It reminds me of Angus Deayton's fall from grace, and the squirm-inducing TV which resulted when he turned up to present HIGNFY for a few weeks.

I think his arrogant sneering put a lot of people off in the same way Clive Anderson fell from grace, though deservedly after his behaviour towards the Bee Gees.

whats doing a few drugs, compared to cheating the nation?

I agreed with Louis Spence on the issue. We are being raped of our money that we earn. Maybe it's different because Jimmy shouldn't have a problem with money. But who in the frigging country WANTS to pay tax. We are keeping the country wealthy and giving the government our money with all the work we break our bollocks with.

I am a 19 year old person who goes to uni and who works part time and earned £700 in a month and got paid £410. So they taxed me £290. Are they ****ing serious?

Well, it was hypocrisy: being caught snorting cocaine off a prostitute's body, as I recall, after making a living sneering at the peccadilloes of politicans and people in the public eye for year after year. Ditto: Carr's jokes about Barclays' tax avoidance.

Totally agree, I am an accountant {not a tax one], and the behaviour of there professionals gives out industry a bad name.

Sorry for being off topic as well.

Salv, I pay 30 per cent of my wages in income tax, NI and council tax and I earn less than the national average. However, it sickens me when scumbags like Premiership footballers get away with only paying 19 pc by setting up a limited company.

Agreed. It's hard enough to even get a job and get by in life nowadays... without taxing such a ridiculous amount.

and that Barclays joke, is really why people should not be watching Carr anymore.

And without that tax, who would pay for the schools and university that hopefully will give you a well paid job at the end of it.

The problem with going off topic is that it is difficult to get back on topic.

From what you've said, you should have only paid about £120 in tax (plus a bit more for NatIns), which means that your tax code is probably wrong...

This is OT though, so if you want to discuss it further in more detail, PM me.

K

You do know comedians have to have controversial jokes? I don't see how this is any worse than comedians and their Al Qaeda and Princess Diana jokes. They are meant to shock.

Anyways, off topic, come on ratings!!

Tax pays for vital public services. Nobody likes paying tax but that's life. Why should the wealthy get away with only paying 1%? I have no idea why people are sympathising with a rich comedian who can more than afford to pay his share.

I'm not defending people in showbiz, I'm defending US. The average U.K workers who can't even get by in life properly.

BB peaked with 1.7m last night.

What did it average, if you know?

Yes exactly, I pay 30 pc of what I earn and it annoys me when people who can afford to pay that kind of amount and still be very rich like Jimmy Carr and Wayne Rooney pay less. Even at 50 per cent, people like Rooney would still be taking home £ 125,000 a week.

Salv, until I was 16 we regularly had Bernard Manning on The Comedians where 14 million people would sit through a routine of there was a ****, an Irishman, a queer and a Jew. Manning, of course, was banned in the mid eighties as his material fell foul of the alternative brigade, but TBH he just wasn't very funny and his material was samey two line jokes. Someone like Ronnie Corbett in his chair, which pulled in more viewers, was far funnier than fat Manning.

I am guessing the average was similar to last week. Now Bene the bore has gone figures might improve. Mind you his exit was somewhat classic, setting it up nicely for a good highlights show tonight.

The problem this series has is not a shortage of big characters (Lauren is hardly the shy, retiring type) but a lack of likeable housemates. If Deana wasn't in there I'm not sure who I would root for and that's a problem for me. Haven't voted yet this series either.

I'm quite young but I do remember my Dad telling me about Manning and his jokes.

I think comedians can get away with stuff like that because it is said to cause reaction and isn't something that the comedian believes. South Park and Family Guy get away with quite a lot of things. They recently had a Family Guy episode about 9/11. I didn't know how to react, whether to laugh or go "Oooh". So I did both.

But I realize that's (9/11) probably the most touchy subject on there because they have been more open about sex, sexual orientation, race, minorities, people in wheelchairs, etc... 9/11 was always a no-go until that episode. But that episode wasn't even harsh on 9/11 really, a lot of people have said worse things.

Anyways, I keep going OFF TOPIC. Stop distracting me. Ratings, ratings where are you!!!!

Yes we all hate paying tax, young Salv, but in a way the Manning comment was about ratings and how a large part of the population would sit through comedy that nowadays wouldn't get within ten miles of a television studio.
However, with regard to PC, Little Britain like Family Guy is a reaction against it. Also LB was one of the BBC's biggest comedy hits of recent years.

Seriously?
Why would ratings improve now that Benedict is gone?
He was by far the most interesting housemate in there this week.

Ahh, why are the ratings taking so long? They can't be surely delayed as there has been three sets of ratings already released. They revealed the BBC2 rating for that show, the match and 8 out of 10 cats so far.

God they are taking ages releasing figures today.

I reckon BB averaged about 1.5 maybe less

Was hoping it would finally hit the 2 million mark.

The ratings for Fridays and Saturdays usually take quite long to be reported on the weekends as DS doesn't normally do a ratings roundup until Saturday evening, sometimes not reporting the figures for Friday/Saturday until Monday. The ratings which have come in so far are all from various sources on Twitter, none so far have tweeted the average for BB.