Also in the news, which may not have filtered across La Manche to France, was the death of English actor Andrew Sachs. He guyed a hapless, bullied waiter who 'came from Barcelona' and had washed up in Fawlty Towers, the BBC sit-com from the 1970s.
If you want more, and there is mucho, you're on your own. You know it's funny, because of the roaring laughter-track, to make a comic buffoon of a Spaniard and, by extension, all of Spain. Although I guess Magdrileños shrug and say It's not us, it's the Catalans that are being mocked. What's not to laugh about wheeling out such stereotypes and applying them to blacks, muslims and jews? Is it because they don't have a sense of humor? As late as 1978, it was acceptable to dress chaps up in white flairs and black-face to sing songs with white girls in hot-pants:
- Black and White Minstrel Show [<miscegenation alert> and don't look it you lived through the 70s: too embarrassing]
Here's Werner Herzog [prev] doing the "By Gad Sir, I've lost my leg" about a mere flesh wound. Well 'ard that Herzog.
On the BBC last night a travel company, decides to get the staff DNA tested to shake up their sense of identity /certainty. I hope the HR department and the Union, if any, are awake to potential ethical issues. On a related issue are dopplegangers: distant people who are not identical twins separated at birth but who have the same face. We could ask if they are broadly similar as to their genetic heritage or if their faces are just thrown together at random.
On the BBC last night a travel company, decides to get the staff DNA tested to shake up their sense of identity /certainty. I hope the HR department and the Union, if any, are awake to potential ethical issues. On a related issue are dopplegangers: distant people who are not identical twins separated at birth but who have the same face. We could ask if they are broadly similar as to their genetic heritage or if their faces are just thrown together at random.
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