E Y E W E A R, THE BLOG - FREEDOM MEANS BEING UNAFRAID TO WRITE WHAT YOU THINK

Tim Minchin has had his Jonathan Ross Christmas Show song cut, by nervous ITV execs.  The song, which purports to compare Jesus to Woody Allen , because both are "Jewish" - was deemed religiously sensitive to Christians - but in fact, it seems apparently offensive on racist, grounds, instead.  The yoking together of Allen, and Jesus, simply because they share a cultural identity would be outrageous in any other context.  For instance, if I claimed that Mike Tyson and President Obama were actually one and the same because they were "both Black" you'd quickly sense this was not even comical, but simply ignorant, and offensive.  Christmas in the UK is a minefield - it brings out the Scrooges in great numbers - and seemingly gives them permission to throw snowballs with razor blades in them - at all God's children.  Get it over it, and grow up - religion is a holy time for people, and if you cannot share in the joy, then at least don't set out to spoil i...

Any reader in Britain, of serious literature, might be disheartened to learn that sales of the recently short-listed Booker novels are, for the most part, in the low thousands (one of them has sold around two thousand copies); meanwhile, most poetry collections sell less than a thousand copies.  However - and this is the funny part - memoirs by comedians sell tens of thousands, making millions of pounds.  Apparently, this year's Christmas season, which began in publishing on September 29, features a number of comedy books, which sellers hope will hit the jackpot.  This may be fun on Christmas Day.  It is not good for culture, however popular.  The truth is, poetry has a particularly hard-sell in a culture, like Britain's, where the default setting is a guffaw, or chortle.  Poetry can never compete with stand-up, for even when it is light and witty, it is not Comedy; nor is poetry sex, drugs or rock and roll - the other obsessions of the marketers who peddle...

Stephen Fry , the world's most beloved Tweeter, if not twit, is a national treasure in England - but now persona non grata in Tokyo, Japan (death threats even, allegedly) for joking on his comedic panel show about a double-survivor of the A-bomb attacks in WWII - the BBC has had to apologise; as they have had to apologise to the the Mexican ambassador, for a joke from Jeremy Clarkson , another national treasure and TV personality, which claimed that Mexicans were lazy and feckless . Last night, on yet another British TV show, I saw yet another well-known comedian make a joke about how the death of millions of Canadians wouldn't be so bad - because they're Canadian.  Substitute the word "Jew" or "Irish" or "homosexual", and one sees the problem.  The BBC has argued that "national stereotyping is part of British humour".  Uh - okay.  And apartheid was part of the South African regime.  Reprehensible traits, however "native",...

Sad news.  The laconic comic at the heart of US cop-shop top sitcom Barney Miller , Steve Landesberg , has died today.  One of my favourite shows growing up, along with Welcome Back, Kotter .

Leslie Nielsen has died - sadly - and he must be rated, all things considered - one of Canada's greatest popular figures of the 20th century, along with William Shatner - a world famous comedian, and serious actor - who became globally synonymous with straight-faced hilarity.  Nielsen was the captain in my favourite shlock film, The Poseidon Adventure , whose reaction to the terrible capsizing wave later made him ideal in Airplane! - often voted by critics as one of the ten best comedies.  He will be missed.