Bernard Manning dead.

[Spy Bee]

pictured left

 

Liar!

[RedKnight]

He never recovered from the turkey/bird flu outbreak.

[Paul]

I don't generally like racist jokes. If you were making jokes about all races, great, there's a context there (as Manning understood) but you weren't - you were singling Jews out because you know I am of Jewish descent. I thought that was pretty cheap.

I didn't know that. Now I understand your ire: it felt personal. Apologies for the petty lecture.

[Paul]

We'd best have some evidence for the prosecution

 

A charity dinner was held in 1995 near Manchester to raise funds for the police. One entertainer invited was Bernard Manning (then 65, pictured left), one of the standup comedians who do the rounds of working men’s clubs in Northern England and notorious for his anti-ethnic jokes.

 

The dinner was attended by some 300 policemen – all white except for one black officer. Targeting this single Blackman, Bernard launched into a string of racist jibes. His audience (yes, the police audience) all whooped with delight and cheered him on. Here’s a sample of the jibes reported in News of the World (April 1995):

 

“Where is he? How are you, baby? Having a night out with nice people? Isn’t this better than swinging from the trees? – You’re black, I’m white. Do you think colour makes a difference? You bet your bollocks it does!”

 

“They actually think they’re English because they are born here. That means if a dog’s born in a stable, it is horse.”

 

“They used to be happy people in the cotton fields, singing their bollocks off day and night. A fella used to go around with a whip… ‘Oh, massa, give us another crack of dat whip. I love dat whip’…”

 

“A Liverpool docker went to South Africa for a job. The boss tells him: ‘It’s people like you we want here. Here’s a test. There’s a revolver, go out and shoot 6 niggers and a rabbit.’ The docker asks: ‘Why do I have to shoot the rabbit?’ He got the job.”

 

Later that year (1995), the same Manning made two black waitresses the butt of racist jokes before 500 men at a Round Table dinner at the Pennine Hotel, Derby in the north of England. One of the women, Freda Burton, 24, said that their ordeal started when she bent down to pick a cup she had dropped. Manning quipped (S*n, Sept 1995): “Very nice. That’s how I like my black pudding.”

 

In a complaint to an industrial tribunal, she alleged that Manning went on to make a series of jokes about sex acts and used words like ‘wog, nigger, sambo’.

 

He said of her hair braids: “Lend us one. I need some shoe laces for my boots.”

 

The other waitress, Sonia Rhule, 31, said that the audience were stamping their feet and banging the tables for more. “To me,” she said, “it was like a National Front meeting.”

 

Said a solicitor for the Commission for Racial Equality: ”They were exposed to the racist venom of a comedian without anyone intervening… The employers should have acted.”

 

http://www.goacom.org/overseas-digest/Race%20(UK)/jibes.html

 

 

"I came second in a Robert Redford lookalike contest once. {pause} A f. . . . .g nigger won . . . There's a fellow, John Lennon, He wanted peace, he f. . .g got it. Married a Jap, Yoko Poko, right ugly bastard, face like a blistered piss pot . . . What's two miles long and eats bananas? The f. . . . .g dole queue in Bradford.

 

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4158/is_19950428/ai_n13979510

 

But that's all really funny. Fucking PC brigade. What's the world coming to when you can't say harmless stuff like that any more?

[Paul]

He never recovered from the turkey/bird flu outbreak.

 

Ba-dum, tish!!!

[RedKnight]

Ba-dum, tish!!!

 

That's the kind of humour this thread needs.

[hamstrung]

Liar!

 

I have a framed picture of him to the left of my monitor.

[Paul]

That's the kind of humour this thread needs.

 

That's the kind of humour this whole world needs (man).

[RedKnight]

That's the kind of humour this whole world needs (man).

 

 

Fuckin' A.

[G Richards]

I didn't hear about Bernard Manning until logging on here just now. I have heard various reports about his charitable deeds over the years so I think there was a genuine kindness there that would appear out of sync with the on stage persona. As for his talent, though not my cup of tea I would have to concede that he had great timing and ability to deliver his material. I suppose the crux of the discussion is whether or not that material has validity.

 

My tuppence worth is that by modern standards most people would see Manning as racist. Society seems to have passed its own judgement on this quite clearly since Manning and his ilk have barely featured on tv for a good many years. His material may once have been accepted by a fairly wide audience, but not any more.

 

He should be filed away in the history filing cabinet alongside the likes of Benny Hill (albeit for different reasons).

 

For me there's nothing to see here.

[Stouffer]

What did the five fingers say to the face?

 

Don't know?

[Stu Monty]

For the record, I wasn't aware that you are Jewish, Danny. If you've mentioned it before then I haven't clicked. That wasn't why I used that point of reference.

 

I think Hamstrung's post pretty much wraps things up.

[Strontium]

For the record, I wasn't aware that you are Jewish, Danny. If you've mentioned it before then I haven't clicked. That wasn't why I used that point of reference.

 

Fair dos. I thought you specifically picked Jews because my dad is Jewish. Obviously just a horrible internal misunderstanding. All cleared up now. Sorry I went a bit OTT too...

 

hamstrung's post is interesting, although I would argue that "I came second in a Robert Redford lookalike contest once. {pause} A f. . . . .g nigger won" makes Manning the primary butt of the joke.

 

I thought G Richards' post was spot on actually. But I'm really done arguing the toss. All I will say is I genuinely don't believe Bernard Manning was a venomous racist, just a relic. Of course there was a racial element to his comedy, but I don't think he intended to victimise anyone.

[Guest Jay W]

What did the five fingers say to the face?

 

Slap!

[bigredruss]

i've seen him several times, the comedy world will be poorer without him

[biggit]

How did he die? Did he cough up his own pelvis? If he did then it's a fucking disgrace.

 

FLMAO

 

His finest hour

 

[wiiksie]

I think I agree with Paul, he was a complete irrelevance and probably has been for 20 years or so. I sympathise with his family though.

 

One other point, I am really really really starting to fucking despise the phrase 'PC brigade'.

[Guest Jay W]

that was cooooolllllllllllld bloooooooooddded.

 

Skit has me in stitches everytime. "Bitch, come over here and have sex with Charlie Murphy".

 

Chappelle's skit of 'Lil Jon is quality too..

[Remmie]

I too didn't know SD had any Jew in him, not that it makes any difference as I was making the butt of my joke the Anti-PC brigade and mocking their arguments.

[RoboRiise]

Fucking Jim Bowen blowing smoke up his arse on the 10 o'clock news now. Thats's Jim Bowen who memorably asked a caller on his radio phone-in "Are you a nig-nog?". No surprise he was in the fan club, is it? Who's next, Ron Atkinson?

 

The only thing that Manning has done in the last twenty five years that has the remotest relevance to me is head a campaign to get the speed humps in Alkrington, Middleton lowered or removed because they were fucking his Rolls up. However, if memory serves he was also an influential voice in the campaign to get them installed in the first place.

 

I'm afraid that's all I've got for an epitaph.

[Strontium]

I'm afraid that's all I've got for an epitaph.

 

How about "A less elegant comedian for a less civilised age"?

 

 

TK421 should appreciate that one

[Moschops II]

I find it hard to give a fuck about him alive or dead. Did his bit for charity, sad for the family, etc.

 

Racist or otherwise, he always struck me as a bully more than anything. I suppose that qualifies as "bravely un-PC" these days.

[RoboRiise]

How about "A less elegant comedian for a less civilised age"?

 

 

TK421 should appreciate that one

 

You're hired.

[Strontium]

RoboRiise's gonna get his BFH for dissing the Bowen :telloff:

[Red Mist]

How did the big City fan die? Did he suffer a MASSIVE heart attack? Haha, that's a crap joke Manning would have appreciated, the politically incorrect, unfunny fat bastard.