Britain's greatest comedian dead-Bernard Manning

Subject: RE: Britain's greatest comedian dead-Bernard Mann
From: Folkiedave
Date: 21 Jun 07 - 05:59 PM

Who cares if BM was a racist, one of my neighbours is a racist and he is looked on as a sad individual

Bernard Manning was a sad individual too.

I care about racism, it needs to be exposed for the garbage it is and for the damage it does.

This discussion arose because of the title of the thread which some people found was simply plain wrong and I would hate for Americans like Joe to think that the UK working class was all about bigotry.

We have had people on here defending his racism too.

That needed contradicting.

Now, you want a thread about racism - you start it.....

Subject: RE: Britain's greatest comedian dead-Bernard Manning
From: Joe Offer
Date: 21 Jun 07 - 06:01 PM

Damn, cookster, I shoulda thoughta that.
-Joe, #199-

Subject: RE: Britain's greatest comedian dead-Bernard Manning
From: cookster
Date: 21 Jun 07 - 06:12 PM

too bad!

Subject: RE: Britain's greatest comedian dead-Bernard Mann
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 21 Jun 07 - 06:17 PM

Gosh the fishing is good in this thread!

Subject: RE: Britain's greatest comedian dead-Bernard Manning
From: cookster
Date: 21 Jun 07 - 06:29 PM

what are you talking about.

Subject: RE: Britain's greatest comedian dead-Bernard Manning
From: GUEST,patty o'dawes
Date: 21 Jun 07 - 07:09 PM

Being on the TV legitimized a lot of people who thought like BM - in their eyes.

He was an admired by some racist. An applauded by some racist. Maybe the most dangerous kind?

I won't dance on his grave but neither will I mourn his passing.

Subject: RE: Britain's greatest comedian dead-Bernard Manning
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 21 Jun 07 - 07:30 PM

Joe Offer wrote:

"But Ake has a point. As an American visitor, I witnessed both shocking racism and smothering and ridiculous political correctness when I visited England, and neither one was pretty. Maybe the issue requires discussion and a reasonable consensus. I'll monitor this discussion, but perhaps it's not quite time to shut it down. Please remember to keep the discussion civil, and to use a consistent name when posting."

Well, I hope you'll visit again. Like in most countries you'll find bigotry and racist attitudes here if you look hard enough. I was a schoolteacher in east London for 13 years and I'm proud that I never let a racist remark pass in my classroom. God knows what good it did but I was doing the right thing in my book. Racist remarks in classrooms are never OK whatever the context. You'll also find here huge numbers of decent, thinking, measured people who want the world to be a better place. Same mixture as your end, Joe. Depends how and where you look! As for all this "PC" stuff, like I said two hundred miles up the thread, any discussion of dodgy comedians will inevitably bring the anti-PC brigade crawling out of the woodwork. And if that is an offensive allusion, it's meant to be. I strongly suspect that most people who denigrate "PC" do so because they have a conscience about their inability to get through life without making offensive remarks. It could be a fear that they lack the social conditioning to avoid such behaviour so, instead of getting to grips with their problem, they pre-emptively lash out at their "PC" critics to salve their conscience. It's a lack of understanding of how to behave appropriately in whatever circumstances you find yourself. It isn't "PC" to avoid racist jokes in front of black people or impressionable children. It's decent common sense, actually, and only ignorant thugs like Mr Manning would fail to recognise that. I personally find any joke about the Holocaust to be extremely offensive and if you tell me such a joke I'll tell you what I think of you and it in no uncertain terms. If that's "PC," so be it. I'll wear the bloody badge with pride. But I laughed my socks off at an Irish joke up the thread. I even texted it to my mum! Am I being inconsistent? I don't give a monkey's mickey, actually!   In the men's room of a forum I'm on I made a joke today about a woman with boobies big enough to polish her shoes with. But I did it in the men's room, right? Call me PC for finding Mr Manning offensive and I'll call you a lazy, cloudy thinker.

Subject: RE: Britain's greatest comedian dead-Bernard Manning
From: akenaton
Date: 21 Jun 07 - 07:33 PM

FD If you are really so concerned about exposing racism, you start a thread and try to encourage some intelligent opinions.

I have tried in the past and been shouted down by people who should know better.

Most of the early posts here, including yours, were simply grave dancing. there have only been a handful which have thrown any light on the problem of racism and why it occurs.

Subject: RE: Britain's greatest comedian dead-Bernard Manning
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 21 Jun 07 - 07:38 PM

I got told off on another forum for using "you" in arguments. I did it in my post above, for which I apologise. It wasn't directed at Joe as an individual or anyone else!

Subject: RE: Britain's greatest comedian dead-Bernard Manning
From: akenaton
Date: 21 Jun 07 - 07:51 PM

Joe...I am sorry to hear of your experiences in England.
Perhaps you should have visited Scotland where Racism and PC are thankfully rare....(we do have a small problem with religion though):0).

Seriously, in my opinion political correctness actually encourages racism and bigotry, as it stifles open discussion and creates a climate of ignorance regarding other cultures.

"Faith schools" are another abomination, promoting in children, "difference" rather than "similarity" between cultures.

Subject: RE: Britain's greatest comedian dead-Bernard Manning
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 21 Jun 07 - 08:17 PM

Well, I can agree with you wholeheartedly about faith schools. But you really have to cut out the loose PC talk. Your middle sentence is just throwaway nonsense. Before you try to develop your arguments any further, which I hope you will, I think you should give us your comprehensive definition of "PC." Failing that, just give us a list of examples of PC sayings of the type that stifles open discussion (so I'm ruling out the jokey ones, such as vertically-challenged, differently-abled and the rest). Please don't slag off any more those who in your opinion resort to "PC" without telling us exactly what you mean.

Subject: RE: Britain's greatest comedian dead-Bernard Manning
From: guitar
Date: 22 Jun 07 - 03:03 AM

OK

TOM

Subject: RE: Britain's greatest comedian dead-Bernard Manning
From: guitar
Date: 22 Jun 07 - 03:08 AM

i'm sorry everyone for being the idiot that I am, thanks ruth for showing me up

Subject: RE: Britain's greatest comedian dead-Bernard Manning
From: guitar
Date: 22 Jun 07 - 03:12 AM

As I said I'm sorry about some of the posting Joe not all but some and I promise that I won't do it again

Tom

PS
I am an idiot for doing this stuff and i'm not that stupid Ruth as you say I am, I'm just not as clever as you that's all just because I don't use big words doesn't make me stupid or anything but I'll admit that there were time I was.

So sorry again

Subject: RE: Britain's greatest comedian dead-Bernard Manning
From: guitar
Date: 22 Jun 07 - 03:21 AM

ok all of them but then I believe in free speech, where some people do not, I hate racists sexists and homophobics and everything else that tese idiots believe in, however they have the right to speak their minds the same as you, and once again I was never a fan of Bernard Manning never was and never will be the same goes for Jim Davidson I'm not a fan of his either he's a racist bastard as well but he has the right to speak his mind, but you don't have to agree with what he says do you, if you don't like him then do go and see him.

Tom
I've dug a hole here and I can't get out haven't I

Subject: RE: Britain's greatest comedian dead-Bernard Mann
From: Folkiedave
Date: 22 Jun 07 - 03:56 AM

Most of the early posts here, including yours, were simply grave dancing. there have only been a handful which have thrown any light on the problem of racism and why it occurs.

My posts were not designed to throw any light on the problem of racism or why it occurs. My posts were to give the lie to the idea that Bernard Manning was Britain's greatest comedian - the title of this thread.

Everything else has stemmed from that. He was a racist but he gave money to charity. He was a racist but his timing was good. He was a racist but he wouldn't tell mother-in-law jokes. He was a racist but he wouldn't tell jokes about disabled kiddies. He was racist but he was creative. He was a racist but he made a living in front of really tough audiences. He was racist but he represented working-class thinking.

All I want people to do is stop making excuses for the man.

He was a racist (and all the other things, an insulting bully, homophobic, sexist etc).

Like Steve Shaw if that makes me PC (or as some might say "polite") I can live with that.

Subject: RE: Britain's greatest comedian dead-Bernard Manning
From: Ruth Archer
Date: 22 Jun 07 - 04:00 AM

"I witnessed both shocking racism and smothering and ridiculous political correctness"

Joe, I would have to say that the latter is probably an OTT response to the extremities of the former.

On the surface, attitudes have moved on. People refer to Manning as an anachronism. Well, I was married for 15 years into a really lovely, working-class family in Birmingham. I adored my father in law - he was kind, funny, helpful, supportive, and I only wish my own dad had been more like him - in most ways. But my father in law was also a dyed in the wool racist. Now, he knew there were certain words he wasn't supposed to use in polite company any more, certain jokes he shouldn't tell, but when he'd had a few pints and was with his mates, out it all would come. He enjoyed Bernard Manning. He also read the Daily Mail, and would occasionally regale us with the reactionary vitriol contained in that "newspaper". Often erroneous and exaggerated stories of "PC gone mad", or the most recent story of white families being passed over in the council queue so that an immigrant family could get a house. This stuff made him angry - really angry. Angry enough to tell us at one point that he was thinking of voting for the BNP.

Now, this was a man who lived in a nice, working-class white suburb in north Birmingham. He never even met a black man from one day to the next. The crime committed in the area was committed by white oiks. But he was scared. He thought his way of life, his culture, was under threat.

This is the reason I think Bernard Manning (and others of his ilk)was so vile. He legitimised and fed into the prejudices, the division, the "otherness" which acts against understanding and any hope of racial harmony. While people like my father in law could laugh at him, they were not only reinforcing the divisions between racial groups, they were reinfocing the notion that white British people were somehow superior to these "niggers" and "Pakis" - whole cultures reducuced to nasty stereotypes, just so that white, working-class men could feel better than them. This is the kind of "low-level" racism I talked about earlier - the stuff that fuels fundamental division, misunderstanding and resentment. When it turns good people into bigots who are thinking of voting for the BNP (dunno if he actually did - I don't think I want to know the answer), I think it's the most dangerous kind of all.

Subject: RE: Britain's greatest comedian dead-Bernard Manning
From: goatfell
Date: 22 Jun 07 - 04:28 AM

I agree with you all that bernard Manning was just not a nice person

Subject: RE: Britain's greatest comedian dead-Bernard Manning
From: goatfell
Date: 22 Jun 07 - 04:32 AM

I have a feeling that we won't be hearing Guitar again, I think he's left the building

John

Subject: RE: Britain's greatest comedian dead-Bernard Manning
From: George Papavgeris
Date: 22 Jun 07 - 05:16 AM

Guitar's OK, John/Tom :-) But that's how it is in this life; one goes, another comes in... Shame you didn't overlap.

Subject: RE: Britain's greatest comedian dead-Bernard Manning
From: Nick
Date: 22 Jun 07 - 05:17 AM

Well there's a thing, he's back again - man of a thousand names.

Every time I go to Arran I drive through Saltcoats and in future I'll wave at "Tom Hamilton frae Saltcoats AKA scot/guitar/Arran/etc etc etc" looking out of the window towards Arran pondering his black, gay, jewishness as he plays his guitar.

Welcome back "John"

Subject: RE: Britain's greatest comedian dead-Bernard Manning
From: goatfell
Date: 22 Jun 07 - 05:44 AM

Ok I'll admit that it was stupid of me and my name is Tom Hamilton and I'm not black or Jewish but I am bisexual and I do play the guitar and the borran and I just a stupid arsehole, and i didn't fool anyone for a second I'm sorry, but the reason I changed my mudcat name and everything was that I was just fed up with all the shit that was aiming at me, I know that most of I deserved.

Tom Hamilton Saltcoats

Subject: RE: Britain's greatest comedian dead-Bernard Manning
From: George Papavgeris
Date: 22 Jun 07 - 05:53 AM

No worries, Tom; hey, we don't all look for targets to throw things at, around here. Not all of us, or at least not all of the time. You are not the first one to try things and get caught (says I redfacedly), so wear no har shirts; and I am happy to disagree with you, when we do, and move on.

Hmmm, bisexual, guitar, bodhran; one of the three bothers me a little, care to guess which one? (joke)

Keep well

Subject: RE: Britain's greatest comedian dead-Bernard Manning
From: George Papavgeris
Date: 22 Jun 07 - 05:54 AM

...that should have been "haIr shirts"...

Subject: RE: Britain's greatest comedian dead-Bernard Manning
From: goatfell
Date: 22 Jun 07 - 05:57 AM

Thanks

Subject: RE: Britain's greatest comedian dead-Bernard Mann
From: Folkiedave
Date: 22 Jun 07 - 06:16 AM

No worries Tom, none of us are perfect.

Especially not me.

Subject: RE: Britain's greatest comedian dead-Bernard Manning
From: Herga Kitty
Date: 22 Jun 07 - 07:44 PM

People telling jokes about their own community can get away with things that sound racist when told by outsiders.

Folkiedave asked: "Ever heard an Irish joke that relies on the fact that the Irish are well-schooled, and have an economy based on electronics and high levels of skills?"

On the one hand, there's the one about the man being interviewed for a job on a building site, who's asked if he knows the difference between a girder and a joist (answer, one wrote Faust, and the other, Ulysses), and on the other hand there's the one told to me by a female Irish octogenarian - "What's black and sticks to the ceiling?" (answer, a Galway electrician).

Subject: RE: Britain's greatest comedian dead-Bernard Manning
From: goatfell
Date: 23 Jun 07 - 05:41 AM

As I have said Frank Carson who is Irish was called a racist because he told Irish Jokes, I was called a sexist because a sang a song called Abigail which is a funny song about a lady of the night, well I thought it was funny and then I found out the orginal song is about a American miner who falls in love with a mule.

Tom.

To me its just a song that's all but to some people its more than just a song

the words are

on the bosom of young Abigail
was written the price of her tail
and upon her behind for the use of the blind
was the same information in braille.

Subject: RE: Britain's greatest comedian dead-Bernard Manning
From: George Papavgeris
Date: 23 Jun 07 - 07:13 AM

Yes, the famous mule love song, I know it well Tom...

Subject: RE: Britain's greatest comedian dead-Bernard Manning
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 23 Jun 07 - 11:12 AM

As recorded by The Corries. I always thought it was "tale!"

Subject: RE: Britain's greatest comedian dead-Bernard Manning
From: GUEST
Date: 24 Jun 07 - 12:23 PM

Good old Mudcat. Really enjoyed (some) of this thread. I found BM's humour brilliant in his early years and surprisingly gentle too. I didn't enjoy his later humour as he developed his "racist" identity but having just read an obit from the Independant on Sunday I feel a bit more relaxed about him.
To quote a snip

"Although keeping his ancestry (Part Jewish - ed DW) under wraps, he was openly and visibly friendly with Manchester's Jewish community. He did frequent Jewish charity benefits, and told "Yiddishe stories", as he called them, with an aplomb and accuracy which satisfied the most critical Jewish joke aficionados. He was also known to give money to good causes in the city's Asian communities, and, although he would joke on stage about liking only "good English grub", was as fond of a curry at his favourite Indian restaurant as the next Mancunian."

No excuse for his racist jokes (about 10% of his repertoir). But shows there was more to him than just pure racism.

Dave Wynn (A.K.A. Spot the Dog)

Subject: RE: Britain's greatest comedian dead-Bernard Manning
From: goatfell
Date: 24 Jun 07 - 04:30 PM

so did I perhaps it is I'm not sure great song anyway

Subject: RE: Britain's greatest comedian dead-Bernard Manning
From: GUEST,Blindlemonsteve
Date: 24 Jun 07 - 06:15 PM

I think, the reality of life and living is being able to realise that we are all the same but also very different, and we all have to be able to laugh at and enjoy those differences, we all have a lot more to keep us together than to pull us apart.
This leads me into what i want to say, most people in the U.K will happily live in harmony with anyone, whatever creed or colour, most people will laugh harmlessly at each other as a point of affection, with no malice whatsoever..... However, there seems to have been a dangerous movement over the last few years, local councils seem to have seen fit to employ wooly liberal, lentil munching sandal wearing idiots to throw out ridiculous directives about what is "Racist", and what is and isnt acceptable, they see fit to throw theyre vile opinions and and stupid logic into every area of living in the U.K.
Far from encouraging a multiculteral society that will live in harmony, they are breeding resentment, the tabloids are fuelling theyre flames, and what would be a great country with all people from all walks of life, is being torn apart with a ficticous hatred. This ridiculous P.C movement is the best recruiting agent for the B.N.P ever. I only hope that one day there will be a government that will have the guts and courage to get rid of these monsters and allow people to live in harmony.
So was B.M racist, no, i dont believe he was, i know he was half Jewish, probably had Irish, black and asian friends, i have some gay friends that thought he was hilarious. i dont think his jokes, or that humour is projected to anyone in particular, its funny because of the irony that the jokes portray.

Just my opinion, but i bet i am not far off the mark that most people think.

Subject: RE: Britain's greatest comedian dead-Bernard Manning
From: Ruth Archer
Date: 24 Jun 07 - 06:30 PM

I bet you are.

Subject: RE: Britain's greatest comedian dead-Bernard Manning
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 24 Jun 07 - 07:33 PM

You are living in a different Britain to me, Blindlemonsteve, mate. I suppose you don't live or work in Oldham or Burnley or any one of countless other inner-city areas where separation and suspicion are the order of the day (neither do I now, but I did once. Bury, Bolton, Tipton, Walthamstow, Poplar, Lewisham, Bethnal Green...) I see that you are propagating the latest flavour-of-the-day idea, that Bernard was equally abusive to everyone and therefore he was OK. This notion seems to have gained much currency in the last day or two.   And he was a bit Jewish too and "probably" has black friends etc. etc. ad nauseam. The excuses for his obnoxiousness are rife. I submit that he could have been even fairer had he refrained from offending anyone instead of spreading his abuse so "neutrally." The truth is that he found he could make a very tidy living thank you very much by indulging in lazy abuse of minority groups.   It's far harder to make people laugh in a positive and life-affirming way and he just wasn't up to it. He was, therefore, a third-rate comedian and a first-rate racist bigot.   When I get up there to the pearly gates St Peter may have a few searching questions for me and I may struggle, but I'll be asking him a few toughies too. If Mr Manning's in there (Maggie Thatcher too), I ain't going in. I'd rather have Beelzebub prodding my gonads with red-hot irons for all eternity than spend even five minutes in the company of either of those two rotters!

Subject: RE: Britain's greatest comedian dead-Bernard Mann
From: Folkiedave
Date: 24 Jun 07 - 07:43 PM

No excuse for his racist jokes (about 10% of his repertoire). But shows there was more to him than just pure racism.

How ever much he contributed to whatever charity or community groups he was a racist.

I did try and deal with this before - if I as a heroin dealer then give half my earnings to drug charities it doesn't make me any less of a drug dealer.

As for his repertoire only being 10% racism - first of all how do you know? and secondly that's 10% too much.

Subject: RE: Britain's greatest comedian dead-Bernard Manning
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 24 Jun 07 - 07:50 PM

Or Dave Bulmer come to think of it.

Subject: RE: Britain's greatest comedian dead-Bernard Manning
From: goatfell
Date: 25 Jun 07 - 03:18 AM

here we go again

Subject: RE: Britain's greatest comedian dead-Bernard Manning
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 25 Jun 07 - 05:17 AM

;-)