[Daley Mayle]

Yep, when I was in secondary school at the time of the Aberfan disaster we were swapping sick jokes. Strange thing though, I can laugh at Frankie Boyle who is the Bad Taste Meister but it's a different kind of response to, say, a witty or clever joke. Maybe I'm laughing because I'm laughing at him making such an outrageous comment rather than the comment itself. I dunno.

EDIT: And I think it's an age thing as well.

[davidjay]

I don't think that the BBC, or any other mainstream broadcaster, should be allowing material like that to be broadcast - as Timbo said, it's okay for public figures to be ridiculed but they wouldn't dream about making the same jokes about the Birmingham pub bombings or Warrington. Tebbit, though, is a horrible, bigoted and twisted man who has allowed his (admittedly horrific) experiences to colour his judgement in everything and his talking about the BBC detesting anyone who disagrees with them is off the scale of hypocrisy.

[Silkyman]

South Park claimed it was 22.3 years before a tragedy could be deemed funny.

I suspect it depends on how tragic you found the incident. I doubt many of Thatcher's family laughed along with the japes when she died.

[Abernathy]

Well, yes. No problem laughing at this for example :

What are fluffy and don't move?

Mrs Tebbit's slippers.


....cruel as it undoubtedly is, because Tebbit is such an egregious cunt, and to an extent, it's not totally illegitimate to imagine his wife might be expected to share or support his outlook.

However, Tory off-colour jokes about say, Michael Foot or Tony Benn don't seem to be in the same category. I firmly believe that that is because these "jokes" lack any element of humour and are simply vindictive. But I freely admit to being biased.

[lambswool]

I have voted Labour all my adult life - apart from the odd dalliance with Plaid Cymru in between general elections. Indeed the Tories are detested so vehemently in our constituency that we are known as "that lot who would vote a donkey in as long as he stood for Labour".

That said, I've always found the Mrs Tebbit's slippers joke absolutely beyond the pale.

Yeah, I have no right not to be offended. But I have the right to express my revulsion at the sheer inhumanity and viciousness of the "gag".

I don't care to enter an argument where I'm forced to admit the diabolical policies of Tebbit himself and others of his ilk. To me, this is not an issue of tit for tat. It was and is a tragedy for their family and no amount of "well, he's a despicable bastard" will justify the re-telling of that unfunny, cruel personal attack.

[ezinra]

Agree totally with lambswool.

[Abernathy]

Before I'm branded a heartless bastard and driven through the town wearing sackcloth, I'd just plead in mitigation that I have full sympathy with the devastation to the Tebbits' lives that was wreaked by the IRA bomb, evil shit though Tebbit is and remains.

Believe it or not, it is possible to harbour that sympathy and still have a sneaky chuckle at the sheer audacious poor taste of the slippers joke. Well it is for me, anyway. And as I said, I freely admit to bias.

[davidjay]

I think there's a bit of guilty pleasure in finding jokes like that funny. You shouldn't laugh, you wouldn't dare tell them in public, but...

[Abernathy]

A bit like laughing at Jerry Sadowitz. I nearly always do, and nearly always feel a bit guilty.

[Big Arnold]

The cabbie who thought he was in a water taxi: Drone captures Uber driver being completely swamped after getting caught by the rising tide at Holy Island

His vehicle quickly becomes swamped in water in the River Tyne

The Uber driver braves the flooded causeway across the River Tyne, pictured, towards the mainland

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... z4Of0JI1uy" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[SoulBoy]

How healthy is YOUR town? New map shows the best places to live in the UK to stay fit (but look away now if you live in Dudley)

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/artic ... udley.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;



26 - Swansea.

[Big Arnold]

I didn't know that Wigan was on the coast.

[Andy McDandy]

Stoke seems to have migrated south past Walsall too.

[bluebellnutter]

It's got a pier, same as Brighton. Therefore, coastal.

[MisterMuncher]

I know Belfast is pretty wet, but that map has it well into Lough Neagh