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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

To fucking hate Nicholas Witchell?

116 replies

HufflepuffPride · 15/02/2022 19:51

When is this awful man going to remove himself from backsides of people who work at Buckingham Palace? He’s so gushing and fawning and sycophantic, and even his bloody voice gets on my nerves. I dread anything happening with the royals because you just knew he’ll pop up on the news like a rancid fart. Doesn’t he realise that none of them like him?

OP posts:
Sn0tnose · 15/02/2022 20:11

Doesn’t he realise that none of them like him?

I’m pretty sure he’s got an inkling, seeing as Charles announced it to the nation.

IKeptYouLikeAnOath · 15/02/2022 20:14

Do you think he really cares if they like him, or does he need a salary like the rest of us?

You're very het up about someone you've never met and who has no impact at all on your life. I'd wear being disliked by the Royals as a badge of honour, personally.

Hellocatshome · 15/02/2022 20:14

I think the Royal family or Charles at least has told him exactly what they think of him.

campion · 15/02/2022 20:17

@Sn0tnose

Doesn’t he realise that none of them like him?

I’m pretty sure he’s got an inkling, seeing as Charles announced it to the nation.

Grin whenever he comes on Dh or I say "ooh it's that awful man"!
skippy67 · 15/02/2022 20:20

"Ghastly man"🤣

Tiphaine · 15/02/2022 20:23

whenever he comes on Dh or I say "ooh it's that awful man"!

Yep! That happens here too Grin

LetHimHaveIt · 15/02/2022 20:23

Yes, you are.

He was a decent anchor, and not he's stuck doing a job he hates, because 'royal correspondent' is a bullshit job and everyone knows it is.

I'm reminded of Michael Buerk, now reduced to popping up in stately homes and watching woman make posset by squeezing calves' brains through muslin as they did in the court of Queen Anne, or whatever. It's hardly reporting on Ethiopia's famine.

LetHimHaveIt · 15/02/2022 20:23

now

HufflepuffPride · 15/02/2022 20:26

If he was a ‘decent anchor’ surely he’d still be doing it? He was hardly in Trevor McDonald’s league was he?

OP posts:
StillWeRise · 15/02/2022 20:26

I always felt Michael Burke must have been very affected by Ethiopia (and IIRC re reported from apartheid SA also)- if I spent years doing that I'd be quite happy to present the moral maze and whatever history doc you have seen him in

KaptainKaveman · 15/02/2022 20:28

YANBU OP. He's an ingratiating, fawning little toad.

Jovanka · 15/02/2022 20:32

His hands are tied though, innit?

What a shit job. Can you imagine going into journalism and being stuck with royal sycophant, which is all that job can ever be.

MissMinutes24 · 15/02/2022 20:32

IIRC correctly he wasn't so nice to his wife either

HufflepuffPride · 15/02/2022 20:33

@MissMinutes24

IIRC correctly he wasn't so nice to his wife either
Really? Do tell…
OP posts:
united4ever · 15/02/2022 20:36

Must be pretty competitive holding down the BBC anchor role. So there are better people to do that. There is no shame in doing the best job available to you and supporting your family. He is no worse than the tabloid journalists and if he didn't do the job someone else would be doing it.

There is not a lot he can say about a lot of the stories because they are either mundane (new royal baby etc) or too sensitive for the BBC to show some kind of opinion but they will need someone to be that person in the BBC.

BringMeTea · 15/02/2022 20:42

If anyone can be bothered to look it up, in Three fights, two weddings and a Funeral, a Steve Coogan classic, a character is trying not to get aroused in a pub so holds a book in front of his nether region and repeats the mantra 'Nicholas Witchell, Nicholas Witchell, Nicholas Witchell'. It's funny.

StoneofDestiny · 15/02/2022 20:45

There's plenty more fawning female royal correspondents (and sadly even more fawning members of the public)

Jovanka · 15/02/2022 20:47

They are all the same though, all the royal correspondents who pop up on those fucking awful royal tele-biography-talkinghead bollocks on channel 5. They sort of have to be otherwise they would be palace media outcasts and none of the shysters would ever talk to them ever again.

That said though, I reckon you have to be a certain sort of journo in the first place to go for it. Can’t see Huw Edwards in the role.

LetHimHaveIt · 15/02/2022 20:59

@HufflepuffPride

If he was a ‘decent anchor’ surely he’d still be doing it? He was hardly in Trevor McDonald’s league was he?
Fuck me. Trevor McDonald is emphatically not where I'd place the high water mark for broadcasting, frankly.

And Witchell was decent. People at the Beeb get moved around for all sorts of reasons, clearly. I imagine he sticks with RC because he has bills to pay. It's well-documented that a lot of the family don't like him: I doubt he's let that influence his decision to hang in.

Cocolapew · 15/02/2022 21:07

Did he always talk like that? That what annoys me about him now, his super posh voice.

donquixotedelamancha · 15/02/2022 21:21

I've never met the chap and the only person who has, who's opinion I know, is Charles.

Since Charles despises him, I assume Nick is probably a decent bloke.

214 · 15/02/2022 21:28

@BringMeTea

If anyone can be bothered to look it up, in Three fights, two weddings and a Funeral, a Steve Coogan classic, a character is trying not to get aroused in a pub so holds a book in front of his nether region and repeats the mantra 'Nicholas Witchell, Nicholas Witchell, Nicholas Witchell'. It's funny.
Oh thank you for that blast from the past, this particular Coogan classic was much loved in our household!
Luredbyapomegranate · 15/02/2022 21:36

I had no idea he was still alive.. how old is the man?!

BringMeTea · 15/02/2022 21:40

@214
To be fair it might have been a packet of crisps but in my mind it's a copy of The Idiot... I think I need to rewatch it actually. I was minded only the other day when I saw Kenneth Brannagh is murdering another Christie classic to say: I'd rather see Dave Lee Travis play Macbeth...