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Publicity Stunt
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It's kind of bizarre that one of those TV telephone sex channel girls could get embroiled in a big BBC scandal. Was this intended as some sort of publicity stunt / intervention, which snowballed to ridiculous proportions because of how famous Russell Brand is, because Jonathan Ross's 18 million pound contract is a favourite target, because Fawlty Towers is a national treasure, and because the Daily Mail got a bee in its bonnet? I bet the Daily Mail must be all conflicted now because in different circumstances they'd be raking up a salacious scandal about Andrew Sachs' wayward granddaughter.
Of course once Brand started going on about the fascist leaning sympathy of the Mail before the Second World War it was only going to pour fuel on the fire. Isn't there an old saying, never pick a fight with somebody who buys ink by the barrel load? His line quoted in The Sun when asked if he was going to apologise "I'm not sure you're the right conduit" was priceless. I liked the way when The Times printed the transcript they referred to it as "offensive" in inverted commas, whilst The Guardian largely seems to be seeing this as an opportunity to ridicule The Daily Mail.
Can anyone explain how it is that initial reports say only two people complained after the broadcast, but after the media whipped up a storm the complaints went up to 1500, more than a week after the show aired, and after the supposedly "outraged" journalists had repeated and repeated and repeated the "offensive" comments ad nauseum? And when repeated out of context, any remnant of humour, however misguided, is gone. If anybody owes Andrew Sachs an apology it's The Daily Mail. And of course it can't be a coincidence that Brand's new TV series starts on Thursday, Ross's autobiography is coming out, and the girl wants to be an actress and does in fact know Brand.
Of course once Brand started going on about the fascist leaning sympathy of the Mail before the Second World War it was only going to pour fuel on the fire. Isn't there an old saying, never pick a fight with somebody who buys ink by the barrel load? His line quoted in The Sun when asked if he was going to apologise "I'm not sure you're the right conduit" was priceless. I liked the way when The Times printed the transcript they referred to it as "offensive" in inverted commas, whilst The Guardian largely seems to be seeing this as an opportunity to ridicule The Daily Mail.
Can anyone explain how it is that initial reports say only two people complained after the broadcast, but after the media whipped up a storm the complaints went up to 1500, more than a week after the show aired, and after the supposedly "outraged" journalists had repeated and repeated and repeated the "offensive" comments ad nauseum? And when repeated out of context, any remnant of humour, however misguided, is gone. If anybody owes Andrew Sachs an apology it's The Daily Mail. And of course it can't be a coincidence that Brand's new TV series starts on Thursday, Ross's autobiography is coming out, and the girl wants to be an actress and does in fact know Brand.
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Comments
....and breathe
Or at least put in some paragraphs!
But you make a lot of sensible points which I agree with.
Like most of these things (Big Brother, Jerry Springer Opera .etc) the vast majority of complaints seem to be made by people who have only read about it after the event.
No doubt a lot of those will have been by people who already despised Ross and/or Brand and saw this as a possible way to topple them. Not to mention those who just love a good band wagon.
There's nothing some folk like better than getting 'outraged' about something quite trivial.
I agree. A lot of people are quite happy for the press to tell them what they should be outraged about.
Do I think Ross and Brand were funny? No. I quite like Russell Brand, depending on what environment he's in. Jonathan Ross is annoying at the best of times. I understand that people think they behaved badly, but as for fury, or outrage - I got nothing in that area.