Quote: Veronica Vestibule @ December 16 2010, 5:32 PM GMT

so his feelings about the joke are irrelevant because they don't exist.

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Doesn't matter if he's aware of it or not. It really doesn't matter. Just because the two young girls killed by Ian Huntley a few years back are now dead and unaware of any potential joke I make about them, doesn't mean I'm going to, just because they will never be aware of it.

Quote: Aaron @ December 17 2010, 9:54 AM GMT

Katie Price and her relationship with Alex Reid.

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Sorry but that's bollocks. The target was Jordan and Alex Reid, so he made a joke about a disabled kid. Come on!

Quote: Lazzard @ December 17 2010, 9:58 AM GMT

There's a huge difference between laughing at what has been said, and laughing at the fact that it has been said.

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Well put!

Quote: Steve Sunshine @ December 16 2010, 11:50 PM GMT

I do wonder what his motivation is sometimes.
Because when people say he's not funny I disagree.
If he concentrated on being funny and not being as offensive as possible then I think I'd prefer his stuff.

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Yes.

Quote: Lord Meldrum @ December 17 2010, 10:00 AM GMT

Sorry but that's bollocks. The target was Jordan and Alex Reid, so he made a joke about a disabled kid. Come on!

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No he didn't. He made a joke about Katie Price and Alex Reid which used the child. It wasn't about him at all.

He said she married a fighter so he could stop Harvey raping/shagging his mother. That's still about Harvey though. To think it's just about Jordan and Alex Reid is just silly, because it's obviously a dig at Harvey's disability.

Some people have been comparing Benny Hill to Frankie Boyle, there is no comparison at all, apart from them being comedians! They are total opposites - Benny Hill was innocently offensive, and wasn't even considered offensive at all until well into his last few years when we started getting a bit prickly at stereotypical cultural and sexual humour. It was harmless stuff, and he was not a stand up either.

Bernard Manning should be the one being compared to Boyle, a stand up with a passion for offending every one or group he didn't like (but I don't think he targeted disabled people ever, though I'm not an expert). This is staggeringly close to Boyle's own act. It is only our modern race laws and conventions that stops Boyle doing the same blatantly racist jokes as Manning IMO. But one day I think he'll want to break that taboo too, I see it coming.

Quote: Lord Meldrum @ December 17 2010, 10:00 AM GMT

Doesn't matter if he's aware of it or not. It really doesn't matter. Just because the two young girls killed by Ian Huntley a few years back are now dead and unaware of any potential joke I make about them, doesn't mean I'm going to, just because they will never be aware of it.

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A responsible comedian will consider the hurt caused to both the target(s) of his joke and to those related to the target(s) by blood or marriage or friendship or whatever.

In the case of the two Soham victims (who cannot be hurt by jokes), all the related people are wholly undeserving of discomfiture. In the cases of Harvey and Jade (who also cannot be hurt by jokes), the related people are considerably less undeserving.

Yes, I can see how Jade Goody's surviving friends and family are entirely deserving. How dare they, etc.

Quote: Veronica Vestibule @ December 17 2010, 10:53 AM GMT

A responsible comedian will consider the hurt caused to both the target(s) of his joke and to those related to the target(s) by blood or marriage or friendship or whatever. In the case of the two Soham victims (who cannot be hurt by jokes), all the related people are wholly undeserving of discomfiture. In the cases of Harvey and Jade (who also cannot be hurt by jokes), the related people are considerably less undeserving.

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It's a sound strategy, go after the families of those you want to hurt. I think the Mafia use it too.

Quote: Alfred J Kipper @ December 17 2010, 10:46 AM GMT

Bernard Manning should be the one being compared to Boyle, a stand up with a passion for offending every one or group he didn't like.

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Bernard and Frankie aren't comparable in that respect.

Bernard never told a joke the like of which many other comedians on TV and in the clubs weren't also telling.

In NO sense was his material more racist than that of many other comedians of his day.

And the people he 'offended' were certainly not the good, honest, decent black, Asian and Jewish people of both sexes who attended his performances and laughed their socks off with the rest of the audience.

Let's not forget that the now-revered Lenny Bruce was widely reviled - and even convicted and imprisoned for obscenity - by people who'd heard nothing but 'reports' of his act.

I do wish people wouldn't knock Bernard (or anyone else) on the basis of hearsay.

"I know from stories I've been told . . ." may be an effective way of introducing gossip to idiots but we're all above that, surely?

Quote: Veronica Vestibule @ December 17 2010, 10:53 AM GMT

A responsible comedian will consider the hurt caused to both the target(s) of his joke and to those related to the target(s) by blood or marriage or friendship or whatever.

In the case of the two Soham victims (who cannot be hurt by jokes), all the related people are wholly undeserving of discomfiture. In the cases of Harvey and Jade (who also cannot be hurt by jokes), the related people are considerably less undeserving.

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Still doesn't matter. The parents of the murdered girls don't deserve jokes made about them. That goes for Katie Price too, like her or not, she has a badly disabled son and does not deserve jokes to be made about him. Jade Goody's mother, like her or not, doesn't deserve to hear jokes about her dead daughter.

I'm afraid the point you are trying to make Veronica, keeps passing me by. I just don't get your argument.

I wasn't knocking him, he was a fine comedian from what little I saw of him, but I'm sorry, he did indeed go further than anyone else, it's what made him both a legend and a hate figure, and this is what makes him very comparable with Boyle.

Quote: Veronica Vestibule @ December 17 2010, 11:23 AM GMT

Bernard and Frankie aren't comparable in that respect.
And the people he 'offended' were certainly not the good, honest, decent black, Asian and Jewish people of both sexes who attended his performances and laughed their socks off with the rest of the audience.

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But that was in the days before we had racism.

I remember good old Chalkie from work, he's wasn't one these darkies with a chip on his shoulder, he had a good laugh about being called a f**king nigger.

Quote: Alfred J Kipper @ December 17 2010, 11:30 AM GMT

he did indeed go further than anyone else, it's what made him both a legend and a hate figure, and this is what makes him very comparable with Boyle.

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You're quite wrong.

Not only did he NOT 'go further than anyone else', he went nowhere near as far as a great many other comics.

I've heard many comics tell racist and sexist jokes that would offend almost ANY member of the targetted racial or gender group. The content of the jokes and the manner of their telling were very clearly intended to degrade and humiliate those people.

Bernard was never guilty of that.

Quote: Veronica Vestibule @ December 17 2010, 11:43 AM GMT

You're quite wrong.

I've heard many comics tell racist and sexist jokes that would offend almost ANY member of the targetted racial or gender group. The content of the jokes and the manner of their telling were very clearly intended to degrade and humiliate those people.

Bernard was never guilty of that.

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Manning certainly did a very good impression of someone humiliating and degrading his targets.