Anton Du Beke, in spite of his alluring Euro-heritage, but as his hilariously self-made up name suggests, is a classic English berk. The kind of boorish, wit-vacuum you get stuck with at a work or family party. He holds court while those around him hack out their own ear-drums and retina in a bid to relieve the tedium and in spite of the mess of blood, skin and vitreous fluid spilt on the new carpet he still thinks he’s won the crowd. His real name is Tony Beak.
Unlike Du Beke, the term berk is sadly under used. In my mind a berk is not evil, just an irritating presence, although upon conducting extensive research I discovered that it is derived from rhyming slang ‘Berkshire Hunt – C***.’ Still, let’s stick with it.
If you use certain words – Paki, nigger, gollywog are some, Anton – you’d better have put some thought into it. I used a couple of those whilst reacting to a friend’s gaffe with a German colleague where she’d used the word ‘Nazi’ Not great, but not as bad. I’m sure that what I’d said could be taken out of context and used against me, but I was definitely illustrating a point, had a clear rationale and knew that I would not be offending anyone. I think it was quite funny and that the two friends I was with were laughing, but they were both white and I could have been very wrong and deserve public condemnation. Maybe I didn’t quite have the eloquence and impact of Richard Pryor, Chris Rock or recently Richard Herring, whose brilliant routine from his Edinburgh show this year was criminally misrepresented in The Guardian, but the point is that I wouldn’t use any term like that lightly and no one should. Unless you’re a massive racist, then these are the terms you should use in an offensive fashion, because that’s what you do, you massively racist t**t.
Anton blurted out the P word, just as Carol Thatcher dropped the G-bomb – in an off the cuff, spontaneous way. Jokey banter is the defence of the criminally unfunny. Go to comedy school and learn what a joke is and how to write it, then discover that you will never be able to and then vow to never attempt a joke again. Just nod, say yes, no, thank you and go about your business.
Let’s just analyse the jokes. ‘You look like a…(insert racist term here).’ It’s an observation with no embellishment. If there was no racist term, how would you react to such a straightforward comment? Say, for example, I nudge my girlfriend while watching Strictly Come Dancing (which I don’t) and say, ‘That Anton Du Beke looks like a bit of a berk.’ My girlfriend would look at me and nod, maybe shrug. No laughter. If I say ‘That Anton Du Beke looks like a retro children’s toy with an unmovable moulded plastic face that wobbles on top of a body that gyrates like a wind-up toy produced in a Far Eastern sweatshop that fails to comply with safety and employment regulations.’ Then she’d probably say ‘Shut up Matt, I’m trying to enjoy Alesha’s insightful critique of Phil Tufnell’s tango.’ But at least I’ve made some kind of sub-Frankie Boyle effort to analyse the vision before me.
Du Berk’s crime is actually worse than Carol’s – he used the term to his dance partner Laila Rouass’ face. And having offended her before by asking her if she was a terrorist, he should have been dancing on eggshells. Carol referred to a fella on the telly offending other people around her – bad, but less personally offensive. The only difference is that Anton has been contrite where Carol refused to kow-tow to the PC brigade – those killjoys who want to stop everyone having fun by banning people who make jokes that aren’t jokes which are racist. It’s shocking. The BBC should black Anton and Carol up like minstrels and send them off dancing through the streets of Brixton or Moss Side. Surely they can take a joke.
