The poo bum willy version of history

How we tell history comes in many shapes and sizes from the very serious and scholarly to the light hearted.

And in that latter style comes the BBC programme Your Dead to Me, which is a “Radio 4 comedy that takes history seriously” by bringing “together the best names in comedy and history to learn and laugh about the past”.*

It is a nice informative way of bursting a few pompous bubbles about past events and making you smile along the way.

But somehow this week’s edition on the Queen of Sheba didn’t work.  

I have no doubt that the comedian who flaunted her humorous take on the legendary woman of the past has more talent than I ever will but her preoccupation with male genitalia, their size in the past and the possible attraction of Sheba to Solomon became tedious and got in the way.

It wasn’t quite a Mary Whitehouse moment, but it echoed that debatable point about when is lavatory humour appropriate?**

And here I confess to having laughed and laughed again at all those innuendos that pepper British humour from “Biggus Dickus” in that Carry on film, down through Max Miller, George Formby and heaps of seaside picture postcards.

But in the case of the Queen of Sheba it was as relentless, as it was unfunny but I leave you to decide by following the link.

I revisited it today and like yesterday gave up just past the comedian's unfunny reaction to that great erotic poem The Song of Solomon, and reflected I would have had a better time in conversation with one of our grandsons who at 4 and a bit finds  "poo bum willy face" the height of humour.

Picture; “Rusty granddad”, Arlo, 2023

*Queen of Sheba, Your Dead to Me, BBC Radio 4 https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m001wr11

**Constance Mary Whitehouse was an English Christian morality activist who opposed social liberalism and the 'permissive society'. In particular, via the National Viewers' and Listeners' Association, she campaigned against television programmes the pressure group found objectionable on 'taste and decency' grounds. Mary Whitehouse https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Mary_Whitehouse