toss about my little eruption of venomous thoughts. I think his face looks like that of a masturbating squirrel and his voice makes my stomach flip, but I actually have more respect for Steve Wright than to think he would be genuinely upset at the scribblings of a short Yorkshireman.
Firstly, he would know that my rantings weren't really directed at him, the actual real person with a beating heart and the capacity to love kittens. I have no idea who that person is, and neither do any of us. The Steve Wright that wriggles into our lives through the radio on a daily basis is a construction - a fantasy. 'Steve Wright in the Afternoon' is a carefully selected set of character traits, points of view and mannerisms designed to work well between records. I'm quite happy to find this construction loathsome while admitting that, if I met the real man, he may well be charming, funny and not at all like some cold sick in a dirty sock.
The second reason not to worry about my ramblings is that they are, I hope, clearly intended to be sort of... funny. An opportunity to collectively release psychic tension by collaborating in a trangressive act of psychological play, as I believe Frankie Howerd would say if he wasn't surely in hell for being a gay. No one could get upset at a joke, after all.
Or could they?
Or could they?
Of course they could. Some people seem unable to see humour even when it is dancing up and down in a funny hat, playing a kazoo that looks like a penis. They think that seriousness is somehow a more intrinsically intelligent response to the world we live in, and intend to punish anyone who disagrees.
For example. I thought twice about making my little Frankie Howerd joke above, lest some serious-brained person feel provoked to leap up and get all affirmative-action on my face. Don't I know that homosexual people suffer all over the world? Yes, I do. The fact that it is rubbish doesn't mean that my reaction has to be unsmiling and - forgive me - straight.
And, for another, slightly more serious example, I felt moved to make a small addendum to yesterday's Wright-bashing, when I realised I had made a comment that a stupid person might construe as a threat to kill the sniggering king of banality. I sort of hate myself for doing it, but it seems we live in times where we have to be extremely careful what we say, and how we say it.
You will be aware, no doubt, of this story, about a man who was arrested for making a joke about blowing up Robin Hood airport on Twitter. Apparently the transparent obviousness of his humour was not enough to satisfy the stone faced guardians of our culture. Now we are not allowed to be funny, in case someone takes it the wrong way.
All jokes are lies. Most of what we say every day is, in some part, a joke. I have a lot to say about this, but perhaps for the moment I have said enough. I'd like to direct you here, where my friend Matt Bradley makes some eloquent and intelligent points about this farcical situation.
And when you've read that, maybe you'd like to go and look at Twitter, and particularly #iamspartacus, where thousands of people are protesting against the lunacy of this situations by doing what Spartacus's friends would have done if they'd had a wireless connection - standing up and repeating the exact joke that got this man into trouble.
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