There is a television show in North America called "Inside the Actor's Studio" which I occasionally see on public broadcasting stations, in which the host interviews famous actors and actresses, and there is a mock questionnaire given at the end -- borrowed from a French interview show -- in which one of the questions is: What is your favourite swear word? There are a number of interesting things about this: first, the station beeps out the swear word often, but sometimes not. There must be a rule that they have to work with -- Fuck is out, but bastards are in, and so on. Another interesting thing is that most everyone interviewed is somewhat shy about responding. They begin to edit in their minds, and then they go, oh what the ***** and say whatever. You can see the barricades go up and go down again. It is a very ingrained reaction. But what is really interesting is the mind of the man who thought up the questionnaire -- he must have thought that this was the best way to identify the special star as "just another human being with failings like you and me". The question invariably gets the big laugh, and everyone is slightly embarrassed. It is totally infantile, really: but it suckers everyone in.

When you think of the really blasphemous language out there: "ethnic cleansing," "mutually assured destruction", "family values", "national security", it is really pathetic.

yours, Peter T.