Goodbye George, Fun With Censorhip

With George Calrin's recent death, his Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television (a sort of reexamination of which is in the above video) was mentioned about as often as his actual passing. But it wasn't until I gave the routine another listen and read more on the history of the Supreme Court case surrounding it that I gained an appreciation for just how much he accomplished with this single 1972 seven minute string of words. Just words, think of that.

So amid this reading up a bit on the history of the effect of simple words and thoughts and on censorship generally, my brother-in-law Dan's recommendation of this "censored" video from The Brighton Port Authority (featuring the voices of David Byrne and Dizzee Rascal) was perfectly timed. I don't know much about The Brighton Port Authority other than they seem to have a knack for working with great people and having fun with the conventions of what our fragile minds can handle. Somewhere in the seventies, George is smiling.