This music video comes with a warning as the lyrics contain a lot of colourful and potentially offensive language. However, if you have ever suffered the worst excesses of public transport in either London or Wellington and all points inbetween you will understand frustration of the songwriters…
I don’t agree with many of the sentiments expressed, but for me it is striking example of how the Internet shreds any notions of censorship that traditional broadcasting has.
Stephen Powell 
“it is striking example of how the Internet shreds any notions of censorship that traditional broadcasting has”
Steve, the cat’s been out of the bag for several years on this. Over the recent past we’ve had movies like “Saw” and “Hostel” which hark back to the ‘exploitation’ movie era of the mid seventies in the explicit level of detail in the gore that they portray. Tarentino’s forthcoming “Grindhouse” is another example whilst I’m convinced that the French file “Baise-Moi” of a few years ago was only put together for no other reason than to see how far the producers could push the censor.
With hardcore sex available at the push of a button on the internet free of charge on such sites as http://www.thehun.net and http://www.tiava.com (I’m sure all readers of this blog will have the moral fortitude not to investigate those links….) the battle has already been lost. The BFCC (British Film Censorship Board) admit they are becoming less of a body who edit and censor what we see and much more of an advisory and certification body, leaving the movie itself pretty much intact.
And it ain’t just the movies, the TV stations are getting in on the act too. I don’t know if you remember those “Lover’s Guide” videos of about a decade ago which depicted full-on sex in a film which you could buy from your local video store. I believe that the BBC filmed their own version and were going to transmit a series of late-night shows but pulled out (fnurr, fnurr….) right at the last minute, partly as a result of laws New Labour introduced when they came to power.
And what’s the real reason for the success of “Big Brother”? Surely it’s all those spotty adolescent 14-year old kids hoping to get a glimpse of the first on-screen bonk on British TV (I’ve got news for you, lads and lasses – the late-night scenes are both transmitted on a time delay and are censored…).
What does amaze me about YouTube is the amount of copyrighted material available on it free of charge. From its 5.5 million video files, I’ve only ever heard of Sony/Viacom asking for about 100,000 clips to be removed. I would have thought the broadcasters would have been up in arms about it – but the BBC even have their own channel on the site whilst Apple Computing (oops, Incorporated these days) are getting the picture quality of the material upgraded ahead of its inclusion on their Apple TV sets. Still, seeing as I am planning to load a few classic British and World Superbike races onto YouTube in the near future, I suppose I shouldn’t complain too much about that one.
Cheers for these thoughts Jon, all very true… However, viewing such material is by no means a uniform experience across the population. For example, our parents would find the London Underground video shocking whereas younger people who have grown up with the Internet would likely be familiar with such content.
I wonder if such material becoming increasingly ‘mainstream’ will bring about a significant change in the moral code of society.
“I wonder if such material becoming increasingly ‘mainstream’ will bring about a significant change in the moral code of society.”
I’d say that’s already happened.
For example, I found the Carling Black Label cinema ad where a hapless slave licks out a toilet bowl just for a few drops of the gassy fizz absolutely revolting, but the “kids” must have liked it to get past the focus groups.