Barry Humphries would not

make it to the end of the first show today - or rather Dame Edna and Sir Les wouldn't. And that is sad.

I think we have lost the ability to laugh at anything like those characters now. They are considered "politically incorrect". There will be people who complain about the multi-page coverage given to the late Humphries in today's paper even when they once laughed.

There is another article in the paper which also talks about entertainment - entertainment of a sort. It is by one of our regular columnists and he is expressing concern about the way swear words are used so much more freely here than they once were.

I am old enough to remember when "bloody" was considered to be a swear word. There is an incident I can remember in school when the Senior Cat, also my teacher at the time, told one of the boys to "go and put that bloody handkerchief to soak in cold water". It was of course a perfectly correct use of the word but there was a gasp of shock in the classroom. Had the teacher really used that word? I can remember the careful explanation which followed and a discussion about why swearing was something you did not do.

Back home on the farm the other children probably heard their fathers swear. It is unlikely their mothers swore. Women simply did not do it in that community. They had not done it in and around the port where we had spent the previous five years. Men didn't swear in front of women or children in public - and it is unlikely many of them did at home. On the docks it was likely a different story. It was taken as a matter of course that "wharfies" swore. We knew there were "bad" words but we didn't use them.  

I later taught in a school for children with severe and profound disabilities. One particularly difficult child swore at me one day. I told her it was unacceptable so she swore at me in German. I told her I understood that too. Then she tried swearing in Italian. I told her I understood that too. She looked at me, sighed and said, "I not swear then." She never swore at me again. In the staff room the story was a cause for laughter but we were also concerned other children did not learn those words.

Now though it seems we worry less about swear words than we do about the correct pronoun to use when referring to someone. Somewhere along the line I think we got our priorities mixed. The world was a kinder place when Barry Humphries was being Dame Edna and people were laughing. You will be missed mate. RIP.