Bad Taste no. 69: you're fucking nicked, my old beauty

The scan: sc-n140-mar-27-1980.pdf (PDF, Marxists Internet Archive, opens at this page)

This text was corrected by hand against the scan: the strip at the head of page 14, which the machine reading did not see; image taken from the scan and its lettering transcribed (18 Oct 2026). Number 69 of Cormac's weekly Bad Taste strip: you're fucking nicked, my old beauty.

page 14 of the scan

Five-panel cartoon strip, "the erudite thoughts of a Thronk": tracing the line "You're fucking nicked, my old beauty" from John Cleese in Life of Brian back through Orton's Loot to Detective Sergeant Harry Challenor's 1963 arrest of Donald Rooum, and missing the old-fashioned bent copper. — Cormac, "Bad Taste" no. 69, Socialist Challenge no. 140, 27 March 1980, page 14. From the Marxists Internet Archive scan.

The strip, panel by panel

1. BAD TASTE by Cormac #69.

2. Caption: "The erudite thoughts of a Thronk." "In the film 'Life of Brian' does John Cleese, as a Roman centurion, use the immortal phrase 'You're fucking nicked, my old beauty!'?"

3. "And was not the same phrase formerly used by Insp. Truscott in Joe Orton's play 'Loot'?"

4. "And where did Joe Orton obtain this phrase? In 1963 Det. Sgt. Harry Challenor arrested an anarchist, Donald Rooum, and exclaimed, 'You're fucking nicked, my old beauty!'"

5. "How one misses the traditional British thugs like Harry Challenor who merely fabricated evidence to send innocent people to jail. He never made a fortune from his bent activities — and he never murdered anyone!"