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malaise

(267,798 posts)
Sun Apr 14, 2013, 07:17 PM Apr 2013

That's yer Thatcher Ding Dong ding-dong: I blame the BBC Would the Iron Lady get the irony?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/apr/14/thatcher-ding-dong-bbc-charlie-brooker
<snip>

Millions sang for joy when the Tories themselves kicked Thatcher out of No 10 back in 1990. Breaking into song again 23 years later because she's died of a stroke following years of debilitating illness and seclusion strikes me as futile and a bit sad – not unlike dancing into the British Museum to shake your fist at a mummy. But any active celebrations seemed fairly isolated until the press noticed an online campaign to get Ding Dong! The Witch Is Dead into the charts. They were so outraged that they decided to promote it on their front pages, thereby causing a further surge in sales, which they then pretended was a crisis for the BBC, on the basis that Radio 1's weekly chart show – a factual record of what music the British public has been buying – might be forced to play the tune.

Pardon me for swearing, but in the spirit of robust free speech, not to mention accuracy, what the papers have perpetrated there is what Viz magazine would describe as "a cunt's trick". I'd think of a less offensive description, but there isn't one. I simply can't believe they've forced me to use such vile language in an article about our late premier. And by "they", I mean the BBC: officially to blame for anything bad since the eradication of cholera. On last week's Question Time, Charles Moore berated the BBC for even mentioning the Ding Dong! campaign on air, apparently unaware that, by doing so, he was himself promoting it on the BBC, which means he either a) believes himself to be invisible and inaudible, or b) had missed a golden chance to take another opportunistic pop at them before drawing his next breath. (Mind you, he didn't look as dumb as David Blunkett – also on the panel – who gleefully recounted dialogue from a famous Spitting Image sketch starring the Thatcher puppet that he'd somehow mistaken for a real-life quote from the woman herself. He's lucky Dimbleby cut him off before he went on to claim she'd had someone's arm up her arse at the time.)

Many of the obituaries have noted that Thatcher had little sense of humour, although we don't know how advanced her sense of irony was (being made of iron, she was quite irony herself). So we don't know how she'd react to the loudest squabble in the aftermath of her death being a surreal fight over an old musical number repurposed as an anti-tribute to her memory – a protest people actually have to pay to take part in. She'd laugh at that aspect, at the very least. It's hard to believe she'd turn in her grave. After all, as she told us herself, the lady's not for turning!!!! LOL OMG haha #AceGag #WellDone #Legend #JobDone #SigningOff #SeeYa
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That's yer Thatcher Ding Dong ding-dong: I blame the BBC Would the Iron Lady get the irony? (Original Post) malaise Apr 2013 OP
Substitute "Lady Thatcher" for "Parrot" reteachinwi Apr 2013 #1
LOL malaise Apr 2013 #2
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