I guess obscenity is in the eye (or ear) of the beholder. I think it’s easy to switch on and off. Over the years I’ve uttered an occasional gros mot in conversation but never in professional setting, nor in front of my Mum 
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This could get really funny -
Father Jack only expressed himself with the word “feck”. The World would have been all the poorer if we had missed out on his insights, just because his only word was considered inappropriate.
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To give you something to use in extremity or excess emotion. Like hitting your thumb with a hammer - when ‘oh bother’ simply doesn’t cover the situation! Regrettably too often used in ‘normal speak’ for many with limited education and vocabulary. Then they have to turn to physical violence, as verbal violence has lost its efficacy.
Just realised there’ is some sort of pun in there - ‘Efficacy’?
Not his only word, you’ve forgotten ‘drink’ and ‘gorrrrls’!
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True, very true.
I’m seriously reconsidering my fetish with fook. I yield to Father Jack’s feck. It has the necessary edge to it, which I realise is missing in fook.
I was wrong to push fook, and feel a deep sense of relief in giving way. Fecking deep. Thanks padre. 
In Ireland “feck” isn’t even really considered a swear word.
Have you seen this demo ad some agency made for VW in the eighties?
Is Father Jack an Irish man?
The thought hadn’t occured.
What a feck-up! 
Still time to sign up for Tedfest 2021 Peter.
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Phew… Just read a serious article that reminded me of this thread of John’s about the States going mad. In this case not politically, but really - in terms of actual mental health.
- To the question of whether they had “seriously considered suicide in the past 30 days”, over 25% of Americans between 18-24 years old said they had.
- For Americans aged 25-44, the percentage was lower but still alarming: 16 %.
- The two groups with the largest yes percentage were Americans without a high school degree and unpaid carers - about a third of both groups had seriously considered suicide.
- A full 10% of the whole US population have seriously contemplated killing themselves in the last month.
The research also found that 41% of all respondents reported at least one adverse mental health condition such as anxiety or depression, with over 13% having started or increased substance use to cope, and in the 18-24 age group, 63% - nearly two thirds - reported anxiety or depression.
It’s the total junk that they eat that they call “food” - no wonder. Why oh why does the world not join up the dots? What you put in your body affects your physical and mental health.
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I’m inclined to see the poor diet as another symptom rather than the underlying cause Sue.
The reason animal welfare and food standards are low, and lots of processed foods are heavy with sugar, etc, is that the whole agri-business and food supply industry operates in a relatively unregulated way for private gain, rather than public benefit - and this free-market-free-for-all in turn is not unrelated to the burgeoning inequality and social injustice that causes so much stress.
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Abso fecking lutely
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I think it’s a vicious circle and this has nothing to do with inequality or poverty. Malnutrition is rife in our societies whether we are rich or poor. Senior decision makers in industry, in politics sit in meetings, constipated, headachy, bad tempered, tired, with IBS, hung-over, stressed, brain-fogged and as a result they make bad, if not appalling decisions. They have lost all connection / grounding with themselves, their own bodies, their fellow humans because of the chemicals in their brains and bodies that are destroying the connections of empathy, rapport and control. They are addicted to sugar / caffeine / gluten and in turn these become their nutrition of choice so they support the industries that supply these products and lies are told about these products and yet more of these products are made and sold, not “just” to the poor but just as much to the people who run our world. And they have no idea just how sick they are.
I find the way the US is unravelling rather spookily. The American dream was in full flight when I was kid. My existence, albeit within a loving, caring and reasonably financially secure family contrasted badly with life on the Donna Reed show. I think life for many Americans has deteriorated steadily since those heady days of the sixties. Today, IMO, based on working for a US MNC for 25 years and my own travels there (though I haven’t been there in six years) if you have a $200K plus salary and a couple of million in assets it’s still a great place to live. Otherwise it’s shit.
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You may be right John - except that the research reported in the book ‘The Spirit Level’ (I don’t have it to hand but can get the details if you’re interested) found that the more unequal a society, the less happy everybody tends to be - even the rich.
Perhaps the most worrying aspect for those of us with family and friends in the UK, though, is that the brexit decision, and subsequent election of the Johnson/Cummings government, was in reality a choice of the American model over the European Social Model…
The prospective UK-US trade deal ‘is not really about importing more American products. It’s about importing the American economic and regulatory model’.
https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/opendemocracyuk/we-must-defeat-us-trade-deal/
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Don’t disagree.
Recently started re-reading Baudrillard’s America (which I’m sure you’re well-familiar with). Anyhow, what struck me was that it had become a historical document, The nihilistic, consumer driven inter-coastal America of the late C20th that Baudrillard described as dystopian plentitude has become a sort of Depression era wasteland.
I also intuit that many Brexiteers have a sneaking regard for this obsolete vision of America whilst simultaneously retaining spurious notions of British (imperial) cultural superiority.
However as long as the pound retains some reasonable value against the euro, I’ll happily watch the rest of the you know what show go down the pan
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Hmmm… Maybe we need to change the thread title to 'have the States and the UK gone mad…
The claim that there is “a single group of people who secretly control events and rule the world together” regardless of who is in government… was believed by 42% of 25- to 34-year-olds.
I blame universal suffrage myself. We’re lions led by donkeys, to steal a phrase.