Recently Clare Balding, a near neighbour of ours, was described maliciously by a Sunday Times journalist as a "Dyke on a Bike". She took exception (as did practically the whole lesbian and gay community). She protested to the Editor most eloquently in the same paper the following week - to no avail as the same journalist followed it a couple of weeks later with repetition of his infamous views on the Welsh.
Quite why the Sunday Times believes that it is acceptible to insult many of its readers with a type of humour that it itself finds offensive when directed against the English by Muslims, or by gay people against "the family", is beyond my comprehension.
Sue Perkins, a comedienne of some worth, tweated on Twitter last night that she was "in Scotland eating a salad - spot the oxymoron". That sort of joke is good hearted and not malicious . . . well, certainly not to me a Scot who isn't prone to ordering salads!
So where's the humour and where's the offence? Where do we draw the line? I guess we have to look at what was the writer's intention. If it is to hold up a mirror and laugh with them - then that's fun and fine; if, however, it is to hold out a stick and point or jab: that's hurtful and puerile.
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