I
agree with the Controller of Radio One on this one: this is not a political
song, such as something from that era by Billy Bragg; this is just abuse.
But
welcome to the Britain that she bequeaths, with abuse instead of political
debate, with full military honours to bury a lifelong civilian politician, and
with the Chart Show treated as a matter of serious adult concern even by Radio
Bloody Four.
From
her ridiculous funeral to this, we now see the Third World country with which
she replaced the United Kingdom.
On balance I disagree.
ReplyDeleteThatcher in life might have destroyed theShipbuilding, Steel and Mining but in death she has revitalised the music industry.
Ding Dong is of course tacky and tasteless but so is the funeral.
But ultimately Ther is nothing wrong with the song itself...we have the situation where a song is banned because of the reason people bought it.
The strange thing is that when teens on Facebook or twitter speak out of turn but if you appear on the One Show and say that trade unionists should be shot dead in front of their families...well that's ok. Cos Jeremy Clarkson is a national treasure.
And he will be at thatchers funeral.
So I don't think the thatcher fans penning letters from Tunbridge Wells is really a good idea.
But two funerals...de facto state funerals bookend an age of tackiness.
Two Funerals, one Olympics, and several collapsed banks. There is a screenplay waiting to be written
FitzjamesHorse
Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. That last part, especially.
ReplyDeleteThank you.
ReplyDeleteIt really is incredible and there seems no end to the sense of entitlement and arrogance of the THatcherite court. It seems increasingly like a palace coup.
In effect the Royal Family is paying homage to the Thatcher Family.
There is a new Establishment. Mark Thatcher, Tim Bell, Conor Burns are effectively saying"We own this city".
It defies Spitting Image parody...that Conor Burns asks for Big Ben to peel 87 times.
Tradition may or may not be good...but it cannot be INVENTED.
An interesting aside...on my own blog "Keeping An Eye on the Czar of Russia" a commenter (sic) has said that the person who wrote "Ding Dong" was blacklisted in the McCarthy Years.
The one thing that really intrigues me is that I thought Thatcher is dead and will be buried....and that is closure.
But the twists and turns of the past few days ...it increasingly looks like something ...not good...is fundamentally changing.
Hi, to you two zealots.
ReplyDeleteThis is the best line written so far about Margaret Thatcher and the past week (from Hitchens column today).
""anyone who can make foes of Michael Heseltine, the Soviet Communist Party, Arthur Scargill, Left-wing teachers by the thousand, The Guardian newspaper, the Church of England, Jacques Delors, the BBC, Salman Rushdie and Glenda Jackson simply cannot be all bad.""
Indeed. Indeed.
Although he should have added David Lindsay to that list...
Not surprised that that was where you stopped reading. And you really do need to look at Edward Norman's Thatcher obituary in the Church Times. Have you ever heard of him?
ReplyDelete