Janey Godley: So how would you feel if you were being called a Gollyjock?

Published on Sunday 15 February 2009 19:26

SOON we won't need comedians.

Last week, we heard that Prince Harry had told my comedy chum Stephen K Amos: "You don't sound like a black chap." And, of late, our TV presenters have been spitting out a litany of headline-grabbing gaffes. We will just wait for the likes of Jonathan Ross, BBC roving reporters or DJs to make another mistake, or say something insensitive about Holocaust victims. What happened to comics who used to bite the head off hamsters and serve up some outrage? Where is Jerry Sadowitz when we need him?

Recently we had big, curly-headed Paddington look-a-like Jeremy Clarkson slagging off Gordon Brown. (Is it politically incorrect to compare Clarkson to a stuffed toy? Didn't his mother create it in his image?)

Clarkson uttered: "In England, we have a one-eyed Scottish idiot." Typical of his Little England attitude that he didn't say "in the UK", because he doesn't believe there is anything else in the UK other than England and that's why I don't take his words seriously. The man is a fat buffoon obsessed with cars; he probably didn't know our last PM Tony Blair was also a Scot.

In the past fortnight we have also had screams of horror about Carol Thatcher and her 'Golliwog' statement.

At the height of that furore I did a gig in Pitlochry Festival Theatre and one woman produced a Golly doll on a keychain when I asked the audience's opinion on the so-called scandal. The audience were split into two camps: one of hushed silence, the other guffaws of laughter.

I realise that Golly dolls do represent a negative image of black people. It stereotypes them, it recalls an age when the word Wog was acceptable, and we can never go back there.

So can we demand those awful 'See you Jimmy' ginger, tufty-haired tartan Jock bunnets to be banned? We don't all have red bushy hair, nor do we wear tartan bunnets. We never say "See you Jimmy".

I think it portrays the Scots in a bad light and I find it racist to be called a Jock.

My complaint won't be taken seriously, though, as my Scottish ancestry doesn't have a history of genocide or slavery. But do the Highland Clearances not count any more? Have they been forgotten? Especially in this important year of 'Homecoming', I think they should not.

So let's ban Golly dolls, let's stop selling ginger-haired tartan bunnets and let's all get on board the politically correct handcart – and, by the way, while we are cleansing novelty items, I don't want to see another tartan dolly made in China being sold on the Royal Mile.

• MY BELOVED stepmum Mary Currie passed away peacefully last week. In her 78 years of life she made so many people happy and I have never known anyone to have that many friends and family grieve at her passing.

My wee dad, her son, daughter, grandchildren and great-grandchildren are heartbroken.

Mary was my stepmum for 25 years and never ceased to amaze me with her patience and ability to see the good in everyone. She had worked all her life and coped with two life-threatening bouts of cancer.

She never smoked, hardly touched a drop of alcohol and I never heard her swear or curse in all the time I knew her.

A great wee Glasgow woman, who will be terribly missed by her own as well as her extended family and friends. I was lucky that my dad had the good sense to find such a special lady to be my mother.

Bankers aren't the only people Gordon throws money at

BACK in the early 1990s, Gordon Brown, right, came into my Glasgow bar to buy drinks for the Labour faithful in the Calton.

We had a poster up advertising bottled beer at a 1 per bottle. Gordon ordered 14 bottles of beer and I charged him 25. He looked at me, looked at the sign, stared at the customers and paid the over-charged price.

I laughed and said: "See? This bloke is the Shadow Chancellor and I just screwed him for 11 pounds!"

He stared at me.

Mr Brown, if you can't handle a mouthy barmaid, you can't handle the country.