….. don’t tell me what to feel. I have a mind of my own.
I am not intending to play the Outraged Licence Payer’s card here. I am a huge fan of the BBC. In my opinion it is worth every penny. I would cheerfully pay three years’ licence fee for a single series of Spooks – the finest TV thriller in broadcasting history. The BBC is also responsible for superb period drama, David Attenborough and his amazing wildlife programs, unrivalled 24 hour news and sports coverage, Radio 4, The Apprentice, Strictly Come Dancing – joyous, wholesome family entertainment – and Fawlty Towers.
I wasn’t offended by the Brand/Ross/Sachs ’scandal’. It takes a lot to offend me - I have been offended by experts. I don’t like being told how to ‘feel’ by the media. For instance, I wasn’t ‘overwhelmed by grief’ at the death of the Princess of Wales as certain sections of the press told me I should or must be. I thought it was very sad and I felt sympathy and even a certain amount of empathy for her immediate family. But there was no ‘outpouring of grief’ in my house because I didn’t have any grief to pour out. I didn’t know the woman. Back in 1997 I felt as though the whole world went a bit bonkers for a week and that troubled me. Something of the same has been happening this week.
I have listened to the full notorious ten minutes of this broadcast and I thought it was toe-curlingly puerile and crude. It was like listening to two schoolboys in a phone-box sniggering at their own pathetic ‘joke’. But, no, I wasn’t offended. I have just been profoundly depressed by it. I don’t particularly like Brand or his style of humour. His ‘ooh aren’t I being a naughty boy and ain’t I awful’ schtick grates with me somewhat. And Ross now seems to believe his own publicity and because he is the highest paid entertainer at the BBC thinks he can get away with anything. He is approaching 50 and seems desperate to appear to be ‘edgy’ and ‘down with the cool kids’. With his years of experience, he should know better. He, if not Brand, should realise that with popularity, whether accompanied or not by a huge pay cheque, comes responsibility. It is totally irrelevant that Andrew Sachs is a well-loved actor in his retirement years. It doesn’t matter one jot that his granddaughter is a member of a dodgy dance troupe. What matters is that, quite apart from the illegality, leaving not one but four obscene messages on ANYBODY’S voicemail about members of their family and then broadcasting them to the nation against the wishes of the recipient is not big, it’s not clever and it’s certainly not funny. It shows a breathtaking arrogance. Those who have wondered what all the fuss is about and thought the broadcast was ‘hilarious’ should take a long hard look at themselves and ask why. This is what depresses me – that and the fact that the BBC has been brought into disrepute not just by Brand and Ross but also by the sections of the media who are telling me I should be outraged, offended and demand a refund.
I am old enough to remember when Kenny Everett was sacked by the BBC in the ’70s for saying that the Minister of Transport’s wife must have passed her driving test because she slipped the examiner a fiver. How times have changed. And no, I’m not an old fogey preferring the gentle humour of Dad’s Army and Morecambe and Wise as brilliant as those shows were. I have moved with the times. Autres temps, autres moeurs. I love standup comedy. The incisively intelligent and surreal ramblings of Eddie Izzard leave me laughing so hard my stomach hurts.
Brand has done the right thing by resigning. But I guess by having a multi-million dollar film contract waiting for him in LA, it wasn’t too much of a sacrifice. It is a great shame the ‘apology’ came when he was backed into a corner and not immediately – or at least before he was doorstepped by the press and came out of his house grinning and inanely repeating ‘Hari Krishna’ on Diwali Day.
Ross should do the same. But then he has more to lose hasn’t he? An £18 million contract. Shame on him. Shame on anybody who thought this was a fuss about nothing. We are better than this. So is the BBC.
