egafd.com

Does anyone know what criteria British broadcasters apply in deciding whether to bleep out what they consider to be bad language? There seems to be no logical pattern followed. Sometimes 'bad language' is even written into the scripts of plays. It certainly has nothing to do with the watershed as often the words are bleeped out in late night broadcasts. Some even bleeped out 'shit' from George W's overheard conversation with Tony Blair

There's an episode of "Men Behaving Badly" where Tony, returning drunk from the pub, is standing on the street outside the house and yells up to Deborah "Debs, I fucking love you", which doesn't read like much on the page, but in context was very funny. It was the only time in the whole series they ever used "fuck", but it worked just that once.

When it first went out in 1996 or thereabouts, it was uncensored. Every time it has since been repeated, long after the "watershed", it has been bleeped. The effect of that is to render the line unfunny, it only works when Tony says "fucking." Why we are not allowed to hear this word in a programme broadcast at 10.30 pm only the BBC must know. I have never bothered to ask them, but I assume it had something to do with managerial cowardice, so the chances of getting a straight answer would be zero.

Cunt is normally bleeped out although I remember a programme about Sir Oswald Mosley a few years ago used it. I was more thinking of 'fuck', there simply seems no pattern at all about when it is appropriate to cut it out. I noticed that Sky made an apology recently, when Danish speedway rider, Hans Andersen used it several times in a live tv interview.