Christmas RTE Guide makes bitchy sideswipe at the British Queen

The Idyl Race

Peace process on shaky ground at the moment? Historic visit last year and gestures of reconciliation? None of that mattered to some smart alec who put together this year's Christmas edition of the RTE Guide. They could have said nothing, but chose to do this.

From the BBC One listings for Christmas Day:

"3.00 The Queen: The British monarch lectures her subjects"

Nice and classy, it isn't.

mike65

Always knew RTE was staffed by provos and silly kids!

super_furry

Isn't that what she does?

mike65

She speaks to the nation, rarely a lecture. Unless Philip has really pissed her off at lunch.

charlemont

Ya big girls blouse. You seem very upset about it..

andrew

I'd imagine British people would find it funny too, on account of the fact that they've a sense of humour and it's clearly a joke.

The Idyl Race

Getting plenty of attention on Daily Edge and Broadsheet..

IRE60

When you're paying your licence fee - just remember its propping up a publication like that. It's actually fairly juvenile and should have been subbed. Not because it could be deemed offensive, simply because its puerile

andrew

It's the RTÉ guide, not exactly a publication with the most gravitas in the world.

biko

Ahahaha I like it

pontia

some people post some crap in fairness

Richard

It's only a joke. I don't think many will be offended.

Ted_YNWA

Surprised the RTE guide gets much sales these days. Every weekend paper has a full weeks guide included.

Dicky Pride

Some people just get offended for the sake of it.

Rebelheart

mike65 wrote: »

Always knew RTE was staffed by provos and silly kids!

Grow up: your anti-Irish bigotry is showing again. If you had your way Eoghan Harris, John Caden and their Sticky, pro-Murder Gang/Cooney/Donegan/Cruise O'Brien supporting censorship agenda would still be imposing their fascist will on that station and ruining the careers of many decent journalists (as Mary McAleese testified to some years back).

You'll find them all in The Sunday Independent since - an anti-Irish, pro-British rag which I'm certain you're a big fan of.

Then again, as you're a British nationalist living in this country your anti-Irish views on all of these sort of issues recurrently bring three words to me: pig, grunt, expect.

Rebelheart

Richard wrote: »

It's only a joke. I don't think many will be offended.

Unless they are British people living in Ireland, where they seem to become Irish-hating xenophobes defending all sorts of ultra-British nationalist stuff pretty quickly rather than pissing off back to the Sceptred Isle when they can't stand the native culture. Boards is full of such Irish-hating people, especially over in After Hours.


They left Britain for a reason, and the longer they're here the more they seem to forget it, romanticise that place and denigrate this place.

yohan the great

The only thing that was wrong about that listing is that british people actually feel the need to listen to a woman eho has done nothing to get the kind of respect and love she gets just because ahe was lucky to be born into a family

IRE60

Rebelheart wrote: »

Grow up: your anti-Irish bigotry is showing again. If you had your way Eoghan Harris, John Caden and their Sticky, pro-Murder Gang/Cooney/Donegan/Cruise O'Brien supporting censorship agenda would still be imposing their fascist will on that station and ruining the careers of many decent journalists (as Mary McAleese testified to some years back).

You'll find them all in The Sunday Independent since - an anti-Irish, pro-British rag which I'm certain you're a big fan of.

Then again, as you're a British nationalist living in this country your anti-Irish views on all of these sort of issues recurrently bring three words to me: pig, grunt, expect.

Rebelheart: You must have failed a urine test recently! Wind your fcuking neck in a bit. His opinion is just that - his opinion. To malign him in that fashion is well out of order. What about the Irish living in other countries - are they 'pigs'?

Grow up, clown.

GSF

Rebelheart wrote: »

Grow up: your anti-Irish bigotry is showing again. If you had your way Eoghan Harris, John Caden and their Sticky, pro-Murder Gang/Cooney/Donegan/Cruise O'Brien supporting censorship agenda would still be imposing their fascist will on that station and ruining the careers of many decent journalists (as Mary McAleese testified to some years back).

You'll find them all in The Sunday Independent since - an anti-Irish, pro-British rag which I'm certain you're a big fan of.

Then again, as you're a British nationalist living in this country your anti-Irish views on all of these sort of issues recurrently bring three words to me: pig, grunt, expect.

Everyone is entitled to their opinion as long as its the same as yours?

SiegfriedsMum

andrew wrote: »

It's the RTÉ guide, not exactly a publication with the most gravitas in the world.

My goodness, it's years since I heard of The RTÉ Guide. I am astonished it's still going and more astonished that people buy it. Mind you, as someone who doesn't have a tv and who has little interest in tv, I am astonished that the net is not a better resource for finding out whats on the various channels.

_Kaiser_

Dicky Pride wrote: »

Some people just get offended for the sake of it.

And yet if the Radio Times had described Michael D's Christmas Message last week as:

"Wee Irish leprechaun speaks twee sentiments and a language less than 2% understands to the paddies"

I'm sure there'd be a somewhat different reaction here :rolleyes:

Point being that whoever thought they were being "funny" in the RTE Guide should be disciplined for it.. but it IS Ireland we're talking about so that'll never happen of course!

copacetic

Kaiser2000 wrote: »

And yet if the Radio Times had described Michael D's Christmas Message last week as:

"Wee Irish leprechaun speaks twee sentiments and a language less than 2% understands to the paddies"

I'm sure there'd be a somewhat different reaction here :rolleyes:

Point being that whoever thought they were being "funny" in the RTE Guide should be disciplined for it.. but it IS Ireland we're talking about so that'll never happen of course!

No-one thought they were being funny, the listings are done by an external (french) company that provides listings to nearly all the newspapers. They'll have changed this in time for the newspapers presumably though.

But the managing director of Presse Media 81, which provides the listings for the 'RTE Guide', said it was an unfortunate error.

Julian Kindness told the Irish Independent: "It was very straightforward and an innocuous but unfortunate use of the word 'lectures'."

"In hindsight", he added: "'addresses' would have been more appropriate.

"There was no political slight, no malice intended, no smart-arsed sub-context or attempt to sneak in a Christmas howler.

"The listings editor used 'lecture' not meaning 'giving out to', but meaning 'giving a lecture', like delivering a university lecture. It was a straightforward, unfortunate use of the word."

Asked why the 'RTE Guide' lists the same speech on UTV in more reverent terms as "The British Queen delivers her message", he said: "We go to quite some lengths to make sure there isn't repetition even though the same programme may be shown on different channels at the same time."

He said that RTE were seeing the blunder "as what it was, a genuine error."

http://www.independent.ie/entertainment/tv-radio/rte-guide-makes-majestic-blunder-as-queens-speech-becomes-lecture-3326657.html

andrew

Kaiser2000 wrote: »

And yet if the Radio Times had described Michael D's Christmas Message last week as:

"Wee Irish leprechaun speaks twee sentiments and a language less than 2% understands to the paddies"

I'm sure there'd be a somewhat different reaction here :rolleyes:

Point being that whoever thought they were being "funny" in the RTE Guide should be disciplined for it.. but it IS Ireland we're talking about so that'll never happen of course!

The two statements aren't the same though. Your Higgins sentence insults 1) the irish language 2)Michael D 3)Irish people

The bit in the RTE guide is more of a jab at monarchy than anything else, it just makes fun of the idea of the Queen's speech; it doesn't directly make fun of British people, the Queen, or the English language directly.

SiegfriedsMum

andrew wrote: »

The two statements aren't the same though. Your Higgins sentence insults 1) the irish language 2)Michael D 3)Irish people

The bit in the RTE guide is more of a jab at monarchy than anything else, it just makes fun of the idea of the Queen's speech; it doesn't directly make fun of British people, the Queen, or the English language directly.

As an Irish person, I am not in the least insulted by anything anyone has said on this thread and for you to claim that, as a member of the Irish people, I am insulted, then you are simply incorrect. You also claim that Michael D has been insulted, and how you know this remains a mystery. I am also at a loss to know how a language can be insulted.

I make it a golden rule not to find offence where it is not meant, and especially not to take offence where it is meant.

I've noticed in ireland that it sometimes seems acceptable to 'poke fun' at the english, (especially if they are tories or perceived to be upper class), but to rush to take offence if the english respond in kind.