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NOT OFFENDED: Golliwog dolls

AM I the only one who DOESN'T feel offended at the monkey chants directed at Premier League footballers overseas?

Thirty years ago it was English football fans who were mimicking apes to the bemusement of players of African and Caribbean heritage on the pitch.

THAT was humiliating. To hear the same puerile playground chants that we had stood resolute against in the twenty year ‘Battle of the Schoolyard' being aired every Saturday evening on Match of the Day, turned Monday morning into a walk of shame all the way into the first lesson, which just happened to be history with Mr Hudson.

His lessons were all about the ancient Greeks, the Romans and what he called the ‘dark continent' of which we knew little about except that there were more apes there than on the rock of Gibraltar. ‘Oh, and by the way class’, he would say, did you happen to see that episode of Planet of the Apes on Saturday evening? Am I the only one who thinks there's something in it...?’

To my knowledge, back then it was only Pat Nevin, then of Chelsea, who spoke out on prime time television about the racist abuse that winger Paul Canoville got from his own supporters on his debut for the West London club.

You see, compared to those bad old days very little juvenile behaviour from the terraces offends me. I've seen it all before. Actually, I see the funny side of it. Where else can you get to see a bunch of adults jumping up and down, scratching their armpits and screaming, “Ug-ug-ug!" It's hilarious! And to think they actually pay good money to black players for the privilege of being able to misdirect their mimesis.

No wonder the black players hardly ever walk off the pitch in protest. They're crying all the way to the bank. If anybody wants to pay me fifty quid for the opportunity to mimic an ape in front of me, I only accept cash.

If I was to take offence it would be an acknowledgement that, as Mr Hudson would say, maybe there's something in it. That's why I don't buy the moral outrage of do-gooding woolly-wet liberals at the abuse that England's black footballers had to endure in the recent match against Bulgaria for example. Mr Woolly Wet's outrage is predicated by the assumption that it is rather unfortunate that black people resemble apes.

Otherwise why would he be outraged? He wouldn't waste his breath bleating on about football fans shouting “You're ugly" at Wayne Rooney would he? It would be the same as turning round and saying, “Yeah, you're right he is butters, but it's outta order you lot chanting that on the terraces."

How would Wayne Rooney feel? He wouldn't thank you for it, would he? So there's no thanks from me for those who voice their concern on my behalf only to remind my daughters that thousands of Eastern European football fans can't be wrong, there must be something in it.

Am I the only one who DOESN'T feel offended when you see a golliwog? I don't care if it's on a bottle of jam or hanging from a flagpole, a golliwog is a golliwog. It's not a black person. It's not even a representation of a black person. Yes, I know the history and I know the poison with which it was created and the intention to depict the black man as only seven tenths of a human being. Yeah, I know all that crap. But the fact remains, I am not a golliwog. And I refuse to be offended by it.

Unlike my old mate Lester Holloway, LibDem councillor for Sutton. As a soldier in the struggle I've got a lot of time for him. But not when he's planning a demonstration against a gift shop with a golliwog in the window.

What's the point of marching up and down with banners shouting: “WHAT DO WE WANT? NO WOGS! WHEN DO WE NOT WANT THEM? NOW!" when what you really want to do is drive the shop owner barmy by getting everybody to pack out the shop with customers demanding to know “HOW MUCH IS THAT GOLLY IN THE WINDOW?" Or get everybody to call up the store asking: “LE GOOD GOLLY MISS MOLLY DANS LE FENETRE... C'EST COMBIEN?"

Let's not forget, this is a recession. Man and man will make a living off the backs of blacks. There's clearly a market for golliwogs out there otherwise they wouldn't be producing them. What you have to do is make the market unprofitable as the ancestors did in slavery times when the slavers just couldn't spend all that money having to capture the runaways.

Lester, if you could get some pop stars to release one of those charity singles called Let's Make Golliwog History it might help too.