WE learned this week that the F-word was used 22,000 times on screen last year. That probably won’t surprise you.
What might surprise you is that in 1975, it was used 511 times. Really? I don’t remember it being used at all back then.
Jerry never told Margo to eff off in The Good Life. Steve Austin never said it in The Six Million Dollar Man.
Even Regan and Carter kept things squeaky clean and sermon-suitable in The Sweeney.
I remember well the first time I used it. I was 11, on holiday in Tunisia, and I’d just been electrocuted by some wonky wiring.
As the shuddering jolt threatened to shake my arm out of its socket, I formed the word in my mouth and then paused.
Because my mum and dad were in the room.
They looked at one another, and after the longest time, my dad nodded: “OK son, you can say it.”
So I did. And it helped ease the pain. And pretty soon, I realised it could be used for other things. Like telling my sister to “go away”.
I never used it on Top Gear though, and if I had it would have been edited out. The same goes with The Grand Tour.
But then everything seemed to change. It suddenly became acceptable.
We had Malcolm Tucker, and Logan Roy, and on Clarkson’s Farm, I say the F-word more than I say “cow”.
Big bad sister
Usually in-between “oh for” and “sake”. Because when the sheep have escaped, no other expression will do.
I like using it. It’s a brilliant word. It can be a noun or a verb or an adjective.
It can be used when you’re happy or when you’re sad or when you’ve trapped your finger in a drawer.
In the English language, it’s the Swiss Army Knife.
And it’s not just the F-word. I also enjoy deploying its big, bad sister.
My grandfather always used to say that only people with a poor vocabulary use swear words, but I disagree.
I know that there are alternatives to the worst word in the world — “mons pubis” for example or “yoni”.
But when I think of Sadiq Khan and what he’s done to the roads in London, only the swearing nuke will do.
It’s the same with the F-word too.
There are alternatives which mean the same thing, but when someone has been annoying, it doesn’t really work if you tell them to “mate off”.
And now, after far too long, television has come to accept that.
LEAVE BEEB, GARY
OH dear. It seems that the BBC and Gary Lineker have fallen out again.
They think that because he appears on a supposedly neutral organisation, he should keep his political views to himself.
And he says that he’s just a football pundit. So it doesn’t matter if he expresses a bit of wokeness on Twitter.
The BBC suspended him in March, but all his colleagues walked out, Match Of The Day was ruined and eventually, they brought him back.
And now the new chairman of the BBC is saying, after Gary had a go at a Tory minister, that maybe he’s out of order again.
What’s to be done?
Well how’s this for a suggestion. I suspect Gary likes the BBC and doesn’t want to harm it, so why doesn’t he just leave?
He earns a great deal from his very successful podcast empire so he wouldn’t suffer financially.
He’d then be free to say what he wants.
And the BBC could replace him on MOTD with someone who thinks Gaza is a nickname for Paul Gascoigne.
LIONS NEED US NOW
IN the final episode of Sir Attenborough’s final Planet Earth series, he spoke at length about efforts being made to halt the godawful trade in elephant tusks.
What he didn’t say is that a fist-bumping shoot-to-kill policy on poachers in places like Zimbabwe has been so successful that elephant numbers have gone berserk.
There’s space for only about 50,000 but double that number are now roaming around.
It’s the same story in Botswana where there’s now an elephant under every tree.
The big new problem is lions.
As the population in the whole of Africa has fallen to just 24,000 – that’s a staggering 95 per cent drop – they’re what need saving now.
AS Christmas is coming, I thought I’d get into the spirit of things with the story of a dead dog.
Actually, it was a puppy. A friend took it out for a walk in central London and it was run over.
He couldn’t just leave it there obviously, so he scooped it up and put its little broken body in the only bag he had to hand.
Which was from the upmarket shop Louis Vuitton.
Feeling low, he was trudging home when a moped thief came out of nowhere, snatched the bag and roared off . . .
Can’t imagine he’ll be doing much thievery in the future.
Er, Leo…there Moss be some mistake…
RIGHT. So we are supposed to believe that Leonardo DiCaprio has been on a date with Kate Moss’s sister, Lottie.
Doesn’t seem likely, as she’s already 25.
WHILE I feel sorry for the Dundee man who ripped a hole in his throat trying to suppress a sneeze, it could be worse.
Because if you suppress a fart, the gas is absorbed into your bloodstream and eventually will end up coming out of your mouth.
Worth remembering if you find yourself under the mistletoe at some point this Christmas.
BEWARE KILLER KITTIES
RIGHT now there are 317 animals at Diddly Squat Farm.
And I love every single one, apart from Lisa’s cat.
I dislike the way it struts about with its tail sticking up like a car aerial, so we can all see its tea towel holder.
And I’m uncomfortable with the knowledge that if I was only an inch tall, it would eat me.
Most of all though, I hate the fact that it spends most of its free time roaming around our garden killing pretty much everything it encounters.
And it’s not alone. Figures just out show that domestic cats prey on 2,000 different species. They’ve actually hunted some to extinction.
In the UK, they kill 75million songbirds and small mammals every year while around the world, the death toll is in the billions.
We think humans are bad for the environment but compared to the moggy, we are rank amateurs.
Now I know of course that one in four adults in this country has a cat.
It’s a much-loved family member for millions.
But the fact of the matter is this. I love honey badgers, but I wouldn’t choose to keep one as a pet.
Because within a week, the number of animals on the farm would be down to about none.
COST OF THE 50p SAURS
WHEN I saw pictures of those new 50p pieces with dinosaurs imprinted on the flip side, I had an idea.
Why not get one, drill a small hole in the top and turn it in to a pendant?
That would be a great Christmas present and it would only cost 50p.
But I’ve done some checking and somehow, these 50p pieces cost £11.
How’s that even possible?