Cursed child
Watching new BBC1 drama Strike: The Cuckoo’s Calling, has made me realise that it is too long a time since complaints about the ever-increasing frequency of the F word on so many TV shows were publicised. What makes our predicament worse these days, not better, is that viewers are forever being “warned” about “strong language”, when the prevalence of the same offthe-shelf word, instead of the careful selection of pertinent and more telling adjectives and expletives, is proof of the writer’s weakness – as well as an insult to interested grownups at the receiving end.
Back in the days when I stood on the terracing on Saturday afternoons at Tynecastle and Easter Road, just occasionally a supporter the worse for drink would let out a swear word at the referee and immediately a strong male voice would be directed over our heads , “Boys present”, or “Ladies present”: and the culprit would get the message. How things have changed! Now, when JK Rowling started to write in a different genre, she used a pen name, Robert Galbraith, The Scotsman reported – so that potential publishers would judge the work not on her reputation but on the quality of the writing. What a disappointment it is that such a deservedly celebrated and undeniably effective do-gooder has allowed herself to fall in with the lower standards of today’s popularists! The big media cuckoos have been throwing out of the nest of civil culture a heritage of concern and decency for humanity’s vulnerable chicks.
JACK KELLET Dyers Close, Innerleithen Actor Ed Skrein recently announced that he was pulling out from his role in the film Hellboy because he did not initially realise that his character was of mixed race, being American/japanese. It came to his attention when there was a flurry of criticism at the news of his casting and his announcement has subsequently won widespread praise from those who believe that the part should be played by someone more ethnically qualified.
This attitude both baffles and disappoints me because some years ago I used to attend performances by a Harlem theatre group in New York, one of which was an excellent production of Macbeth. All of the players were black, Africanamericans, and it would sadden me to think that the way things are going, they will no longer be permitted to perform such works.
WALTER J ALLAN Colinton Mains Drive, Edinburgh