Nowość w sklepie KP
CYTAT DNIA
Stanęli przed wyzwaniem dziejowym, któremu musieli sprostać, a ponieważ mieli wolę i wiarę, wyzwaniu temu sprostali.
Andrzej Mencwel, Etos lewicy
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Bishop’s Arse! |
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Kazimiera Szczuka
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08.12.2009 |
The banners are contentious and may lead to arguments.
Bishop’s Arse is an almost forgotten oldie-worldie parlour game and, as is often the case with parlour games, it’s pretty moronic: the players are each dealt a hand of cards and take turns placing cards on the table, face up. Each time a queen appears, everyone is supposed to shout: ‘Bonjour Madame!’ It’s ‘bonjour Monsieur!’ for the king and ‘bishop’s arse!’ for the ace. The rules of the game soon get more and more convoluted, but in essence it’s all about quick reflexes, a chorus of naughty words shouted out loud and everyone falling about laughing.
As I’m scribbling these words, I’m wondering whether I’m about to fall foul of both the editorial team and the aggressively sanctimonious Internet commentators, but hey; let’s live dangerously, so here we go again: BISHOP’S ARSE! Put that in yer pipe and smoke it, chaps: Arse! Arse!
…Warsaw Transport Board has refused permission for this year’s 8th of March (International Women’s Day) demo slogans ‘Your Bishop Is Not Your God’ and ‘We Want Society Hearty & Hale, Not Hail Marys’ to be posted on the city’s bus fleet. Why did they refuse? Allow me to quote their reasons as outlined in a letter to one of the demo’s organisers:
Dear Madam,
Advertising space on the city’s bus fleet is not suitable for the display of artistic provocations or exchanges of views. The banners which you are proposing contain an excessively socially engaged element, with the content intended to challenge the viewer morally and to influence his personality (sic!). The banners are therefore contentious and may lead to arguments (sic!). There are alternative advertising spaces in Warsaw, which should be more suitable for your purpose.
Grazyna Cudak
Promotions Department.
So what would happen if someone started reading…Rs!…Rs!… on the city’s bus fleet…what if someone smuggled – let us say a newspaper - onto the city’s bus fleet? It doesn’t bear thinking about, does it!
…And so I find Ms Cudak’s guise as the champion of ‘the viewer’s personality’ unconvincing. I find it equally hard to credit that she’s fretting about the ‘contentiousness’ on health and safety grounds, even though at first glance you may concede that she has a point: the ‘excessively socially engaged element’ of the proposition that ‘Your Bishop Is Not Your God’ may lead to a catastrophic breakdown of public order on the aforementioned bus fleet and a morally challenged viewer may turn into a rioting viewer. The viewers’ ‘influenced personality’ may lead them to go on the rampage in the manner of a Vandal horde: Some little blue-rinsed lady may clobber to death a juvenile radical with her brolly or, conversely, stark raving mad feminists may rough up some venerable WWII veterans. But would Ms Cudak find the formula of words: ‘Your Bishop is God’ less contentious? And what about the slogan displayed on London buses by British atheists: ‘There’s probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life’? Would Ms Cudak’s scruples be assuaged if my sisters from the ‘8th of March Concordat’ paraphrased that British banner, plumping for: ‘Your Bishop Is Probably Not God’?
I suspect, however, that Warsaw Transport Board’s circumspection was on this occasion informed by concerns far removed from health & safety issues and that their refusal was more likely a classic case of ‘jobsworth.’ It’s not so much that the Board can’t be arsed to oblige some Jane Blog’s request, but that it prefers to shield its arse from potential trouble being stirred up by the ‘excessively socially engaged’ religionists. In the Transport Board’s speak, these ‘excessively socially engaged’ quarters could provoke a potentially contentious situation regarding Ms Cudak’s morals and personality; should the said Ms Cudak allow the demo’s slogans to be disseminated on the Board’s advertising space. As a result, Ms Cudak has overwhelming motivation to refuse the said dissemination, in case her decision to the contrary should provoke the excessively socially engaged quarters to embark upon the process of her desocialisation and ultimately bring about the necessity of having to face a forced change of a career in the middle of the financial crisis.
The clergy and assorted churchy organisations’ blithe disposition is apparently of paramount importance here; while the feminists will fuss for a bit as is their wont, but shut up sooner or later as they always do…
But maybe this time they won’t; let’s wait and see.
At this point, I’d like to introduce my own artistic provocation with excessively socially engaged content. It’s in the style of our charismatic ex-prime minister’s girlfriend; the gorgeous Isabel having recently made her debut as a poetess:
The eighth of March. High noon.
C U
…Rs…Rs…
Yours Truly K. Szczuka Esq.
Myself.
Transl. Malgosia Skawinski
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