*update* The BBC don’t seem to have caught on, which is surprising as the slogan is screaming out to be Googled. I’ve sent them an email – wonder how long before an update appears?
*update 2* They’ve now acknowledged the possible origin of the figure, which should be showing up on the original link. When it originally appeared, it was described as a mystery.
It’s all over the news. 10,000 people have complained. Even Gordon Brown has commented on it. Yes, it’s Manuelgate (as the papers are no doubt calling it – aren’t they?) – the furore over a series of on-air (pre-recorded) phone calls by Messrs Brand and Ross that have upset Andrew Sachs and his family.
The nation seems to be divided as to whether this was funny or not, and whether there has been a gross over-reaction by those complaining. Apparently, Radio 1 listeners are very supportive of Russell Brand and Jonathan Ross, whereas the BBC Have Your Say messageboards are stuffed with calls for both of them to be sacked. So who’s right?
It’s actually quite a fascinating event, as it seems to reinforce what has clearly been a trend for a long time; that comedy is getting crueller, and that this shift is becoming more acceptable, particularly to younger audiences.
Take Scott Mills. His show is full of telephone pranks that do little more than make fools of people. And not in a Beadle-esque way, where they are given a chance to recover their dignity by laughing along with the rest of us after the prank has been played. These are pranks where the point is to embarrass and humiliate; flirt-divert, for example, is where you can give a number to someone who has been brave enough to ask you out, and their follow-up call (which actually goes to a Radio 1 answerphone) gets played to the nation. Ha bloody ha. But the punters love it.
The Ross/Brand phone calls to Andrew Sachs pushed this rather unpleasant envelope even further, humiliating a national celebrity in the name of entertainment. Jonathan Ross – who started the whole thing off by blurting out that Russell Brand had ‘fucked’ Andrew Sachs’ grand-daughter – has been working up to this for a while.
His interviews are often cringeworthy, especially when he sets out to shock his (mainly female) guests with lurid references to sex. The guests have little choice but to laugh along, or appear as a killjoy, while Ross revels in his role as instigator. It’s little more than bullying, though, and certainly doesn’t require any comic talent. The problem with this incident (for Ross) is that Andrew Sachs was not present to be bullied into laughing along. And so Ross – quite rightly – has been found out.
As for Russell Brand – even now he seems to be treating the whole thing as a massive joke, which is the height of stupidity. Whether Russell Brand is a talented comedian or not is irrelevant. What is important is that he seems to lack respect for his fellow professionals, which makes you wonder how he can possibly respect his audience. Is this what comedy has come to – laughter at any price? If so, then there really is a vacuum of talent at the ‘top’.
I am all for near-the-knuckle comedy, but the trend towards humiliation-by-comedy is troubling, and will do nothing to counteract the lack-of-respect culture that seems to be infiltrating the lives of many (not all) young people. If the Brand/Ross phone-call is deemed acceptable, then we may as well all go around pushing custard pies into the faces of old people ‘for a laugh’ because it’s funny innit and anyone who says it’s not is a killjoy…
I spend quite a bit of time mooching around bookshops – I can always find something to engage my interest even if I have no intention of actually buying anything.
One of my favourite sections is where the shop’s staff have reviewed books and posted their recommendations onto the book jackets. It’s a great idea that adds a personal, local touch to the huge corporate chains that have now taken over the High Street, and it also provides an alternative way of discovering a hidden gem. That is – so long as the reviews are genuine…
I am a big fan of Armistead Maupin’s ‘Tales of the City’ series, and had completely missed the release last year of ‘Michael Tolliver Lives’ – the latest instalment in the life of ‘Mouse’, the well-loved character at the centre of the San Francisco-set ‘Tales’ series.
Helpfully, ‘Jon’ from the branch of Borders in Birmingham’s Bullring shopping centre, has recommended this particular book with a brief paragraph attached to the front of the book. It’s quite interesting, so I took a snap of it:
The suspicious review in Borders
As you can see, there has been a slight error in the review, as the author is credited as being Alexei Sayle, the well-known comedian and writer who was part of the ‘alternative’ comedy scene back in the 1980s.
Of course, such errors are easily made – except that the error is carried over into the text of the review, which removes all possibility of it being a transcribing error. The book is in no way “full of that Young Ones sense of humour” (a clear reference to the writing style of Alexei Sayle, as he played multiple characters in the classic 80s sitcom). So what is going on?
Clearly that particular recommendation has not been composed by anyone who has actually read the book – which throws up a number of questions:
Are these reviews really written by local staff or are they a cynical marketing ploy?
How much pressure is put on staff to do these reviews?
Does Jon really exist?
I would really like to know what’s going on here. Until now, I’d assumed that these reviews were evidence of a team of staff passionately commited to the written word, who have embraced the opportunity to differentiate their own store with some personalised comments that the customer may find useful.
The idea that it’s all been thought up by Tim at Head Office, who is tracking the resulting sales figures on an Excel spreadsheet, is simply too much to bear.
So are we being taken for a ride? I think we should be told.
I started driving one month ago after avoiding it for years, so let’s see what lessons I’ve learned after 4 weeks on the road in Birmingham, and how quickly the stereotypical opinions have taken to sink in.
1) Cars only stall on busy junctions.
2) There is a fault with all the indicator lights on taxis.
3) It’s sometimes possible to have no idea what gear you’re actually in, or whether you’re in one at all.
4) Some people actually are patient and kind to new drivers.
5) Some people are not. Most of these seem to drive large white vans.
6) Cyclists should be exterminated.
7) You can successfully get a car through a gap that seems to be half the car’s width.
8 ) Driving at 30mph in built-up areas sometimes seems quite fast.
9) Driving at 30mph in built-up areas when you’ve just been doing 70mph on the motorway feels like a slow-motion replay.
10) Your clutch will tell you when you’re abusing it through both sound and smell.
11) Chris Rea’s biggest hit was inspired by the Wolverhampton ring-road.
12) Driving instructors have some strange ideas about how you should turn the wheel.
13) Signs warning of motorway exits well in advance are invisible to some drivers.
14) Spaghetti Junction is nowhere near as complicated as it should be.
15) The lane markings on roundabouts are just there as a joke.
I don’t often get angry with things on the television, unless perhaps it’s Halifax Howard gurning his way through another pointless advert. This morning, though, I had the misfortune to sit through Adam Boulton’s interview with Angela Knight, the Chief Executive of the British Bankers Association (sorry to swear). I sat open-mouthed like the proverbial St Bernard as she calmly related to Adam Boulton that the heads of Britain’s main banks were in no way to blame for the current crisis.
The line that really did it for me was when Adam Boulton suggested that one or more of them should resign in the wake of the disastrous situation we are now in (with your and my taxes having to bail out these idiots.) Her reply was that she wasn’t looking for resignations because none of them could have seen this coming.
I’m sorry? None of them could see this coming? Well I certainly saw it coming. I’ve been saying for 4-5 years how the huge amount of escalating consumer credit, overvalued housing market and have-it-all-now culture would lead to a massive financial crisis. And I’m not the only one. Work colleagues, family members, people I’ve sat next to on trains, even some particularly intelligent squirrels – we all knew it was coming. So it’s a bit rich – no, sorry, I’ll use a different phrase; it’s utter bullshit to try to tell us now that those at the top had no idea what this would lead to.
If it is true, then all of the Chief Executives of the banks should be forced to work in my local McDonald’s, and the entire team down there at the Chester Road drive-thru should take up positions in the various boardrooms from Monday. I’d feel a lot more reassured, to be honest.
But the title of this post doesn’t refer to the heads of banks, or Angela Knight and her pearl necklace (the expensive kind). It refers to us. The little people. Why ARE we accepting this situation?
I mean, where are the student protests? In the 1960s, students would have held rooftop protests if Jimmy Saville had presented Top of the Pops sans jewellry. Check out this video:
What would motivate students to find their voices now? A 50p levy on ringtones? 20% VAT on beanie hats? Mass burning of copies of Heat magazine?
I stood up for my cause when I was a student. I was part of those ‘angry scenes’ outside parliament in February 1994 when the John Major government once again decided that gay people were second-class citizens. (My partner calls this my ‘activist’ phase – but I was no Peter Tatchell!) I did write letters to MPs, in a futile attempt to change the bigoted minds of crusty old Tories (some of whom are MPs under Cameron’s leadership) that the age of consent itself was not the issue (it could have been 18 for all I cared), it was the notion that the government thought that in some way, teenagers needed additional protection from ‘being turned gay’. We won the argument in the end. But I digress.
I really feel that in the current climate, those who wield power need to be shown how greedy and out of touch they’ve become, and that they can no longer get away with lining their pockets taxpayers money while children are still living poverty and hard-working people lose their livelihoods. Biggest example? The shameless Peter Mandelson and his £1 million Brussels payoff.
Yes, one million pounds.
His smug face on being re-employed for the third time was too much in itself – but knowing that he’ll be filling his boots as a result is just too much to bear. If he has any moral compass whatsoever, then he’ll refuse to accept it. It’s simply obscene.
For too long, people have sat back and accepted everything that the government and private companies have thrown at us. The energy companies’ profiteering. Endless stealth taxes. Huge fatcat bonuses. Because we’ve all been hoodwinked into believing the economy is fine; because for a while now, we’ve all been able to afford that iPod we wanted, or that nice big-screen HD ready TV, or that new car paid for by a nice secured loan on the equity we’ve built up in property – we’ve been happy to let the madness continue.
So I hope my next prediction comes true; as people become more and more exasperated by the greedy, selfish actions of the wealthy; as the revelations continue as to how bad it actually is; as it dawns on students that it’s their futures that have been totally fucked over; as hard-working people realise how much they’ve been shat upon, then many previously mild-mannered, trusting people will start to find their voices, and they’ll start to show – through direct action – just how pissed off they really are.
Keep your head back, and your arms and legs inside the car. We’re all in for one hell of a ride.
Oh dear. It’s the same old story. Shortly after a big relaunch and a live show, it’s suddenly all gone quiet on the podcasting front, and people are left wondering where the hell my next show has got to…
This is the problem when you have a very labour-intensive show and an ever-increasing number of other things demanding time and attention; something has to give.
It’s been a stressful couple of weeks. The most stressful thing by far has been to overcome a fear that I’ve been avoiding for a very long time, which is driving. Learning to drive for me was a horrible, stressful, negative experience, and so when I passed my test the last thing I wanted to carry on doing was to drive. Over the years it’s built up into a quite a phobia, which means the public transport system has been my long-term tormentor.
In the space of a week, however, I’ve gone from a nervous, panic-stricken, anxiety-filled wreck to a confident, competent driver who (and this is the part I can’t believe) enjoys driving on motorways and around the centre of Birmingham. It’s all been a bit of a baptism of fire – (to get to work, I have to drive through Spaghetti Junction) – and totally, totally exhausting. But I’m loving it.
Overcoming a fear (and driving phobias are VERY real – Google them. You really have no idea…) takes a huge amount of energy because you really have to face it full on. You also have to WANT to do it, which is the turning point I reached about 6 months ago. Conquering the fear, even though the driving part only took a week, has actually taken months and months of a gradually changing attitude and new-found confidence. If anyone reading this is suffering from a driving phobia, and would like advice, then please contact me: tinterweb@cleverlittlepod.com I can only tell you what worked for me, but it may well help because the things I did were totally non-driving related, and so it’s not the usual advice you get from friends and relatives.
So, in short then, I have a lot of lost time to make up. Places to go, people to see. I’m off to Cheltenham next weekend, Stamford the week after, Peterborough after that, and not a glimpse of a ticket barrier, cancellation notice or bloody replacement bus anywhere to be seen. I have joined the ranks of the Great British Motorist.
