October 29, 2008

Putting aside for a moment that I have always found "pre-Raphaelite" (Copyright: All newspapers) Russell Brand about as funny as a kid with cancer, shouldn't we put this "outcry" over a barely-heard broadcast of a message left on a mobile phone answering machine (because who ever actually listens to those in full? Personally - never) into perspective?

The downy-haired 78-year-old grandfather with the slightly crinkly face and basset hound eyes who is one of the victims of this "unpalatable prank" (Copyright: Same newspapers), nonetheless made his name, money and reputation by what was funny at the time, but would be considered at the very best racist in these delicate times of political correctness - that being his "comedy performance"*** of a thick, useless, out-of-his-depth Spanish twat too talentless even to carry a tray correctly, the very real legacy of which is that waiters the length and breadth of the Iberian peninsula still to this very day are hailed with "Manuel! Cunt! More sangria, over 'ere!" by hordes of drunken Brits on the last days of a Ryanair package, or who live on the Costas on the run from the British police.

The other victim, Sachs' butter-wouldn't-melt granddaughter and would-be "glamour" model, the wide-eyed damsel of a front-woman for the group Satanic Sluts, Georgina Baillie, believes Brand and his "co-conspirator" Jonathon Ross are "beyond contempt" (Copyright: The Sun, who've have 'bought her up', to use Fleet Street parlance).

Some never-before-heard-of Tory MP, Jeremy Hunt, has been gravely making not-so-subtle hints to the BBC (that the Conservatives hate so much for nakedly backing Blair and Co all those years ago), that this "outrage" "might" have bearings on the amount of money the BBC should expect to receive from the suddenly-important-taxpayers via future (ie - when they're in charge of it) licence fee revenue.

Now, newspapers - all of them - have had a tough time of late. The biggest story has of course been the impossible-to-understand credit crunch. But other than saying "bankers are wankers", not one of them has been able to adequately explain 1) how none of their experts saw this coming, 2) how it happened, 3) what it really means (other than we're fucked), and 4) where it will actually take us.

So two loose-lipped comedy presenters making admittedly tasteless remarks about the granddaughter of someone who has overnight become a National Treasure, as against the one-role-in-a-lifetime-he's-remembered-for-when-it's-screened- (with royalities paid, natch) -on-BBC2-every-two-years-or-sold-on-DVD-to-the-States makes for not just a desperately needed change of pace for the editors, but also something that's fairly easy to explain to the plebs who used, in golden times of yore, to queue at the news-stands.

Think about it: Complicated macroeconomics so complex that even though no one understands a word of what Robert Peston is really talking about, no one knows either when to tell him to shut up because they're frankly not sure if he's finished explaining it yet; versus the tits-out gobby glamour girl grand-daughter of Manuel finally getting onto the front pages she's been aiming for?

Money might make the world go round (or at least it used to), but nothing sells papers like a pair of tits, and whether that pair is the contents of Georgina's too-small corset top, or the duo of Russell Brand and Jonathon Ross, is a moot point, really.

Suspending them (on full pay, so an unexpected week off work then, boys) means sod all. Who cares? The BBC says it pays JR six million a year to stop him defecting to ITV. Do you think he's arsed if one station drops him, knowing the money awaits him elsewhere anyway (Channel 4, anyone?)?

It's a storm in a Satanic Slut's D-Cup, and when the Fawlty Towers DVDs start flying off the shelves again, no one will be more pleased than the BBC and Andrew Sachs.

Funny that. But not in a controversial way, obviously.

*** See also: Jim Davidson's "Chalkie".