Heil X

Warming Up

8077/21008

Look, he didn't put his fingers on his top lip, so it's fine.

One way or another, that picture is likely to end up in the history books.

I know all about people taking pictures of something that is entirely innocent and then saying you're trying to emulate Hitler. Look at these ones. All with a perfectly innocent explanation.

In this one I am attempting to stop a thief who has nicked my phone (fact)

And sometimes when you're standing in front of a big crowd who seem to be roaring approval for you it's very easy to forget yourself and make a gesture like Hitler would do in front of a big crowd roaring approval. Obviously if you do that you would immediately make a contrite statement apologising for any offence that might have been caused if your exuberance had been misinterpreted. Or double down and say it's typical of the wokerati to see an innocent gesture like that and immediately assume it's a Nazi salute, just because the person doing it has recently demonstrated support for far right figures in England and Germany and had then done a Nazi-style salute. Either response is valid.

Hitler Moustache (the show) does now feel it comes from a very different time. I suppose 2009 was exactly that. It did come with an unheeded warning about the way things might go if people remained politically apathetic, but also I don't think I really feared that the world would go that way. I felt that in the UK at least there was too much healthy scepticism and humour for the right to take root. Not sure about that any more. It would also upset the wokies too, as I used racist language (albeit in an attempt to ascertain what was offensive about it) in a way that can at best be described as naive and which I certainly would not do now. A stone isn't a weapon until you throw it at someone, true, but it's probably not up to a white man to decide if those contentious words are offensive within themselves. The show was conscious of the hypocrisy too though and of the ultimate futile childishness of the central premise of trying to reclaim the moustache for comedy. Whilst I wasn't a Nazi, I was aware of the power and meaning of the symbols. Could I change them? Doubtful. Could I use them to open up a discussion about why they meant what they meant? Maybe. I don't think Musk was trying to reclaim the gesture for the Romans or change its meaning though.

It's still a show with its heart in the right place and much going for it and it'd be weird if something from 16 years ago didn't make me cringe in places. It was an optimistic celebration of democracy, humour and essential goodness in most people and the years that followed have made it look naive or just wrong. Though you can't say I didn't warn you what would happen if you sat on your voting thumbs and didn't get involved. I didn't think it would be Brexit and the maddest people in America getting to rule the free world though.

There was a calm before the storm in 2009 and experimenting with a toothbrush moustache is not something I would contemplate now, mainly for fear that I would successfully become Chancellor of Nazi Britain. At the time it was largely self-destructive and mostly harmless. My biggest takeaway was that it was the first time in my privileged life that I had been scared that I might be judged on my appearance and be attacked just for the way I look. It made me nervous and unhappy. And it was entirely self-inflicted and easily changed, so could only serve a tiny window into what it must be like to live your whole life feeling you're being judged by others. I looked so silly and mad that the moustache seemed mainly to confuse or amuse people, though it must have frightened a few as well.

The worst moment came when walking along Shepherd's Bush Green at midnight and a white van man emerged from his vehicle to congratulate me and say I was a man after his own heart. Probably the most telling moment of all as to what was to come. In 2009/10 he was not emboldened to state his true beliefs publicly. I wonder if he feels so shy in 2025.

Of course whether Musk did this all on purpose or was just caught up in the moment or even if he didn't mean it that way at all, the result is that anyone who questions it is being dismissed (by some) as trying to compare everything to Hitler (this admittedly is something that has been entirely overused in the past, but it's always worth looking out for) and that by letting it go by unpunished or unchastised that it's just another step on the journey. I saw one journalist say it couldn't be a Nazi salute because how crazy would it be to do that at such a big event. Carte blanche to do anything you want weirdos.

All I know is that the proper out Nazis all seemed to recognise it as a Nazi salute and the proper non-Nazis seem to recognise it as a Nazi salute, so I am not sure where that leaves the people who said it wasn't a Nazi salute. Are they secret Nazis or secret non-Nazis. There's no way of telling.

If you want to see the show and be triggered because I am woke/racist/not racist enough or whichever way your own tastes send you, you can download Hitler Moustache for a fiver. Warning it contains language that you just can't say any more or can now say again thanks to Donald Trump. Delete as applicable. There's bits I don't like about it and bits I think are great. Like any comedy show really.

And yes, I know I ended up with a Hitler Bollock too. Hopefully that’s the punishment for anyone who plays around with this stuff.

As an extra side note for you, I also ended up on Have I Got News For You? for the first time in my career, when I had the moustache, which was quite confusing for the casual viewer. You can watch that here. Can’t think why I didn’t get a mainstream TV career.