In Popular Culture
The SPG is caricatured in Michael de Larrabeiti's The Borrible Trilogy novels as the SBG, the Special Borrible Group, which is charged with destroying the way of life of those who will not conform to society's norms.
The SPG was a frequent butt of jokes on Not the Nine O'Clock News, including a sketch where Rowan Atkinson criticises a racist police officer with the conclusion "There's no room for men like you in my force, Savage. I'm transferring you to the SPG".
In 1982, a destructive hamster was named "Special Patrol Group" by its owner, the punk character Vyvyan in the BBC sitcom The Young Ones.
Punk band The Exploited wrote the song "S.P.G" in response to the acts of the group at the time, and also in reference to an incident in which singer and author of the song Wattie Buchan was allegedly arrested by the SPG for violence at a demonstration. The song can be found on the 1981 album Punks Not Dead. Reggae poet Linton Kwesi Johnson dedicated his song "Reggae Fi Peach" (Album: Bass Culture) to the death of Blair Peach. The SPG is also mentioned in his poem "All Wi Doin is Defendin", in which he states that they "will fall". Punk band Spasmodic Caress also wrote a song entitled "S.P.G", specifically about their role in the death of Blair Peach.
Read more about this topic: Special Patrol Group
Famous quotes containing the words popular culture, popular and/or culture:
“Popular culture entered my life as Shirley Temple, who was exactly my age and wrote a letter in the newspapers telling how her mother fixed spinach for her, with lots of butter.... I was impressed by Shirley Temple as a little girl my age who had power: she could write a piece for the newspapers and have it printed in her own handwriting.”
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“Much of the ill-tempered railing against women that has characterized the popular writing of the last two years is a half-hearted attempt to find a way back to a more balanced relationship between our biological selves and the world we have built. So women are scolded both for being mothers and for not being mothers, for wanting to eat their cake and have it too, and for not wanting to eat their cake and have it too.”
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“Anthropologists have found that around the world whatever is considered “men’s work” is almost universally given higher status than “women’s work.” If in one culture it is men who build houses and women who make baskets, then that culture will see house-building as more important. In another culture, perhaps right next door, the reverse may be true, and basket- weaving will have higher social status than house-building.”
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