Funny Things

Two funny little incidents I've encountered this week.

Driving up the M6 I passed a car, hesitantly heading North, that had a notice in the back window that read:

"I'm Sorry, I'm From Austria."

I couldn't help thinking how fast the two BNP MEPs had got to work.

The second was hearing an Australian journalist commenting on the day of national mourning in Australia, indeed the world, at Gordon Ramsay's Jonafan Woss moment when he referred to a media darling called Tracey Grimshaw as a 'pig'. Can't help thinking 'Tracey Grimshaw' sounds like a barmaid in Coronation Street. But anyway, aforementioned journalist, being very earnest said:

"Referring to her in that way has upset the whole of Australia, even our Prime Minister has voiced his concern. Tracey is one of Australian broadcasting's 'sacred cows'."

Picked the wrong farm animal to liken her to there Gordon.

Jonathan Ross-Again!

Poor old Jonathan Ross is being attacked again, it's perhaps a symptom of the creeping fascism of political correctness. Dare to make a joke about an imaginary gay teenage son and up pop the PC brigade full of (im)moral outrage. Here's one report of the latest fuss concerning 'Wossy':

Jonathan Ross is under fire again after suggesting parents should put their sons up for adoption if they wanted a Hannah Montana MP3 player.

A number of listeners complained to the broadcasting watchdog, claiming the comments on his Radio 2 show on Saturday were homophobic.

Ross, 48, was involved in a light-hearted discussion about prizes in a competition themed around the fictional teen pop star when he joked: "If your son asks for a Hannah Montana MP3 player, you might want to already think about putting him down for adoption before he brings his...erm...partner home."

A spokeswoman for Ofcom was unable to say how many people had complained but said: "We have had complaints. We are assessing those complaints against the broadcasting code."

Listener Karen Mills told Pink News: "How can these people earn such huge sums of public money to come out with this discriminatory rubbish?

"What would be the message to a young gay man listening to this? Worse still, how might such comments reinforce and support homophobic bullying in the playground?"

Ross has not been far from controversy in the past year, only returning to the airwaves in January after being involved in the Andrew Sachs lewd phone calls row.

The BBC suspended him for 12 weeks without pay in October after he and fellow DJ Russell Brand left obscene messages on Sachs' answerphone, which were broadcast on Radio 2. The two presenters said Brand had slept with the Fawlty Towers actor's granddaughter, Georgina Baillie, and joked that Sachs might kill himself.

Ross walked straight back into controversy on his radio show after his suspension was lifted, by joking about having sex with an elderly woman.

A BBC spokeswoman said: "The BBC has received four complaints about Jonathan's comments on Saturday's show. However, these off-the-cuff remarks were made purely in jest and were not intended to be offensive. Jonathan is not homophobic in any sense and never meant for his comments to be taken seriously."

I think the last paragraph says it all really. The miltant gay lobby needs to practice some of the tolerance it ignorantly accuses the rest of the population of lacking.

I don't think many people have a problem with homosexuality these days. What people do tend to have a problem with is anybody, gay or straight, lacking a sense of humour, such as Karen Mills.

They also dislike the constant harping on about their sexuality of militant gays whose lives seem to centre exclusively on their sexuality. A truly rounded person wouldn't whine on constantly about their homosexuality and certainly wouldn't be offended by humorous remarks such as those made by Jonathan Ross.

Forsooth, the ladies do protest too much!

Friday Funday

At the moment the sun's shining, God's in his heaven and all's well with the world. So it's time for a bonus with a bit of Friday fun, starting with Peter Kay:



Then a bit more mellow with This Is How It Feels by Inspiral Carpets live in Glasgow:



Finally here is a tremendous interview with Morrissey, kicking Jonafan Woss and politicians. It was when he was promoting You Are The Quarry about three years ago, it really is worth a butchers:



And if you liked that here is the second part, where he talks about us, his fans. And there's a clip of Harry Hill doing Morrissey on Stars In Their Eyes:

Puritanical Bastards!

It's strange but the older I get the less respect I have for authority and so-called 'standards'. I worry I may be immaturing and heading towards the youthful rebellion I avoided by partying away my youth instead of rebelling. In the current climate I fear that we are just around the corner from having some Cromwell style puritan bossing the country again and spoiling all the fun.

My anger today is directed at the puritanical bastards who have decided to be offended by Jonathan Ross. The type who decided to listen to his comeback radio show on Saturday morning, which I thought was superb, in the hope of being offended thus giving them something to complain about. What is about this current trend, driven by Political Correctness, to find anything and everything offensive to somebody somewhere?

I heard the comments on Saturday and they were, as I remember, quite innocent. His producer/co-presenter mentioned doing work on his property in Spain and that an 80 odd year old local woman still has an eye for young men and is in the habit of coming up to flirt and kiss younger men. Ross responded with something like, "oh go on, give her what she wants, one last night to remember with a young fella". More music hall comedy than vile filth designed to offend.

But no, there has been an outcry led, it seems, by the Sun, that paragon of virtue, good taste and responsible journalism. It seems that they found out the place in Spain where the property is and got the old woman's son to spill the beans on how deeply offended they were. Forgive me but if the son had kept his big gob shut his mother would have remained anonymous. If anybody is guilty of anything he is. Then why did the Sun have to go and do what they did? Because the Sun is a morally bankrupt, unprincipled rag that I wouldn't use in the smallest room in my house if I ran out of Andrex! Don't tell me a little old lady and her son, in the middle of Spain, listen regularly to Radio 2. Perhaps they listen to the Archers omnibus on a Sunday too.

But what really angered me today was listening to the small-minded bigotted morons phoning in to the radio phone-ins spewing forth mock indignation. Typically a thick cockney, probably a taxi driver, coming out with stuff like: "Bang aht of order mate. How would you feel if it was your old mum or nan he was talking abaht? The geezer should be strung up". Nothing quite like missing the point to make the righteously indignant sound like complete dickheads.

It's no wonder paediatricians panic when the mob want to string up a paedopohile.

Jonathan Ross

Great news, Jonafan Woss is back on 23 January. OK he was a prat but I have missed his chat show. But I suppose that's the puritan age in which we live.

Here is the line up for his first show back.

It's All Bollocks Really

What is happening to the world? I was unfortunate enough to pick up a copy of the Daily Mirror today a Preston station and had forgotten, it's that long since I read it, what a load of sanctimonious crap it contains.

It seems the Mirror has started a new puritan campaign to clean up the airwaves and get rid of bad language. Tell you what, if there is bad language on TV or radio either switch off or switch over, easy. The targets for their righteous indignation today were those notorious foul-mouthed miscreants Ant and Dec. Yes, those loveable Geordie cheeky chappies who get the hearts of the nation's grandmothers fluttering whenever they pop up on our screens.

And what torrent of foul and disgusting language had they unleashed on an unsuspecting nation? My, they had used the word bollocks when it was only 20 minutes past the 9-00pm watershed. To compound the felony they had used the word not once, not twice but three times. And it wasn't even gratuitous, a contestant on 'I'm a Celebrity.....' had actually eaten a kangaroo testicle, otherwise known as a bollock.

Strange to think that the Daily Mirror's view is that everything else in the world is so perfect it has a fit of outraged self-righteous indignation and moral outrage at that. All bollocks in my view!

Jon Gaunt And Health And Safety Nazis

I'm no great fan of Jon Gaunt and didn't listen to the show that got him suspended from TalkSport Radio, but on what I have read he has my sympathy on this one.

The PC brigade throw the word "Nazi" at anybody who they disagree with, whether they do show sympathies towards the National Socialist German Workers' Party or not. Why such uproar when one of the PC brigade gets it thrown back at them? Let's face it, the word Nazi means bugger all these days it is so overused by most of us.

I wonder if Gaunt, and last week Clarkson, would have copped so much stick if Brand and Woss hadn't been such plonkers. I fear now that any group who dislike a particular broadcaster will be able to organise themselves, fired up with righteous indignation, to make enough complaints to the authorities that the wimps in charge will suspend or fire said broadcaster.

RIP free speech.

Brand and Ross

The two nitwits, Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand, have eventually been suspended by the BBC. It's a shame in one respect because I've always quite liked Jonathan Ross, especially his radio stuff. Russell Brand however is a different thing altogether. He is just a talentless muppet who deserves suspending, preferably from a lamppost.

What it does show is the utter contempt the BBC have for the taxpayers who fund it. The show wasn't even live, the 'prank' phone calls actually being given the all clear for broadcast by a BBC production team. Without continuing public and media anger the BBC probably would never have taken the belated action they did today.

The whole thing just convinces me all the more that the BBC should be privatised.Commercial considerations, alien to BBC staff, would have been an excellent moderating influence in this case.