In the rush to assume the mantle of comedy football club that Manchester City recently vacated Newcastle United have few serious challengers. And when newly-appointed interim manager, unreconstructed long-ball dinosaur Joe Kinnear, told the perma-moaning Geordie nation that club owner and fan hate-figure Mike Ashley had "got Newcastle out of the shit" live on Football Focus it caused much mirth and a hasty BBC apology. There's something marvellously wrong about TV swearing. Not for nothing is Roger Mellie one of Viz's most enduring characters. But as a brief look at the history will show, Kinnear is really just a minnow at this game.
In fact, even as swearing managers go, Kinnear has some way to go to match former Leyton Orient boss John Sitton whose televised dressing-room meltdown was garnished with impressively inventive expletives, a half-time sacking and threats of violence to his own players. We'd all like to see more of that on Football Focus.
Football management is one of those careers that just seems to lend itself to profanity. Stand-up comedy is another. CNN will reflect that incorporating Andrew Dice Clay into a live broadcast was a mistake but they likely didn't anticipate that a question about Clay running a gym would provoke the uncensored stream of purest Brooklyn abuse that came the unfortunate anchor's way.
Likewise, Loose Women producers can't have expected a question from Jakki Brambles about meeting celebrities to lead to Joan Rivers calling Russell Crowe a "piece of fucking shit".
Rivers, apparently not realising the show was live, was dragged off the show like a common criminal during the break. "Yes, I swore, and I'm so fucking sorry" said the repentant comedienne in the immediate aftermath. Russell Crowe was unavailable for comment.
But it's often the quiet ones you have to watch. While most know Caprice for dating Tony Adams, being photographed in her underwear and her ill-fated collaboration with Chesney Hawkes she is also the person who effortlessly slipped in the word cunt on This Morning without so much as a batted eyelid from Fern or Phil. What got Caprice off the hook was that she was discussing The Vagina Monologues at the time. That and the fact that nobody listens to anything she says anyway.
Once the outrage dies down, though, the truth remains that profanity at the highest levels is an art which is why the best swearing ever heard on television came from Deadwood's Al Swearengen. Percussive, perfectly pitched and mixed with the kind of profound insights into life, love and morality that made him Deadwood's philosopher-king-cum-pimp, Swearengen's swearing was the backbeat to the symphony of a town rising from savagery to civilisation and there wasn't a syllable out of place. Kinnear, Caprice and the rest will amuse and appal but when it comes to the sheer joy of being allowed your full range of expression Swearengen shows that TV swearing is a job for professionals.
