Endorsements

"It was the most offended I've ever been by a Killer Whale story." Mrs. Trellis of North Wales

"I liked the video bit, that was quite good." J. Stephenson of Tucson, Arizona.

"Nope, never heard of it." Business Secretary, Vince Cable MP


Monday 3 August 2009

The Rupert Everett Show

I'm currently viewing C4's The Scandalous Adventures of Lord Byron or, to give it its proper title, The Rupert Everett Show. It's an interesting watch. Everett clearly understands and has a good knowledge of the subject matter, however he seems content to discuss his friend Robin's promiscuity or visit a VD clinic than get to the real nub of the issues.

Now, I met Rupert Everett last year in a restaurant (he was wearing trackie bottoms there too) in St. Moritz (get me) and, after 2 or 3 Calanda Braus too many, I said a few things that I regret (leave a comment if you want to find out what it was, I'm not prepared to reveal it to everyone). Though on reflection and after viewing his tribute to himsel... Lord Byron, I have a feeling that he may have found some deal of catharsis in my accusations.

There are some interesting points that he makes and all the expositionary detail that you might expect is there, however every time he ruins it with some facetious sex reference or dressing up. Now the show makes no pretenses aobut being anything more than a slightly saucy travelogue fronted by a Hollywood actor, which is just as well really.

I'd be interested to know what Percy Shelley and Ali Pasha would have made of Everett's accusations of them being in love with Byron.

Oh... he's playing bingo now. I have just let out a loud sigh, which I felt I would share with you. Still, I think I'd rather watch this than a David Starkey documentary. Andrew Roberts needs his own history series... and fast.

Sunday 2 August 2009

Sachsgate: The Aftermath

As I continued my battle with insomnia for the umpteenth night in a row, I found myself pondering the Russell Brand and Jonathan Ross debacle of last year. I had been a regular listener of Brand's since the 6 Music days and I enjoyed his irreverant humour, so you can imagine my annoyance when he lost his job over Sachsgate (which I had christened it before the papers even got a whiff of the story ((which was 2 or 3 weeks after the actual event of course))).

Now it seems to me that Brand was unfortunate to lose his job, albeit jumping before he was pushed. Alright, so he did have sex with Andrew Sachs' granddaughter (who also happens to be an erotic dancer), however what two consenting adults get up to in their own time is no business of the millions of listeners who tuned in to Radio 2 that fateful evening, though it would appear that someone neglected to tell Jonathan Ross that. As he made the immortal line of Sachs' answerphone 'he f***ed your granddaughter). Wonderful(!) Charming(!) He's worth every penny of the license fee is that Ross(!) /sarcasm

It was patently Ross' fault. Brand had no intention of leaving a message based on the sexual exploits or otherwise of his granddaughter on Sachs' answerphone and was clearly appalled by Ross' allegation. After only a handful of complaints after the broadcast, it snowballed as the tabloids targeted Brand with a hate-campaign and weeks later Brand and Radio 2 controller Leslie Douglas found themselves in the Dole queue (well, not literally, but you catch my drift).

There are two key facts that most commentators overlooked, however. Number 1, Brand's sung apology (left as another answerphone message) was entirely improvised on the spot and remains one of the most impressive examples of ad-hoc song crafting I have ever had the pleasure of witnessing. Listening to Brand skilfully rhyme 'consentual' with 'menstrual' and 'contrition to the max' with 'Andrew Sachs' was a veritable joy. Number 2 is the person we should all feel sorry for in this. No, not Andrew Sachs, but rather Brand's writer and usual co-host Matt Morgan, who returned from his holiday only to find that he was out of a job because of Jonathan Ross, a misfortune that few of us are ever likely to suffer. Under Morgan's steadying influence Brand provided a podcast soundtrack to my teenage years. Morgan was the only man capable of keeping the hirsuite comedian in check and doing it with a deal of panache and aplomb. Conversing on subjects from Brand's previous drug addiction to taking lessons in Krav Maga, the Israeli army martial art.

Brand's resignation showed a good deal of dignity, but I regret that Morgan was not in a position to do the same. Hell, they should have just given the slot to him and maybe even have brought in previous Brand contributor Trevor Lock.

Anyway that's my two penneth on the subject and only a mere 9 months too late.