A question of taste

Yesterday in the studio.....

It's a better than average set of scripts we're recording this week. There are a lot of the tired old 'favourites', but a lot of newer stuff too; and much of it looks as if it is taken from authentic English sources - transcribed from radio programmes or lifted from newspapers.

Thus, I fear that the disturbing story of the young man who got his face eaten by his dog was probably true. (It was said that he had fallen asleep on his sofa, and that the dog - worried that he wouldn't wake up, or agitated at not having been fed on time - started biting him.) The account of the injuries was distressingly graphic, and really not at all in keeping with a textbook aimed at high school kids.

But what was even worse was the glib and jokey way the story was being discussed (it had been transposed into a dialogue between a boy and girl college student). It ended with the line: "I suppose he's looking forward to Halloween. Everyone will be wearing a mask then."

We were reading this on auto-pilot, without paying too much attention at first, but disgust and dismay started to overcome us by the mid-point, and when we reached this appalling finale, DD's and my jaws were on the table. We boggled at each other for a moment in disbelief, and then started haranguing the publishing company staff present at the session.

It seems we have in fact managed to persuade them to pull this episode from the books/tapes. A small but worthwhile victory.

But you have to wonder, How the hell did something like this make its way into a script in the first place? Who writes this stuff? Have they really got no sense of decency at all?