Johnny Ball on Cancel Culture.

Johnny Ball was a TV presenter in the UK in the 1970s and 80s. If you are British and grew up in those times, you will remember this beloved national treasure of Britain. I remember Ball presenting a programme as a kid. It was called "Think of a Number" and it was all about how simple maths connected to things you would never think it did. He made maths interesting and fun for kids. As a kid, I hated maths, and I still do. However, Mr. Ball made maths fun and taught it in a way that resonated with me. And no doubt, all kids from that time who hated the thought of maths wished they had a teacher like him. I remember my teacher at school in my later years before leaving school at 16. A horrible man with black hair, a black beard and glasses (maybe that's why I have a phobia of people with beards and glasses today). When I used to nod in reply to him, he said, "You look like one of those blaady toy dogs in the back of a car that nods its head as the car goes along"!

Today, addressing a child thus would be considered verbal abuse and belittling and rightly so. As a child, you remember those adults you liked and disliked. And this teacher, Mr. Bartholomew, with his word "Blaady" instead of "Bloody" is one of those negative figures in my young life. I may shake the hand of the man if he is still alive if I met him today. That said, I would certainly tell him his way of teaching didn't exactly endear maths to me. That's an example of how Johnny Ball presented maths or math, as you say in the US, and Mr. Bartholomew. In other words, the difference of presenting and teaching styles.

Johnny Ball has a famous daughter in the UK. Zoe Ball, who has been a TV and radio presenter. Johnny, now 86, was speaking about his new book. This book contains his memoirs and his view of life. Nothing deeply philosophical or ground-breaking, just a man's view of how he got through life. Ball is a man with a northern English accent, very humble and very down to earth. On religion, Ball says this is something that resides in your heart. It has nothing to do with any faith. If you have this love in your heart, you will not go far wrong.

Ball remembers joining the RAF at 18, his father seeing him off at the train station. Ball recalls his dad telling him to always be good in life. This was Ball's launch into the big, wide world.

Ball was lucky enough to get a job as a stand-up comedian. This also shaped him into the person he became. To be able to handle hecklers as well as more welcoming crowds. This was in the 1960s; later, the BBC spotted him and he became a kids' TV presenter. So this brings me to Ball's Effect on my life, where using science and maths, he became like a mentor to me and many other kids, as opposed to Mr. Batholomew.

Back in the day, Ball said, in presenting and in being a comedian, no subject was taboo. Ball, when he was a TV presenter and in a career as a comedian he found ways of being "cheeky" but it was a time when you could apologise to people and they would accept. As a comedian and a TV presenter, Ball was often polite. But he said back in the day, you could say what you wanted and nothing was taboo. Whereas today, you have to be careful about who you might offend.

Comedians and anyone in the public eye have to be careful what they say lest they upset some group or other. Ball said back in the day, they never thought they were offending anyone. Cancel culture, political correctness, and wokism didn't exist as it does today. Johnny said, "Cancel culture is frightening". Look at all those who have fallen foul of so-called hate speech for saying or doing something that offended someone. As I said in one of my other articles, this vociferous and pernicious ideology has now turned into oppression. Something Pope John Paul recognised as akin to Nazism and Communism.

Ball also said British culture is dying because the powers that be seem to bend over backwards in not wishing to offend people of another race, faith, nationality, et al. The British pub, once a hub of British culture, is withering because most folk cannot afford to go there any more. People prefer to drink at home, as Johnny Ball correctly observed.

People of Johnny Ball's age came from a simple time where they did not have the things or culture we have today, yet they were happier for it.

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wide world and made him the person he is today.