Has The Uk Gone Nuts?

[gjones]

Basil Brush probed by police over 'racist abuse' in gipsy spell sketch

By CHRISTOPHER LEAKE - More by this author »

Last updated at 00:52am on 16th March 2008

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Children's TV puppet Basil Brush is at the centre of a bizarre police probe into claims by a group of gipsies that they were racially abused on a BBC programme.

The gipsies allege that an episode of the Basil Brush Show which showed a gipsy woman trying to sell the puppet fox wooden pegs and heather was racially offensive.

They contacted Northamptonshire police who have now approached the BBC over the claims.

The programme starring Basil – catchphrase "Boom, boom!" – was first shown six years ago and repeated on the digital channel CBBC (Children's BBC) on February 21 this year.

The episode features Basil and his friend Mr Stephen, played by actor Christopher Pizzey, who succumbs to a gipsy spell that makes him attractive to every woman he meets.

The gipsy fortune teller who casts the spell, Dame Rosie Fortune, had just moved into a flat above Basil and Mr Stephen's.

Basil rejects her offer of pegs and heather, which she holds in her hand at his front door.

And when Dame Rosie offers to tell Basil's fortune, he says: "I went to a fortune teller once and he said I was going on a long journey."

When Mr Stephen asks what happens, Basil replies: "He stole my wallet and I had to walk all the way home."

Joseph Jones, vice-chairman of the Southern England Romany, Gipsy and Irish Traveller Network, said: "This sort of thing happens quite regularly and we are fed up with making complaints about stereotypical comments about us in words that we find racist or offensive.

"Racist abuse of black people is quite rightly no longer deemed acceptable, but when a comedian makes a joke on TV about pikeys or gippos, there's no comeback.

"I don't know the details of this complaint about Basil Brush, but it depends on the context in which the image was broadcast.

"Travellers have historically sold heather and pegs, but they don't do it any more for a living.

"It could be that someone thought this was a kind of stereotyping like the portrayal of black people in the Black And White Minstrel Show."

BBC bosses appeared bemused last night about the complaint because the episode has been repeated at least eight times since 2002 and has been released on a DVD called Basil Unleashed.

A BBC spokesman said: "We have no comment to make."

However, a corporation source confirmed it had been contacted by police and that the BBC was also carrying out its own investigation.

Senior Tory MP Patrick Mercer said last night: "Our police are under-staffed and hideously busy.

"Surely, they have got better things to do than investigate the alleged crimes of a fox puppet."

Latest Home Office figures, for 2006-07, show there were 65,975 crimes recorded in Northamptonshire, a reduction of three per cent on the previous year. Nationally, recorded crime fell by two per cent.

Basil Brush is 45 years old, the original puppet being made in 1963 by Peter Firmin, who went on to create The Clangers and Bagpuss.

The fox, whose upper-class voice was based on that of comic actor Terry-Thomas, got his big break when he appeared with magician David Nixon on The Nixon Line in 1967.

The Basil Brush Show started in 1970 and ran until the early Eighties, attracting audiences of up to 12million on Saturday teatimes.

Basil was universally loved, appearing at Prince William's fifth birthday party and meeting the Queen three times.

He returned to TV screens a few years ago. From this January, he co-hosted an updated version of Seventies Saturday-morning show Swap Shop on BBC2.

A Northamptonshire Police spokesman said: "We can confirm that we received a complaint from a member of the public about a TV show featuring Basil Brush.

"It was logged as an offence of a racist nature."

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/arti...in_page_id=1770

Has the UK gone mad?

I hear everyday of some stupid laws and rules, I am glad I dont live there anymore I prefer the "Boom, boom!" we get here.

[sbk]

Sorry gjones, but absolutely not Thailand related in anyway.

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