Russell Brand, Jonathan Woss and Andrew Sachs

[JoolsToo]

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/celebritynews/3263328/Russell-Brand-and-Jonathan-Ross-joke-radio -phone-calls-just-werent-funny.html

Have we not had a discussion about this? I'm surprised.

Seedy, sordid, unfunny little men pad obscene amounts of money to be obscene.

What's your view?

the phone calls

Well said Thomcat:

As far as I can see these were the two complaints made at the time of broadcast:

"There has been a lot of sexual comments on this programme and I think it is totally
inappropriate. It is a load of rubbish."

and

"This programme was just disgraceful. I was annoyed that Russell Brand was
making fun of Jonathan Ross' speech impediment. He also said he'd break into
Andrew Sachs's bedroom and 'go and kiss him all over and masturbate him'."

If I had slept with RB and was seen sneaking out hius flat at 6.30am I could have been papped as 'mystery girl leaves RB's flat' or something. And she's an aspiring model / actress isn't she? She'll be loving the attention I reckon. She slept with a man , who many womnen find very sexy, and who is a celeb...............yeah, and, what??? Who gives a toss? Lucky her. She was an unkown, now she's in the centre of all this and is a household name, but becasue everyone is talking about it still!!!!

Aploogies for the copy and paste - this is from the have your say page

"I actually find it quite offensive if not highly sickening that Mr Sachs could allow his granddaughter to partake in such disgusting acts.

Georgina Baillie not only works in soft porn but also depicts brutal, vicious and evil scenes - like cutting throats of young girls.

Who would let their granddaughter do such things? This is clearly a mental problem that needs immediate attention. To want to act out scenes of bloody murder and cutting throats is seriously worrying me. No one else cares?

"

now that's funny! no?

thomcat I love you, I do but imagine your dad getting a call like that about one of your girls? would you care how many complaints were first received and how many after the press got hold of it? I'd imagine you wouldn't give a sh*t all you'd be bothered about is that your dad was subjected to hearing obscenities about one of your dd's

everything else is irrelevant. two well paid, top celebrities acted appallingly. the age of the girl, what she does, what happens as a result, the age of the recipient of the call, what he does - all irrelevant. if it were her 26 year old partner, brother, friend, whether she consented, it matters not, what they did was awful. no-one should have to receive a message like that. in fact they could be charged under the telecommunications act as any one of us would be in rl.

because people like them, because they are known as outrageous does NOT excuse them.

I didn't know, until today, that Russell had been sacked from MTV for appearing as Osama Bin Laden the day after 911 - says it all really and why the hell did the BBC, using tax payers money, employ someone of that ilk in the first place?

licence payers money I mean

Actually I was thinking similar JT but of how JR would feel if it were his daughters (who I think are teenagers now) who were the subject of this. Not so funny then I suspect.

Just had Radio 4 on. One of their people had contacted Andrew Sachs to ask him a few questions. He wasn't on live but they read out things he had said. From the comments they read out - he actually sounded much more upset that his Grandaughter's lifestyle had become public knowledge, and those photos had been in the press than the phonecalls themselves.

I fear the press have actually made this situation far worse for him. Last week most people didn't know about any of this, except for people listening to the show or podcast. Nobody got their knickers in a twist. It would have gone away. The Daily Mail then took it upon themselves to be outraged on his behalf and now its all over the news. He must be very sorry that the press ever got involved in it.

As for the girl herself, I have no problem with her at all. She actually looks kind of cool. Although I always have a sort of sympatico for a fellow goth! I can do without the pics of her slitting someone's throat though. Don't think The Daily Mail should have run that picture. . .but hey, thats another argument.

I was listening to Radio4 a bit earlier, and they were interviewing another comedian (Andrew Something - not sure what - not Andrew Sachs, though), who said that Andrew Sachs had complained about the call to the BBC BEFORE the segment was broadcast - which makes the decision to go ahead and broadcast it even more strange.

He also made the point that if everything that was said, for example, on Have I Got News for You was broadcast, the show wouldn't have survived past the first broadcast - but it did, because it's edited before broadcast.

Sorry I di dnot know about this thread so have just started another about my utter that the PM is now commenting on this.

Get some perspective people. I just do not understand how this is such a huge issue.

I appreciate their are wider questions about how the BBC uses the license fee but this trivial matter is irrelvant to that wider question.

Its one thing making a comment about somebody on the radio ( in the case of this show, who would hear it anyway?) - its quite another to leave bullying messages on their answering machine. I understand that Andrew Sachs was supposed to appear on this radio programme but exercised his right to have nothing to do with it.

Phone bullying is wrong when its done by an idiotic 14 year old whose biggest ambition in life is to go on Big Brother, and it's wrong when it's done by Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand on a BBC radio station.

"Of course no one has ever had a lugh at the expense of someone else, some celebrity... on here?! No! never!"

To be honest I think some threads are overly abusive, but presumably nobody emails a copy of the thread to the relevant celeb.

well, technically its rb and jr who've made the situ worse ifas didn't want his gd's lifestyle known.

eddie mair was saying yesterday that him an nilsblyth were going to leave abusive messages for mervyn king.

it's getting very dull now

it's more fun than the cedit crunch, though

My Hubby has just walked in shaking his head that this is now being discussed in parliament!

have the controllers who allowed it to air been sacked yet?

oh absolutely sobernow, absolutely. I've gone off billy connolly for the same reason. Although curiosity will make me want to see if an apology appears on Friday night.....

Actually I really hope this opens up a whole debate about what is 'fair game' (repellent phrase, repellent attitude IMO), how we treat people in the media and in real life, and about respect and sexism.
The rubbishing of women and the casual verbal violence of everyday life is an important issue.
I mentioned a recent thread where a mumsnetter whose husband works in a call centre was recently told 'I hope your children die'. In another thread lots of people mentioned how aggressively they are treated on the road. It is endemic.

Well yeah - JR has 6 million pa at stake - RB only has 200k. [cynic]

I also really strongly agree with the way that somne men still appear to think having sex with a woman is somehow doing them down/humiliating them/scoring a victory over them. That's the message I got from the JR/RB transcript.