Hitchens and Fry Debate Blasphemy

Yesterday's joke came from, predictably, a Christopher Hitchens debate. But this wasn't any old Hitchens debate, dear reader. Oh, no! This was a debate held at the Hay Festival 2005 between Hitchens and a certain Mr Stephen Fry. How these things come full circle! I use the word 'debate', however, quite wrongly. It is, in reality, a discussion, or an exchange of ideas. Hitchens and Fry see eye-to-eye on a lot of issues, and it came at a time amidst the decisive months leading up to the blasphemy legislation that forbade "incitement to religious hatred", and so centers on religion. Note, that this comes before the publication of god is not Great, and so you hear the formulation of Hitchens ideas, rather than the polished, road-hardened article itself. It's entertaining to the extreme, and the ninety minutes go remarkably quickly. Both men could not have sparred more eloquently. Hitchens has a lot of it, to tell the truth, and at one point he's actually heckled, "Can you let Stephen speak, please?". It's a delight. But my personal highlight came in the closing minutes when the organizer, Joan Bakewell handed the microphone into the audience for questions, the first of which attacked Hitchens for living in the United States, and becoming "one of the leading apologists for the United States of America", to which Hitchens replied:

It was beautifully phrased, and I think it should be taken as a comment. I couldn't improve upon it myself. I certainly couldn't improve on it if I was you ... And since everybody knows what you mean I'll take it as a contribution ... and fuck you.

Much to the delight of the audience. Unfortunately, there is no video of the exchange floating about, but the audio is almost as good. It's all available here to download, or here on YouTube.