a year in the (censored by the FCC)

[phinnia]

Tonight's festivities: a reading of 'A Year in the Merde' by Stephen Clarke (he signed my copy! yay!). Apparently he's having difficulty marketing the book in the US because newspapers and TV can't say the title without getting fined by the FCC. I am not making this up. But yeah, he read from it - it's kind of like 'A Year in Provence', but fiction, and set in Paris, and really funny.

Funny story: when we were at the doctor yesterday Chris played the Numa Numa song for Seaners when he was getting his heart and lungs checked to make him stand still. And they actually noticed an excitedly accelerated heartbeat when it came on.

It's horribly hot here. Grar.

Comments

[kengr]

TV and radio have to answer to the FCC, but not newspapers

[phinnia.livejournal.com]

Must be some different law that governs newspapers then. I remember the guy saying that there was this big campaign going to get the New York Times to review the book because the book reviewer thinks it's brilliant, but the paper won't print the title.

[kengr]

Can you say "editorial policy"?

[kareila]

Sometime in the past couple of months an author was promoting his book on the Daily Show with Jon Stewart. The title was "On Bullshit" and they showed the cover, but every time they pronounced it, they'd get bleeped.

I'm surprised the FCC cares about "merde". What next? "Belgium"?

[phinnia.livejournal.com]

*gasps, falls down dead*
There's some law that basically says that you can't use what are probably George Carlin's Seven Dirty Words /or/ any other equivalent in any other language.

[badgoodgirl.livejournal.com]

What happens when they turn their heads to the world wide web? *shiver*

I died from cuteness when I read the Seaners heartrate over the Numa Numa song, hahahaha.