Be Excellent To Each Other

This seems to be developing into quite a big story, and I'm naturally predisposed to hate Jonathan Ross, but does anyone know what was actually said? I love a good prank phone call, but I think it's easy to take things too far, especially when dealing with an elderly chap like Andrew Sachs.

Kay?

Brand was on the Radio 1 breakfast show on Wednesday or something last week, and there was a jokey mention of it then, but it clearly hadn't turned into a major shit storm by that point. But it has now - it was discussed on Today for about 15 minutes this morning!

I haven't heard it yet so I won't comment but I do wonder how many of the complainants (of which there are quite a lot apparently) were actually listening to the show live when it happened?

Que?

I'm trying to listen though it but it's pretty much unbearably embarrassing. RB and JR are coming across as a pair of children who've drunk too much Panda Pop, and there's TEN MINUTES of this...

Well it is Radio 2. You have to be drunk or senile to be on air.

Que?

'K.

Woah, he's used the 'Nazi' defence!

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2008/oc ... lty-towers

The worst thing about those calls were that they WEREN'T IN THE LEAST BIT FUNNY, JUST LIKE EVERYTHING BRAND HAS EVER DONE.

That is all.

Except 'Forgetting Sarah Marshall'.

He am a twat.

I can't believe this is still news. I bet his audience figures go up though.

His People that write to the Sun makes me smile.

I quite like Russle Brand's stand up stuff, but he's been a right dick over this. First the least sincere apology ever, and now he's trying to sidestep the whole issue by accusing the Daily Mail of nazism? It's a pretty sad state of affairs when someone doesn't have the strength of personality to just hold their hands up and humbly apologise. I reckon he's digging himself a bit of a hole here.

I wouldn't worry, he'll come up with a final solution to the problem and then it'll all get buried.

You see, what he should have done is call Richard Littlejohn a (very nice chap - Ed) instead of insulting some actor nobody who is only famous for being a comedy prop for John Cleese.

But lets remember, it was a recorded show. Somebody should have said "whoah better not let that go out". In fact word is that it was edited down anyway so someone has shown very poor judgement.

he was very funny in "forgetting sarah marshall" ("it sounded like a gothic Neil Diamond", "i was about to listen to it....but i carried on with my life instead"), but that's all i've seen of him

What?! That's Manuel you're talking about! I thought he was terrific.

Is hamster, is not rat!

I love Fawlty Towers

I can;t stand prank calls, they have been done to death now

I dunno, as tired as a lot of them are, some of them are fried gold:

And must surely be illegal given that it's (supposedly) illegal to record phone calls without the other person's knowledge or consent.

I believe (legal sub please check) that it's not illegal in the UK, but that recordings made without the other parties consent are not admissable in court for any reason.

If you want to use it in a court of law.

Curses. Beaten by the good Doctor.

Bad court thingy!

Fair enough. I am re-edumacated.

I'm reminded of the headline when Ian Blair was done for tapping Prince Charles' phones. "Top Cop in Prince Tap Rap" or something.

Nobody will top Victor Lewis Smith anyway:





And finally:

Oh go on then. Charlie Brooker pranks BMG. Can't remember if I've already posted this:

Prank calls.

Talk to me.

That was funny until it got silly with the 'flaming homosexual' bit.

I couldn't really listen to that Charlie Brooker one. i just felt sorry for the poor guy at BMG. Not so much pranking, as just genuinely being annoying.

The VLS ones on the other hand were great.

That's funny, I thought they were shit.

You can't accuse The Mail of Nazism any more than you can accuse Jenna Jameson of having a vagina, some things are just facts. And in both the abovementioned cases, we've all seen it.

I hate all prank calls and anything of that nature.

As for Brand and Ross, they're just a pair of unfunny pricks.

The BBC has now had more than 10,000 complaints.

I wonder how many of those came in before the transcript was published? To put this in context, this isn't last Saturdays show we are talking about but the show from the Saturday before.

Meanwhile everyone has suddenly found out that Sachs hadn't died years ago.

Hmmmm. If I was cynical I would suggest it was his manager who had alerted the press.

Brand and Ross were out of order but this is now being manipulated.

Quite likely, though for me, it doesn't change much at all. They still did what they did, and why shouldn't he (Sachs) make a fuss about it.

Perhaps Sachs ought to have answered his phone, as they had arranged. Brand has left ludicrous answerphone messages for people on-air before. Also, why isn't anyone from the Mail mentioning the Satanic Sluts?

Quite right. It should never have happened and the producer responsible for letting it go out in the final edit needs shooting.

I'm reminded of when I worked at a BBC local as a lowly freelance Broadcast Assistant. One of my chores was putting together a promo for the next days breakfast show. You had a standard piece of music with an in and out, and you'd select a witty clip to entice people to listen to tomorrows camp shite babbling show. I say "witty", but the reality was "as good as you could get" as most of the show was amusing as being born dead with cancer.

When I wasn't doing the gig (i.e someone else did it) I heard some extrodinarly poor choices of clip. But nothing will top the day when the breakfast producer ordered me to put a clip of a man talking about his dead brother on the promo (the interviewee was the brother of that young England cricketer who died a few years back). I protested saying that this would not entice people to listen and putting it over a jolly music bed would be in poor taste. I was told to "just do it, I'm the producer". Fair enough, I thought. The promo had to start going out in half hour so no time for pissing around.

The promo went out. Station controller bursts into the studio I was in and asks me what the hell was going on. I explained. He then pulls in the show producer, gives him a dressing down and informs him that from now on the only person having a say in the content of the breakfast promo was me.

And I'm afraid the BBC is full of people like that. Feckless clueless individuals who can't relate to jack shit and don't think about the consequences. I also strongly suspect that (from what I hear) Mr B is not easy to work with so he's probably got some spineless yes man acting as show producer.

Keep an eye on this weeks Popbitch newsletter because I suspect there is more to this than meets the eye.

They were idiots, yes, but the whole Daily Mail/Nazi thing needs to be bought up much more often. At least he's putting his twattery to good use.

LTIA

Dear Gordie Broon,

Errrrmmm . . .Don't you have something more important to be getting on with rather than sticking your beak into some bollocks about two clowns being rude to an old man?

I appreciate that I may have simplified this a touch but the Prime-fucking-minister?! For fuck's sake, piss off and do something useful you cunt.

Thank you

According to the Radio 4 program I was listening to earlier, it was just three or four complaints received last week -- and none of them about the Sachs bit.

I totally agree with this. I don't think there's any debate to be had about whether this was in bad taste; I can only see two semi-defences. One, if it had at least been funny, some people would have mixed feelings, probably enough to blunt the edge of the criticism. Two, if it had been ad-libbed (and the apologies sincere), at least they could use that as a defence.

And this, they didn't call him randomly, they called him because an interview had been arranged which he skipped out on.

Presumably if HIGNFY had done the tub of lard thing recently you'd all want it cancelled too.

Yes, they were cunts but approximately 25% as much as those who won't shut the fuck up about it.

Oh no, we wouldn't like to hurt anyones feelings these days would we? Who gives a flying fuck about this piece of none-news...

For the record, I love Brand's podcasts though.

I don't think it was all about just hurting feelings, there was no need to do it, it was not funny.... if you do a comedy show be fucking funny..