Obscenity Court Ruling
Perhaps the best-known use of the term is in the title of the 1977 punk rock album Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols. Testimony in a resulting prosecution over the term demonstrated that in Old English, the word referred to a priest, and could also be used to mean "nonsense". Defence barrister John Mortimer QC and Virgin Records won the case: the court ruled that the word was not obscene.
Tony Wright, a Leicestershire trader, was given an £80 fixed penalty fine by police for selling T-shirts bearing the slogan "Bollocks to Blair". This took place on 29 June 2006 at the Royal Norfolk Show; the police issued the penalty notice, quoting Section 5 of the Public Order Act 1986 which refers to language "deemed to cause harassment, alarm or distress".
Commentators have made comparisons with the Sex Pistols case, pointing to some of the statements made by John Mortimer QC: "What sort of country are we living in if a politician comes to Nottingham and speaks here to a group of people in the city centre and, during his speech, a heckler replies "bollocks". Are we to expect this person to be incarcerated, or do we live in a country where we are proud of our Anglo-Saxon language?".
Read more about this topic: Bollix
Famous quotes containing the words obscenity, court and/or ruling:
“Since obscenity is the truth of our passion today, it is the only stuff of art—or almost the only stuff.”
—D.H. (David Herbert)
“The Twist was a guided missile, launched from the ghetto into the very heart of suburbia. The Twist succeeded, as politics, religion, and law could never do, in writing in the heart and soul what the Supreme Court could only write on the books.”
—Eldridge Cleaver (b. 1935)
“We are the only class in history that has been left to fight its battles alone, unaided by the ruling powers. White labor and the freed black men had their champions, but where are ours?”
—Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815–1902)