Of puppets & boot polish

I've been holed up over the last couple of days with a relatively mild bout of flu.

And while (naturally) I've been convalescing, there is always energy to type a few search mnemonics to keep the mind occupied.

I was thus tempted and ultimately intrigued to find some delightful memories of my teenage years and before on YouTube.  Do you remember Spitting Image?  I was once again engrossed in the lampooning of everyone from Margaret Thatcher, Neil Kinnock and Emelda Marcos, to some of the perhaps less offensive faces from the 80s, including Andrew Lloyd Webber and Desmond Tutu.

I smiled to hear the Chicken Song and equally nostalgic about I've Never Met a Nice South African.  They were great skits indeed.



Another childhood memory was stirred by The Black and White Minstrels.
This was a classic BBC masterpiece that ironically had white men black themselves up and then serenade white women.  All kinds of dancing and singing had white girls fawning and ultimately (symbolically of course) fornicating with the boot-polish clad young white/black men. 

Forget the PC-vomiting middle classes' views on this - I find it great forward-ahead-of-its-time support for inter-racial relationships - or am I being a tad myopically revisionist?!  No replies needed on that - my tongue if firmly wedged in my cheek.

Will leave you with a single link and you can YouTube search the rest.  This link combines the above two memories with a splendid rendition of the Black and White Minstrels as the South African Apartheid government of PW Botha and nicely-done white on white mocking of the regime back then.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W_eSUQgLZXg

And remember only a few days left til Christmas...mine certainly won't be white - but I'm hoping it won't be too black either.  Keeping my chin up.

Keep yours up too.