PC 449 Sexual and Racist Thoughtlessness

If you are of a certain age, you will remember the saucy postcards picturing, oh! I don’t know, a dog tugging at the knickers of a large breasted woman, or this:

Or these ……

Was there anything harmful in these, produced in an era before television, a genre of comedy that appealed to all but the frigid? Barrack-room humour, pub male banter, it seemed part of the social fabric; just as comedians like Ken Dodd and Frankie Howard hammered the sexual jokes and innuendo to the point they became, to a degree, their trademark. I always pitied the mother-in-law! Sexual bluntness but at arm’s length; nothing personal. If we didn’t laugh out loud, we maybe sniggered silently, not wanting to be seen as outwardly coarse, but appreciating the creator’s skill.

Page 3’s Jakki Degg

The Sun, a British tabloid newspaper and part of the stable of Rupert Murdoch, from 1970 featured ‘topless glamour models’ on its third page. The Sun’s Page 3 became a defining aspect of the paper and a cultural phenomenon, with models like Katie Price aka Jordan gaining fame through it. ‘Page 3’ was discontinued in 2015 after criticism about how it was portraying women.

Whilst I am not a fan of some of the reality television shows that grace our screens, such as Love Island or Celebrity Big Brother, I do like creative programmes, such as MasterChef (Presented by Greg Wallace and John Torode), The Great British Bake Off (Presented by Alison Hammond and Noel Fielding, with judging by Paul Hollywood and Prue Leith) and Bake Off The Professionals (Presented by Liam Charles and Ellie Taylor, and judged by Benoit Blin and Cherish Finden), although you can identify a bit of a theme in these! I could add ‘The Great Pottery Throw Down’ (Presented by Siobhán McSweeney and judges Keith Brymer Jones and Rich Miller) all about using clay.

I mention these four because in some episodes, sometimes, someone will make what used to be called a smutty joke, some comment with sexual undertones. And everyone laughs, presenters and participants, and the comment is never challenged; presumably if it was it would be edited out. Challenging would have been viewed as prudish; no one wants to be called a prude. So the inference is that the programme makers believe these titillations add colour to the conversations, to the banter. “It’s what we do, its harmless fun …..” until it isn’t. How do you know when you might offend someone? I love sex, love reading about sex, watching its portray in films and am no prude for sure, but I have always failed to understand why there is this incessant underlying sexual inuendo present in programmes that have nothing to do with sex. I watch and cringe, think ‘is that comment really necessary?’ In baking, ‘buns’, ‘cream’ and ‘rising’ are good examples of cross-over words not leaving much to the imagination.

Greg Wallace and John Torode

Both presenters of Master Chef, Greg Wallace and John Torode, have had their contracts terminated in the last few weeks, the former as a result of a BBC investigation into allegations of sexual misconduct. Greg is now considered old school, the dinosaur who doesn’t understand that what was considered fun and OK, is now not OK; certainly not fun if you are the victim.

Interestingly Wallace has apparently claimed that he often does not wear underpants as his autism manifests itself in extremely sensitive skin. This obviously explained why he was wearing a sock on his cock when someone opened the door of his dressing room during the making of a MasterChef programme. Another female member of the production crew recalled that Wallace, in his dressing room, said he needed to change his trousers and simple dropped them in front of the woman. ‘Oh! Sorry, I never wear underwear!’

A great example of a reality television show that seemed to be squeaky clean was Handmade: Britain’s Best Woodworker, which was first broadcast in 2021. Talented woodworkers were set a ‘big project’ challenge, like making a bed, as well as skills tests, designed to demonstrate a particular expertise. Sadly it only ran for three series and there’s no news of it coming back. Perhaps too squeaky clean?

I must obviously question whether the audience love and laugh at the sexual inuendo, just part of the relaxing point of television – not paid to think! Whilst sexual jokes and suggestive scripts may be, some might argue, harmless, they are not if you are the victim or target.

As Wallace was being shown the door, there was an unsubstantiated allegation that John Torode, his co-presenter, had used ‘an extremely racist offensive term.’ Despite insisting he had no recollection of any of it, he too was gone.

Racism is a nasty and insidious aspect of human interaction. We have come a long way from the popular views of our grandparents or even great grandparents, where foreigners began at Dover, the British Empire was possible because of the superiority of the white race, and certain races had a bad reputation. We still have further to go.

At the weekend news came that one of England’s Lionesses football team, Jess Carter, has been the target of racist abuse during the current Euro 2025 football competition. I thought ‘monkey chants’ from the football terraces were becoming, thankfully, rarer, but in this case the perpetrators are using social media to broadcast their unwelcome and unwarranted bile.

Maro Itoje

Interestingly the England Rugby Union international Maro Itoje believes that rugby suffers less from racist than football does because “rugby fans, and people in rugby, are a little bit more educated than those in football. The strength of tribalism between football clubs is partly to blame; when an oppositional player who’s a person of colour does damage to their team, the fans want to throw abuse at them. Rugby is nowhere near as tribal.” Even today I sadly find some of my generation use what in the C21st are rightly considered racially offensive words. The further out in the sticks you live, the more likely to hear such things. It will take years for everyone, whatever their race, their skin colour and their religion to just accept that others may be different but that they have a right to exist….. in their own way.

Richard 25^th July 2025

Estoril, Portugal

www.postcardscribbles.co.uk

Whilst I love the mug of Illy coffee I make in the morning with our Gaggia Espresso, I also love the interaction and social scene of The Hope Café; long may it last. And obviously I hope the additional draw of its co-location with a real book shop and reading room will increase the footfall for both enterprises.

The other morning I bumped into our neighbour Olga, on her way back to her apartment with her morning coffee in its disposable cup. She’s Ukrainian, a lawyer in the Worthing firm Mortimer Clarke and works from home some days. She loves the coffee from Gails, an expensive coffee shop and bakery founded in 2005 by Gail Mejia and Tom Molnar; there’s an outlet at the top of our road. (Note 1) We know it’s expensive as we buy our San Francisco sourdough bread there – £4.50 a loaf! Olga’s coffee is over £4 and I teased her that she could buy a small coffee machine like ours for under £200, equivalent to only 50 cups from Gails – probably paying for itself in less than six months.

However, we all have our peculiarities when it comes to ‘having a coffee’. Some of us make it in the comfort of our own home, wearing whatever takes our fancy; others, like Olga, prefer to go and grab a ‘take-away’ (Note 2), interacting with the barista and maybe others in the inevitable queue, while welcoming places like The Hope Café entice one to sit, and chat, and read, and savour the closeness of others. ‘Time to stand (sit!) and stare’.

If you want to know more about coffee, buy James Hoffmann’s The World Atlas of Coffee. You’ll find answers to questions like ‘Is it worth grinding your own beans?’, ‘Is coffee good/bad for you?’ and ‘What’s the difference between Arabica and Robusta beans?’. (Published in October 2025)

I went to the Hope Café in the morning towards the end of last week. Usually we have our 90-minute hot yoga class at 1000, but I had to let a new scar heal; ‘No yoga for two weeks!’ The scar on my left scapula was the visible sign of the removal of a Squamous cell carcinoma.

Squamous cells make up the middle and outer layers of the skin. Squamous cell carcinoma is a common type of skin cancer, not life-threatening but better removed than left to grow.

I had had a ‘melanoma in-situ mole’ removed 18 months ago, so am aware of the harm a life of sun-worshiping has had on my skin. As a teenager no one knew or cared about skin cancer, caused by too much sun. Now we know and care and can alter our habits accordingly. So, if in doubt about a spot on your skin, get it checked out as soon as possible.

My middle grandson, Reuben, had his 12^th birthday last week and we sent a rendition of ‘Happy Birthday’ by WhatsApp to his mother, as we imagined he’s too young to have a mobile. Actually we found out that he has had one since the beginning of the year, mainly for parental needs; sensibly there’s a strict list of what he can/can’t access. His birthday reminded me that, at my first boarding school, one’s birthday was marked by a little knitted figure, rather like Golliwog. The boy celebrating his birthday was called out at breakfast and presented with a knitted Golliwog aka Robertson, which was placed in their jacket breast pocket, where it stayed all day. (Note 3)

The BBC Two unlikely hit ‘Couples Therapy’ is back for a second series, with Dr Orna Guralnik in her chair. The first series introduced me to ‘Afro-American generational trauma’, the belief that the psychological and emotional impact of historic events like slavery and systemic racism can be passed down through families over generations and it’s an emotional burden Afro-Americans carry today. Many older American black adults, according to research, view mental health conditions as a consequence of personal weakness and that the belief is an excuse.

I was reminded of this belief in generational trauma when Boris Kodjoe and his wife Jessica sat before Orna. Boris’ parents came from the USSR; Boris can’t believe why his wife isn’t sympathetic with his internal struggles, his generational trauma, and doesn’t understand him. The trouble seems to be that whenever she says she is and does, he moves the goalposts and there’s a different challenge. We are in the middle of this series, so it’ll be interesting to see how they resolve, with Orna’s guidance, this issue …. or not! 

Mo saw me and said she’d remembered the subject of my PC 421 ‘Not the Way to Go’, when she’d read a review of ‘Ghosting On Disappearance’ by Dominic Pettman. The dictionary definition of ‘Ghosting’, added in 2012, is ‘the action or ignoring or pretending not to know a person, especially that of suddenly ceasing to respond.’

“Oh!” I exclaimed, “I am constantly ghosted! When I send a WhatsApp message to someone asking a simple question like: ‘Are we on for coffee tomorrow?’, I see those two blue ticks lurking underneath the read but unanswered WhatsApp message and wonder why they haven’t replied. We’re either on or not!”

“Absolutely!” exclaimed Mo.

Richard 18^th July 2025

Estoril Portugal

www.postcardscribbles.co.uk

Note 1 We are surrounded by independent cafes in Brighton & Hove. I adore some of the names: Trading Post Coffee Roastery, Café Coho, The Bystander Café, Small Batch Coffee Company, Milk no Sugar, the Flour Pot Bakery, Grocer & Grain, 17 Grams, Coffee at 33 and many more.

Note 2 Delightfully some people go and pick up their take-away still wearing ‘whatever takes your fancy’.

Note 3 Since 1910 Robertson’s marmalade jars had a golliwog on the label and brooches were collectable. For the last 40 years it’s no longer there, but you can still ask for a brooch! Seen now as racially insensitive. ‘Wog’ is an English slur against dark-skinned, brown-skinned people and as a racist epithet is comparable with spic and nigger. A lovable icon or racist symbol? (Wog being an abbreviation for Western Oriental Gentleman.)