British TV giant censured for airing Game of Thrones episode with naughty words

Travel with me, if you will, to the enchanted isle of Great Britain, where they do things a little differently. For instance, if a U.K. broadcaster wants to air an episode of television that has swearing in it before 9:00 p.m. GMT, it has to lock the episode with a PIN passcode, lest young ears be exposed to brain-rotting potty words. So when Sky Atlantic aired an episode of Game of Thrones at 7:35 a.m. with no password protection to speak of, it was in for trouble.

Per Deadline, UK regulator Ofcom formally censured Sky over the airing of the episode, which according to their ruling “contained multiple use of offensive language including ‘c**t’, ‘f**ck’ and ‘s**t.” I don’t know what episode it was, but I’m guessing the Hound was involved.

Apparently the oversight was the result of a technical glitch. Ofcom reassured people that “measures have been put in place to prevent a reoccurrence.” Phew. Sky, for its part, was contrite. It said that it “fully [accepts] strong content should not be broadcast before the watershed without the necessary mandatory PIN protection. It is never our intention to offend or upset our viewers.”

Weird British guy slammed for comparing Meghan Markle to Cersei Lannister

Speaking of Game of Thrones, vulgarity, and the British, strap yourself in for this one: not long ago, a man named Jeremy Clarkson — who apparently is a journalist, game show host, commentator, and a few other things that should suggest he’d know better — wrote an op-ed in British tabloid The Sun about Meghan Markle, the wife of Prince Harry. Clarkson, who I will note here is a 62-year-old adult, is upset about the new Netflix series Harry & Meghan, about the lives of the couple.

Okay, so here’s what Clarkson wrote about Markle: “At night, I’m unable to sleep as I lie there, grinding my teeth and dreaming of the day when she is made to parade naked through the streets of every town in Britain while the crowd chants ‘Shame!’ and throw lumps of excrement at her.”

This, of course, is a reference to the scene from Game of Thrones where Cersei Lannister is paraded naked through the streets of King’s Landing. Why anyone would get this upset at a stranger who was once on TV and then married a royal redhead is beyond me, but I’ll admit I’ve never understood the British. I just watch their actors swear on TV, that’s it.

“I hate her on a cellular level,” added Clarkson, a fully grown man.

Anyway, Clarkson’s comments resulted in a pretty big backlash. Per Indiewire, The Independent Press Standards Organisation (IPSO) received over 6,000 complaints about Clarkson’s comments, which were condemned by London Mayor Sadiq Khan and Clarkson’s own daughter. “Oh dear. I’ve rather put my foot in it,” Clarkson wrote on Twitter. “I’m horrified to have caused so much hurt and I shall be more careful in future.”

What a curious island.

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