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Big_Bird
Joined: 31 Jan 2003
Location: Sometimes here sometimes there...
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 Posted: Wed Oct 29, 2008 5:01 pm Post subject: Wow - anyone following the Sachs/Ross/Brand scandal? |
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If you're a Brit or Irish you may have heard all about Jonathon Ross and Russell Brand leaving rude messages on Andrew Sachs phone - Brand talking about Shagging Sach's granddaughter and other stupid stuff.
Brand has quit the BBC and given this apology: Brand falling on his sword
And Andrew Sachs (who played Manuel, the little waiter in Fawlty Towers) says he's "not collecting apologies" and gave a goodnatured interview on his doorstep: I'm not collection apologies.
I found both interviews kind of interesting.
Here's the latest: Brand quits, Ross hangs on, as BBC tries to contain firestorm
I feel a bit nervous whenever I see the BBC in a scandal. The hounds are baying, and there's a potential for BBC to become a little more vulnerable. It's a national treasure, but there's a lot of people who would like to castrate it as institution. I hope this doesn't jeopardise the BBC in some way. |
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Big_Bird
Joined: 31 Jan 2003
Location: Sometimes here sometimes there...
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Big_Bird
Joined: 31 Jan 2003
Location: Sometimes here sometimes there...
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| Posted: Wed Oct 29, 2008 5:58 pm Post subject: |
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I just found the offending phone interview on YouTube: http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=bT7tBXaEkRI
They sound like bloody imbeciles. Really bloody stupid. Not very funny at all. But not worth a national furore over. |
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Justin Hale
Joined: 24 Nov 2007
Location: the Straight Talk Express
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| Posted: Wed Oct 29, 2008 8:54 pm Post subject: |
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Both are grossly overpaid and, because I'm bitter and twisted, take delight in their demise.
The fact that Ross earns GBP 16m per year couldn't possibly be a more vulgar use of public money. |
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Justin Hale
Joined: 24 Nov 2007
Location: the Straight Talk Express
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| Posted: Wed Oct 29, 2008 9:17 pm Post subject: |
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| Big_Bird wrote: |
I just found the offending phone interview on YouTube: http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=bT7tBXaEkRI
They sound like bloody imbeciles. Really bloody stupid. Not very funny at all. But not worth a national furore over. |
Thanks for posting.
Russell Brand shouts unintellibly and at unbelievable volume. Hopefully he's completely finished, just because of that.
I agree with the boo boys. It's a disgusting verbal assault. |
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BS.Dos.
Joined: 29 Mar 2007
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| Posted: Thu Oct 30, 2008 3:37 am Post subject: |
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| Big_Bird wrote: |
I just found the offending phone interview on YouTube: http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=bT7tBXaEkRI
They sound like bloody imbeciles. Really bloody stupid. Not very funny at all. But not worth a national furore over. |
I only managed to listen to a couple of minutes. Not because it was boring, but because I couldn't understand a word they were saying. Were they speaking really fast or have I just been away from home for too long? |
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JMO
Joined: 18 Jul 2006
Location: Daegu
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| Posted: Thu Oct 30, 2008 3:44 am Post subject: |
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| Big deal. I think Andrew's reaction said it all. |
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Big_Bird
Joined: 31 Jan 2003
Location: Sometimes here sometimes there...
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| Posted: Fri Oct 31, 2008 12:15 am Post subject: |
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Just grinning at this:
| BS.Dos wrote: |
Girl walks into a bar and asks for a double entendre. So I gave her one.
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Big_Bird
Joined: 31 Jan 2003
Location: Sometimes here sometimes there...
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| Posted: Fri Oct 31, 2008 3:47 pm Post subject: |
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Stop witch-hunting Ross and Brand
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The BBC has caved into the mass hysteria and hypocrisy of a baying, irrational mob. It has suspended radio presenters Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand, prompting Brand to quit. For what?
This storm in a teacup was started by two members of the public who complained to the BBC when the programme was broadcast. What gave it legs was sensationalist media coverage by rightwing journalists who will use any excuse to attack the BBC and by the tabloid media which is obsessed with the trivia and froth of celebrity lives and misdemeanours. This coverage prompted a herd stampede of manufactured outrage by people who never listened to the original programme.
So far, nearly 30,000 members of the public have lodged complaints. How many of them have complained about the BBC's tacit glorification and promotion of greed and nastiness in programmes like The Apprentice and The Weakest Link? Why don't they kick up a fuss when the BBC gives airtime to religious fundamentalists who oppose equal rights for women, gay people and non-believers?
My point is that the public outcry is selective, as is the BBC's heavy-handed response to Brand and Ross. It is totally out of proportion. A few silly, mindless quips have been elevated by mob instinct and moral panic into a supposed national scandal. It has knocked off the front pages the collapse of share prices, fuel poverty, house repossessions and a dozen other serious economic issues that are adversely affecting millions of Britons.
They might be overpaid and sometimes crude and boorish, but did Brand and Ross mock the victims of a train crash? No. Did they reveal personal details that might put someone at risk of violent attack? No. Did they tell racist gags? No.
Yes, they went a bit too far but it was not malicious. Their on-air larking-around wasn't meant to hurt anyone, as far I can see.
Jonathan and Russell played a bad taste practical joke on the actor Andrew Sachs and cracked a blue gag at the expense of his grand-daughter, Georgina Baillie. That's all. I am sorry if they were upset. I would not have said those things myself, but I am not a comedian and, boringly, I am not inclined to risqu� ribaldry.
The humour of Ross and Brand may have been a bit juvenile and offensive to some people, but surely it was not qualitatively worse than many other gags and pranks broadcast by BBC radio and television with little or no complaint?
By treating these two comedians differently, the BBC top brass look like hypocrites. Some of the BBC's flagship comedy shows, like Mock The Week and Have I Got News for You, regularly include off-colour jokes that upset the people satirised and cause offence to some listeners. Why aren't their presenters being suspended and hauled before the Star Chamber at White City?
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I agree. Britain's rightwing press are going absolutely f***ing nuts over a load of bollocks. Nothing new there. |
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Big_Bird
Joined: 31 Jan 2003
Location: Sometimes here sometimes there...
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| Posted: Fri Oct 31, 2008 3:50 pm Post subject: |
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Somewhat amusing:
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National outrage was sparked by a moment's idiocy on the part of Jonathan Woss and Wussell Bwand a few weeks ago when the newspapers ran out of stories about Big Brother contestants, skateboarding ducks and what your breasts mean to fill the spaces between pronouncements of economic doom.
The incident occurred when, in a terrible lapse of judgement, a radio producer let Mr Ross and Mr Brand behave on-air in the manner they had been hired to. It is understood that Brand made the slanderous suggestion that he had in fact managed to get it up at least once whilst going out with Georgina Baillie.
"I am mortified," said Ms Baillie, "at the number of half-page photos of my smile and cleavage in the papers and the many impending offers of work. Just mortified."
The BBC has suspended the two presenters for embarrassing director general Mark Thompson.
"In these dark, Maddie-free days," thundered all papers, "this sort of obscenity against a member of the Satanic Sluts cannot be countenanced. Suspension is hardly sufficient. The British sense of justice and fair play will not be satisfied until they are castrated by a baying crowd, pursued through the street on horseback with dogs, hanged by the neck outside White City until dead and their foul corpses left there to fester for at least a month. We pay our licence fees!"
"I denounce these despicable demagogues of dull-wittedness, whoever they are," thundered Gordon Brown, with a Prime Minister's sense of what it means when Luscious Lucy, 19, of Sheppey comments on a public issue from her editorial column on page three of The Sun. David Cameron blamed ten years' financial ineptitude from Labour and vowed that the Tories would be tough on Brand and tough on the causes of Brand.
Chancellor Alistair Darling counseled caution, however, warning that the credit crunch would almost certainly lead to difficulty in securing sufficient teapots for a really good tempest.
My blog rant: http://tinyurl.com/5bl7f2
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